April 2004
Saturday April 3, 2004
Thinking About It
Today I officially concluded my first “term” as a group skating instructor. No, I did not pass all of my students. I made decisions conscientiously and talked to each individual who needed to repeat the course. I explained that I would rather she be the best in her class than struggle with a higher level. I was particularly mindful of this for students at the penultimate stage. These pupils would be passing to the last class in the program. Those that I retained were unable to perform fundamental skills. If a skater cannot execute competent backward swizzles and glide backward on one foot, the skater is not likely to succeed in a class where the waltz jump is included in the curriculum. The skater is not ready for three-turns or crossovers. I did not demand a perfect spiral, but expected a decent upright arabesque. I only passed two students in a group of six. Only the two that passed should have been in the class in the first place. The previous instructors should never have allowed these kids to advance. While each student benefited from my class, I was not able to teach to the standard the class should have been taught because my students simply were not adequately prepared. However, I offered additional challenges to those who could absorb them.
A classroom teacher by training, I also began to learn the specifics for teaching ice skating through this experience. As I continue with this profession, I will expand my repertoire of techniques and become a better group instructor. Probably the most satisfying part of teaching children to skate is seeing the eager expressions on their faces. These kids want to be on the ice. They want to learn and are enthusiastic about the sport. While every academic teacher has several motivated students, many are apathetic. While it must exist, I personally have not witnessed ice skating apathy from my students.
Of course, I have reached the inevitable conclusion: I would like to coach as a full-time occupation. I could earn a decent living teaching twenty to twenty-five hours of group and/or private lessons per week. The hourly rate of pay for skating instructors is fairly high, and I earn about half the amount the skating director charges for her services. Certainly, her credentials far exceed mine, which are virtually nonexistent except for whatever proficiency can be easily witnessed when I practice. After the lesson period concluded today, I asked Donna about the schedule for the coming fall. She plans to offer more classes and extended hours, but only about five hours of group instruction would be available. I would have to recruit private students and find another place to teach group classes on different days. I am thinking about it.
April 10-17, 2004
My Week in Paradise
I needed to get away from everything: my job, coaching, my own skating (both ice and roller), and the latest monkey wrench to foul the works, selling our little house. By the time we left for Mexico, I was a nervous wreck. I am trying to juggle too many responsibilities and failing miserably. On the surface, I am the picture of composure and professionalism. I reap compliments at almost every session when I teach a skating class. However, beneath that calm exterior dwells an exhausted, burned out individual who is struggling with a career change and the echo of a missed calling. I needed a change of scenery and a complete escape.
So off we flew to Puerto Vallarta, legendary Mexican Riviera port of The Love Boat. I enjoy vacations and my life is dotted with memories of many good ones, but few that I have needed more than those my husband and I took during the last year, since his bypass surgery. This has been a dynamic time when change is the norm rather than an exception. Because it has been commonplace lately does not imply that I have dealt with the challenge any better than I might have under ordinary circumstances. Living each day to the fullest after you’ve had a brush with mortality can be very emotionally and physically tiring. I have taken on too much in my quest for fulfillment. Teaching group skating lessons, my most recent conquest, has opened a Pandora’s Box of emotions: a sense of loss, frustration, and confusion. I feel like an imposter when I receive announcements in the mail from the professional coaching organization I joined to secure liability insurance. I get the same invitations to seminars that “real coaches” get. I study the fliers for a moment before discarding them in the recycling bin.
Far from ice rinks (the nearest is in Mexico City, someone told me), I set about relaxing on the beach. In fact, I did little else on this trip. I swam a little, attended a couple of aerobics classes, walked, read a good book, and ate too much guacamole. My husband got Montezuma’s revenge, and I broke out in a rash presumably from a lotion that was applied to my arms during a manicure. Add a sunburn to that rash, and I was uncomfortable enough to miss a couple of exercise classes. We stayed at a resort with an on-site zoo where Bengal tigers are bred and injured wildlife is rehabilitated. As an animal lover (and a cat-lover, in particular), I spent hours watching the tigers play in their cage habitat. My husband and I were fortunate voyeurs to the intimate activities of a pair of lions. We saw them mate and watched them call out a symphony of roars.
I had a wonderful time and did not think of skating at all, except for an occasional mention in passing. Even in April, the Puerto Vallarta weather was too hot to imagine ice skating. Had I been a die-hard, I might have packed a pair of outdoor roller skates and toured the resort area on them, but I never felt that urge. I needed exactly what I got: a week far from home and completely removed from my routine. I will be ready to take the ice in the coming week both as a participant and an instructor.
Visit Paradise Village in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico, where I enjoyed a lovely vacation
Week of April 18, 2004
The Advanced Class
During my first week home from vacation, I had something to do every day after work, including two evenings of work-related commitments. I also had a job interview, a doctor’s appointment, and my usual afternoon teaching skating lessons. On Saturday, the last thing I wanted was another responsibility. Yet, I went to the rink in time to enjoy a freestyle session of personal practice. An adult skating friend taught me a pretty gliding movement, a forward outside pivot. This move does not really look like a pivot, because the toe pick grazes the ice as the skater glides in a wide arc posing gracefully. If the skater tightens her curve, she may plant the toe and pivot around it like a compass. However, the beauty of this movement is the position and the long flowing glide. I will work on it until it looks as pretty as the other adult skater’s example. In return, I showed her how to do a backward change edge spiral.
I picked up my lesson clipboard curious about the classes the director assigned to me for this term, which began last Saturday while I was still in Mexico. A substitute took my new set of classes for the first meeting. This week, I introduced myself to my students. I was thrilled to find that I had been given the advanced class, the last step in the series before students graduate to private lessons. The curriculum includes a bunny hop, waltz jump, three turns, forward edges, and crossovers. I only have two kids in my group, so it is almost like giving a private lesson. Donna is considering adding a beginning freestyle class to the roster in the future, and I would like to teach it.
How I enjoyed teaching that “advanced” class! My students are not brilliant, but are properly placed in the level. Each movement is an appropriate challenge for them. I worked on cleaning traces of toe pushing from their forward strokes, though they claim their previous teacher told them to do it that way. I find that hard to believe unless various instructors describe the same technique differently or the children interpret directions incorrectly. I showed them how to work their edges into the ice first on a slalom course then with stroking. I wanted to hear their edges grinding. I told them this technique would make them fly. A proper stroke comes from the blade with the pick leaving the ice last. A slight flicking sound may be heard as the blade clears the ice. This indicates that the athlete has pushed with the blade and the base toe pick may touch ever so slightly as the leg rises into extension. This may be what my students have interpreted as toe pushing, though absolutely no force comes from the toe itself.
We practiced two-footed three turns on arcs drawn on the ice. My kids automatically did two-footed brackets. I was amazed by their natural tendency toward a more difficult skill. Finally, I encouraged them to try the one-foot forward outside three turn, and promised to bring them a cake next week if either of them actually completed a one-foot bracket. Neither performed the incredible bracket stunt, but one girl managed to accidentally complete an inside three-turn. I teased my students about being too good for the class, and we should just skip all of these silly moves and work on axels. They fortunately did not know what an axel was but were happy to try bunny hops. I am training them to perform bunny hops on both legs. Next week we will do alternating bunny hops across the rink. I also plan to teach them waltz jumps and basic spins in both directions.
I absolutely love teaching group lessons. However, I am not sure I would enjoy delving into the gritty world of competitive skating (assuming I possessed the qualifications). I presently do not fight for students, travel to events, or deal with overzealous parents. Although I earn a decent sum of money for my services as a skating teacher, I avoid all of the disadvantages of the profession. Is it possible to find enough hours teaching group classes to quit my proverbial day job?
Week of April 25, 2004
Skating for Myself
I called in sick to work this week for a doctor’s appointment. Fortunately, I could schedule the appointment to allow for quality daytime skating. I enjoyed over two hours of wondrous freedom on the ice, twirling and gliding with complete joy. I felt no pressure to improve or try anything beyond my reach, but happily practiced moves in the field, dances, and freestyle skills. I spent a large chunk of the session on moves concentrating on patterns that have received little or no attention lately due to lack of productive ice time. I am surprised at how my backward power three-turns have improved in the utter absence of practice. They have become quite decent in my wrong direction. My eight-step mohawk is not particularly bad either. Most astoundingly, intermittent puttering has resulted in significant enhancement of my foremost nemesis, the backward inside three-turns.
My best skills will always be my spins. Probably my absolute best spin is the backward camel. My layback is very good too, especially if you ignore slightly lopsided shoulders, a condition I constantly strive to correct. I completed a flying camel into an inverted back camel that rotated unimpeded for enough turns to pass a senior test. I love this bizarre position, partially because I am amazed that I can do it. For a long time, I have intended to work on the inverted “V” spin popularized by Canadian skater, Emmanuel Sandhu. Unfortunately, I have not had time to devote to it, but should try to find a few minutes during each session to play around with a truly weird skill I might be able to master.
Lately, I have been tempted by a very strange urge, one I never thought I would experience again. I want to do a double. The feeling struck a couple of times in past months, never for more than a moment, long enough to dismissively think “that’s crazy” and ignore the urge into oblivion. However, on my sick day I felt the need so strongly to do a double salchow that I had to fight off the desire with an internal debate over the idiocy of such a plot. The craving returned later in the week, before teaching my Saturday classes. I almost found a spot and went for it. I even fantasized about doing a salchow-double loop combination (a training exercise I toyed with a couple of years ago). Again, I quenched the impulse with logic and unwillingness to display a total wipeout in front of students waiting to start their lessons.
It seems inevitable that I will yield to this compulsion in the foreseeable future. Stupidity eventually triumphs over wisdom.
 |
 |
 |
The content of this site is copyright by K. J. N., 1999 - 2004