Not me.
That's because you don't just read what comes from the USFSA and ISU! It sounds like you must have read, taken and memorized virtually all the expensive PSA publications and seminars. Not a route most skaters can follow.
From less comprehensively educated coaches, even ones who have done very well in National and International competitions, I have been taught very disparate standards. Most coaches don't follow your route.
It seems to me that USFSA skaters who wish to compete internationally are expected to learn at least 5 different and often contradictory standards:
1. They have to pass USFSA moves tests.
2. They have to pass USFSA compulsary tests for their discipline.
3. They have to pass USFSA program tests for their discipline.
4. They have to compete in USFSA competitions.
5. They have to compete in ISU competitions.
I'm not certain how different the standards of 4 and 5 are - but any rule or standard the U.S. adds creates extra work and/or constraints and on the skater, which non-US skaters don't have to deal with or waste time on.
As an example, USFSA moves and compulsary tests in general impose severe constraints on the way you move, which basically make moving very awkwards and clumsy. Based on the performances that win televised competitions, especially freestyle, a competitor who obeys those constraints would compete poorly.
I understand there are useful roles to "isolation exercises": if you can learn to use only certain joints and muscles, you gain better control over those joints and muscles, as well as the muscles that stabilize other joints, you possibly restructure the joints and muscles in ways that make motion more fluid, and you may strengthen muscles and other body parts that otherwise get short shrift. Anything that increases your awareness of body parts and how they affect motion is good. Perhpas if you can make such a constrained motion look graceful, it somehow makes it easier to flow smoothly through the intended motions.
But forcing the skater to pass tests on such ultimately incorrect way of moving is pointless, confusing, and counterproductive.
If the USFSA actually were to optimally fulfill its stated charter purpose of of helping U.S. athletes to do well in ISU international competitions, it would discard all of its rules and standards, and replace them with one: The USFSA accepts all the rules and standards of the ISU. Perhaps no unnecessary tests at all, only competitions. It would discard its current educational program and replace it with one whose sole purpose was to teach people those rules and standards, in ways that were as easy to understand as possible, and how to skate to them.
That requires that everything relevant be available to everyone. Of course not everyone learns the same way, and some of the materials will be more useful to some than others - e.g., your average 5 year old would have trouble reading and comprehending the ISU rules and standards - but that is true of everything. It just means that you also need monkey-see-monkey-do style instruction too. But that shouldn't eliminate the ability of everyone, including skaters, to see clear written standards, and videos to study, to the extant specific standards are possible in an artistic sport. Many of us learn some things best that way.
Anything else just handicaps U.S. skaters in ways that other skaters might not be handicapped.
An ex-Soviet era Russian skater and coach told me that the only things they had had to learn, and the only standards they had to fulfill, were those of international competitions. E.g., she claimed they had no equivalent to our low level ice dances. She may have been oversimplifying, but the idea seems right. The best Soviet eras Russian skaters did extremely well, so that program worked extremely well.
(But her description of the Soviet programs sounds too ruthless by American standards - if you didn't pass within the top 10% of each class, your skating career was quite simply over. If she was accurate, there was no room for late bloomers or kids with temporary behavior issues. She said U.S. skaters in her classes were too lazy because they didn't have to meet the same selection criteria, and felt they should. The Soviet program produced an elite crop of superb international competitors, but it can't have been much fun for everyone else. I don't think we should copy that aspect of the Soviet system.)
You can argue that ISU competitions start at too high a level for beginning skaters. Very well. Limit the moves and requirements of each competitive level. Where you need to learn easier moves first in order to reach the more difficult moves, like entry level jumps, do so. But otherwise adding rules and requirements only adds constraints and extra things to learn.
There is nothing wrong and quite a bit right with the USFSA getting involved with separate disciplines, e.g., school figures, social dance, theatric shows, that have no current equivalent in the ISU - as long as no one has to test or compete in those disciplines in order to be involved in those that the ISU does compete.
In summary, I think the USFSA should redesign its program to be more fun for the lower level skaters, most of whom never advance to high levels. Yes, creating a fun program for recreational skaters lies outside the charter purpose of the USFSA, but it ultimately helps their competitive goal, and their economic base, if more people skate because it is fun for everyone. Anything that creates confusion and uncertainty about skating standards makes things less fun. Anything that makes it easy to see and understand those standards makes it more fun. Publishing clear rules and standards for everyone helps.
Topic: WTB: USFSA Basic Skills DVD, Instructor's Manual (Read 6048 times)