My figure skating education is going along two tracks at very different speeds. On the one hand are the group lessons, where coach C seems to see potential in me and tries to push me along at breakneck speed. On the other hand are my private lessons with coach J, where we are working towards pre-bronze tests right now, so need to get those basic skills thoroughly good, therefore spending a lot of time slowly going through things in detail.
I'm starting to think if the bullet train ride is not very good for me. Coach C's logic is, I might not have years and years ahead of me to get everything perfect before moving on. One day I'll start working and have less time, or even worse, I might move to somewhere without even an ice rink (please no!). It's not like I'm eight years old anymore. So since she believes I can one day achieve axels and even double jumps, well then we better get on to it. It's all very fun learning new jumps and elements every other week, but I feel like I can't do any of them well.
Today in group lessons, we did a step sequence involving backwards 3-turns and another with brackets. Naturally, I had to be taken aside and taught the brackets first. I can't even do the backwards 3-turns yet! Shouldn't I be very solid with all the normal 3-turns before doing the backwards ones and brackets? Well I'm not yet! I just looked at USFSA requirements and brackets are on the gold MIF test! Really? I'm still preparing for the pre-bronze! I admit that it was pretty interesting and fun, and I did manage a few ugly ones, I just don't know if I should be getting ahead of myself like this.
Moving on to jumps. Coach C taught me the Lutz last week with an entrance of backwards gliding, stepping left foot over right foot on the outside edge, then picking and jumping. I can sometimes do an extremely uncoordinated one with much spinning on the toe-pick. Coach C felt that was good enough and started teaching me the backwards crossover entry. Man it's hard. Then she said that she's giving it three weeks then she's teaching me the axel. Oh wow, I should be excited but I'm more apprehensive. Better work on getting that waltz jump good in three weeks!
So now I have the new elements of backwards 3-turns, brackets and Lutz jumps to practice, on top of all the other "old" elements and in particular the pre-bronze MIFs. If only ice time wasn't so expensive! Then I'd probably just spend all of my free time there. As it is now, I basically only go to a one-hour freestyle session where a half-hour is my private lesson, a two-hour public session where 45 min is the group lesson, and another 2.5 hour public session. Some weeks I throw in another freestyle session. I could really do with a lot more!
Wow, that's a wide range of stuff you're working on! On the upside, you have a lot of different skills to keep you busy, so you don't get bored doing the same thing over and over again. I do think it's important to have solid basics before moving on, but not to such an extreme that people are kept back because that 3-turn isn't perfect, etc.
ReplyDeleteI think one way to look at it is that the advanced stuff will really help polish up the basics. Instead of thinking your basics have to be perfected before moving on, I mean. For instance, I found that learning the salchow really got my LFO3 into shape - without working on the jump I might get away with a scrapy one here or there. But since the 3-turn had to be solid if I was going to manage a jump off the end of it, working on salchow really improved it. Just like toe loop and loop strengthened my RFI3.
Lol I was just writing up a list of things I have to practice, it's so long! Definitely won't be bored.
DeleteI like your positive thinking, and it's every true! Working on the jumps did help my three-turns get better. And now I'm at the stage where unless my three-turns are even more solid, I'm not going to improve my jumps much. Good way to think about it though, thanks!