WTB: USFSA Basic Skills DVD, Instructor's Manual

[Query]

Wanted to buy:

•  USFSA Basic Skills DVD
•  USFSA Basic Skills Instructor's Manual (recent year)

[jjane45]

Did you try posting it on MySkatingMall.com?

[Query]

>Did you try MySkatingMall.com?

I haven't tried using that service yet.

Have you used them successfully?

[jjane45]

Buying a listed product, yes.

Selling, not much success.

[Query]

I read the "Privacy Policy" for myskatingmall. It's a little hard to figure out, but I think they can sell or use your info, e.g., name, address, phone number,  email address, how to charge to your Paypal account, credit card #, to anyone, for any purpose. They talk about ways they will disclose information, but they don't restrict disclosure to those things.

[Query]

I finally found the DVD, at www.nbcuniversalstore.com

Yeah!

I hope that is the most recent version. It is the only consumer market source I could find.

---

In contrast to the USFSA, the ISI sells their
 

The ISI Handbook
  Test Standards DVD

to any ISI member.

The ISI manual is pretty good, though some descriptions are incomplete or incomprehensible. E.g., there are no Dance diagrams or descriptions of Dance moves - I guess you can start with the USFSA Test Manual.

The ISI DVD is very useful in figuring out the ambiguities of the manual, but typical video sequences are skated at a marginally passing level (as appropriate to a "Test Standards DVD"). The DVD covers most of the ISI alpha - delta and FS1 - FS10 moves (about 200), not moves and formations in other ISI tests like Tot, Open Freestyle, Figure, Couple, Pairs, Ice Dancing, Free Dance, Synchro, speed, or hockey.

The ISI DVD starts with the comment that it may only be used by ISI Professional and Administrative personnel. So look but don't "use".

[FigureSpins]

I posted that months ago.  Instructor products are really intended for professional instructors, not DIY skaters.
You have to have the foundation knowledge of how to do the element in order to use the teaching tips. 

Did you think that the ISI and USFSA were withholding secrets? 
They just didn't want to deal with returns from disappointed customers outside the target audience of instructors.

Just to save you a little money, the PSA's Moves in the Field videos are also not tutorials for skating.

[Query]

Did you think that the ISI and USFSA were withholding secrets?  

Not the ISI. Almost everything they produce is pretty clear, and anything unclear in their handbook is clarified on the Test Standards DVD. The ISI has gone out of its way to make it easy to learn.

It sure looks like the USFSA and ISU practice information hiding. I think a real sport should have as clearly written rules and standards as possible, available to everyone, and they should be stable.

But the USFSA Basic Skills DVD, so far, seems to be pretty clear.

But I'm glad I bought everything I have, with the exception of a pair of DVDs I won't mention here, which are filled with errors even I can find.

As I noted in another thread, even some coaches are confused by the descriptions in the USFSA BS Instructor's Manual: http://skatingforums.com/index.php/topic,425.msg10376.html#msg10376


Do you know anything about these ISU publications?

• Elements of Basic Skating Video (the fundamentals of Figure Skating by analyzing basic skating techniques); DVD http://www.isu.org/vsite/vcontent/page/custom/0,8510,4844-128617-129925-35253-165849-custom-item,00.html  item FS8


• "ISU Figure Skating Elements" 5 CDs http://skatetape.com/isufigureskatingelements-5cd-romset.aspx

Oddly, the latter is listed as unavailable at http://ww2.isu.org/publications/publications.html

[Isk8NYC]

Not me.

[Query]

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.

[Kat]

I don't understand the side toe hop. The explanation in the USFSA BS Instructor's manual is completely incomprehensible, unless that explanation has changed. It sounds like you just leap from one foot to the other repeatedly, with no rotation, with the first jump is from both toes. Yet elsewhere it is listed as a half rotation jump.

Oh well, maybe the USFSA Basic Skills DVD will clarify everything.

And this is precisely why i hate that the USFS videos of the different moves just show the "average" tester, rather than showing exactly what we're striving for/the moves done right (sometimes the videos even have the disclaimer "may not be done to passing standard"!!!)  Well, how on earth am I to know what it's SUPPOSED to look like and what I'm SUPPOSED to be trying to do if I'm trying to imitate someone who may not even be doing it well enough to PASS THE TEST??  I mean, if they want to show these average people, then fine, but have that IN ADDITION TO a video that shows us how to do it right.  If I wanted to see average-to-poor execution of these moves, I'd just watch my reflection in the glass/watch my fellow students.  I watch an instructional/demonstrational video to see what's actually going on with the move.  What if my coach didn't bother to show me how to do stuff right because "well, you're never going to do it perfectly anyway"

[FigureSpins]

You "hate" them?  I remember when demos videos first came out using higher-level skaters to show the above-passing standard.  People complained that it was an unfair standard with the bar set too high.  Others searched for every error they could find/hear about and continue to pillory the videos to this day, without checking to see if they were changed.  Why people can't appreciate the effort and make the most of it, I don't know. 

I guess you can't use them if you hate them so much.  You'll have to go to every test session and watch to see who passes and who doesn't, so you'll know the true passing standard. 

To me, it's a convenient way to see what the pattern looks like on the ice, listen to the commentary/read the notes that emphasize the focus and common errors, and appreciate the people who volunteered their time to film/demonstrate/post the videos.  Having it available on demand is great.

[Query]

I'm thankful for what is available. AFAIK,  everything along these lines that the USFSA, ISI or ISU publishes is useful, else I wouldn't seek it.

Virtually any source of information that we encounter is imperfect.

I am happiest when information, imperfect or not, is not restricted.

So again - anyone want to sell me a late edition USFSA Basic Skills Instructor's Handbook?