I haven't taken lessons for a while, and wish to take some.
The thing is, my last coach was very, very good. I'm hard to teach, and her teaching style meshed well with my learning style. She had very impressive test and competitive credentials. I got used to her dance tracking style too, which varies a lot from coach to coach, and is a major pain to switch.
But time and money matter.
She charged $34/half hour. But with ice time (including warm-up and after-lesson practice, all on freestyle/dance session ice), and commute costs, it comes to $69-$109 / lesson, depending on rink. Traffic is awful to either rink. I can drive one direction in 45-60 minutes, but the other way overlaps rush hour and often takes 5-7 hours. The subway rink commute is more predictable; if I run between trains, I can get there and back in 3 hours. I'm not sure if DC subway security allows ice skates.
My new coach to be is less experienced. I can only guess how she will match my learning style. She charges $26/half hour, on the low side around here. She teaches at the the rink I belong to during [usually] uncrowded daytime public sessions, so I've already paid for the ice, commute cost is $3-$5, and it takes 20-40 minutes each way to get there.
Is it bad to take time and money into account, when the old coach was so good, and most of the difference wasn't her fault?