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Please do not call freestyle elements "tricks".
My DD's coach complained the same thing about my DD. He said her spins and jumps are way better than her skating skill. He spends a lot of time to improve her basic skills though. He makes her practice everyday for 30 minutes on basic only.
Sorry, didn't mean to offend. One of my daughter's former coaches, a former Olympian, used to use that term, so I didn't think it was derogatory. The point remains the same, though - he used to say that in order to do the "big tricks", you had to have the skating skills to back them up.
He spends a lot of time to improve her basic skills though. He makes her practice everyday for 30 minutes on basic only.
How do we define basic skating skills anyways? Do they include moves in the field, gliding maneuvers, or advanced turns by any chance?
Seems odd to include advanced turns in "basic" skating skills. But I think being able to do advanced turns relies on having strong basics.
In this context, I define the word "basic" as meaning "fundamental" rather than low-level. So I agree with those who say those skills include stroking, crossovers, edging, and turns. It's pretty much all the stuff tested in Moves in the Field.
Coach has pointed out my basic skills are not on par with tricks, which was surprising because I thought both are bad, but if I have to pick one, jumps are worse than basics. Later turns out he specifically referred to my posture and free leg position during turns and moves.
After giving it more thoughts, I now interpret my Coach's statement as "basics not living up to the LEVEL where the FS elements belong".
There seem to be lots of skaters around here who can do higher level jumps and spins but have terrible basics. They dont have great turns though.However, when you start picking apart their tricks, you see those too have holes in them.I just find it embarassing for someone with 3 doubles to be toe picking their way around the rink when doing laps.
I was told that MIF was created because once figures went away programs became skate-skate-jump-skate-skate-jump. MIF was introduced to bring back flow, carriage, and edges. You see this lack of fundamental skating skills to a degree in some men's programs; the focus in so much on the jumps that the actual program is little more than some arm waving, butt shaking, 3 turn and a jump, over and over again. booorinnng