Practice Makes Progress
Ok everyone, lets talk about practice. And I don’t mean practice as in “My kid practices ice skating once a week in their lesson” because honestly, that’s not really practice. Their weekly lesson time is a period of learning or teaching. Practice on the other hand, as a verb is to “perform (an activity) or exercise (a skill) repeatedly or regularly in order to improve or maintain proficiency”. So what I’m referring to is consistent, dedicated practice, multiple times a week, on a regular basis. I know I have given all my students a copy of my policies with which contains a chart with suggested number of practices/lessons according to level. And sure, I’ve had conversations before or after lessons about adding practice time occasionally. I’d like to take the opportunity now though to dive into this a little deeper.
First, I need to just put this out there – ice skating is NOT easy! It’s wobbly, it’s slippery and it’s cold! When your child is learning to skate, they aren’t simply learning to master skills in this cold, wobbly environment, they are wearing blades, on a boot… ON ICE! As you might imagine, it is quite a bit different than learning to play baseball, soccer, or martial arts where a child is being asked to perform new tasks and skills in cleats, shoes, or on bare feet. The skills needed for these sports are certainly challenging in their own right, so you can only imagine how challenging it might be to learn new skills and elements while wearing knives on your feet on a giant block of ice. Despite all of that, I still believe that figure skating is one of the most amazing sports you can take part in. Even my 7 year old daughter will tell you there’s nothing like the feeling of flying across the ice, and she hasn’t even gotten to the really cool stuff yet!
When kids sign up for baseball or soccer, the schedule is usually a couple practices during the week and a game on the weekend. This gives them 3 separate days of playing baseball – reinforcing technique, strategy, and skills they’ve learned. They don’t usually go more than 3 days without practicing all of this. However, Learn to Skate classes are only offered once a week and when skaters typically start private lessons, they are on the same day as their class leaving one whole week before they are on the ice again! Imagine trying to learn how to play the piano but you only took a lesson once a week and that’s it…there is so much coordination needed to play the piano! Both hands are doing something different, you have to read music, count music and it takes so much concentration! Practicing and practicing is KEY in actually learning to do all of this. The same goes for skating…every muscle is working to stabilize your position and keep your balance, your brain is trying to remember which arm goes in front and which foot crosses over on a crossover, which edge am I on, which edge do I need to step on to, which edge am I pushing off of, now I need to turn from forward to backwards, and oh yeah…more balance! There really is that much going on at once so lets stop and think for a moment, how is all this supposed to stick, skating one day a week, and allow us to pick up where we left off last time? It is very common even that there is some regression since the last time I’ve seen a skater. In my perfect world, a skater would be on the ice 3 times a week – once for their lesson, once for a group class, and once to practice and skate on their own. And we all live in a perfect world, right?
Ha! Now, we all know that’s not the case! Things come up, and schedules change, and kids get sick, and school plays come up, and sometimes, we just flat out don’t feel like going. I can relate so much to that last one! My 7 year old daughter, that can’t even do forward crossovers yet, has recently decided she wants to skate in the morning before school – twice a week! Trust me, there are plenty of nights before and mornings of when I’m asking her, “are you sure you want to go?” and she always says yes, so we go…because I know that practice makes progress. And that’s what I want for her, progress. To be better than she was the day before and to recognize that her hard work pays off! I don’t need my daughter to be perfect and I don’t need my students to be perfect, but I do need us all to make progress – myself included. It can be a daunting task to chase perfection and never reach it, because none of us are perfect. But, to celebrate progress and aim to be better than you were the day before, there will always be improvement without the worry of reaching an unrealistic goal.
So, with all of this in mind, I ask that you take your skater’s progress into consideration and make an effort to commit to a practice day and see how much they benefit from it! Not to mention, private lessons are not inexpensive…if you’re making the choice to invest in them, back them up with a little insurance! Additional practice time can only help them retain the information you’ve just spent money on for them to learn. See… extra practice benefits everyone. Also, in case you didn’t know, LTS classes include free public session on the day of your class AND FIVE ADDITIONAL PASSES to use on any public session during the week. See, the rink is practically begging you to practice! I promise, it will definitely pay off in the long run 😊
Happy skating 😃⛸️
