Training Centers

[FigureSpins]

I just read an article about figure skaters moving to Colorado in order to train more effectively for the sport.  It wasn't just about changing coaches, but also about training with higher-level skaters, having more ice and facilities available, etc.

It piqued my curiosity: I wonder if a training center is more cost-effective once you include the relocation and travel costs?  Is it less expensive to skate there than at a local arena?

Could there also be benefits to staying local and getting support for training and coaching, to help spread the high-level skaters out and develop more local talent?

Food for thought - what's your opinion?

[drskater]

Hmmmmm, what exactly is a figure skating training center? Is it a facility with, for example, gyms, dance studios, etc on site? Or do you  mean something more in terms of organization like a college?

[Skittl1321]

Do skaters in Colorado get any of the benefits of the Olympic Training Center? (Dorms, food plans, physical therapy, etc?)


That said- the training may not be less expensive, but if you can only get an hour of ice at home each day- then a training center might be necessary. That just won't cut it to make an elite skater.

[FigureSpins]

I don't know what the benefits are; Colorado was just named as a training center for figure skating, but it's been a magnet for figure skaters for ages.  It made me wonder, so I asked.

I could definitely see ice time as a benefit if all the local rinks are single-sheet facilities.  It is easier to treat it like a job and go someplace to train off-ice and skate all day without having to go elsewhere. 

Our skaters cobble together a mish-mosh of dance at one place, off-ice at another, while fighting for ice time against hockey since we only have one sheet of ice.  In NJ (for example), that's not the case: there are rinks with up to 4 sheets of ice and they have much more variety of on-ice training.  (High/Low freestyles, moves and dance sessions)  Our fitness center is awesome, but because of the facility's age restrictions, the younger skaters don't get to use it unless they're doing personal training.  We have adult dance/fitness classes in the dance and multi-purpose room, but no ballet or off-ice group lessons are offered for skaters.

It's very strange because our site could be great for figure skating, given the facility.  I think the single sheet of ice is an obstacle. If we had a second sheet, there would be more ice time available, which would increase the figure skating population.

I went to the Ice Cube in Michigan and their facility is awesome.  They have multiple sheets of ice, dance rooms, fitness center and even sport medicine/therapy/massage service in house.  If all of them are run well and work together, it could be a great training facility.  If they're not, it's a disadvantage. 

[Kim to the Max]

A lot of our skaters here in CNY used to go out to Jamestown and now go to Amherst for training. Mainly it's because that's where the Litz team are located and they have trained a lot of really good skaters. I think for us, the biggest obstacle is that Buffalo (Amherst) is about 2.5/3 hours away and it's a long drive for a few hours of ice time. Plus, it's expensive for ice...but if you want the best coaches, that's where you go.

[fsk8r]

My home rink timetable is full to capacity. There's freestyle ice weekday mornings from 5.30am to around 10.30am in vacation time and 11.30am when schools in. That sounds like a lot of ice, but after 9am the retired adults come to skate on freestyle so a high level skater would be unable to train anything more than spins. Jumps are plain dangerous and a senior or junior level skater moves to fast to do footwork. So they're limited to about 3 hours of ice in the early mornings. The rink is in a sports centre so there's access to a gym and some sports classes, but you're going to have to go elsewhere for dance classes.

Ultimately, while there should be sufficient ice time in the mornings, the rink is just plain too busy to be a serious training facility. Anyone trying to take their skating to the next level needs to move to another facility just to have some quieter ice.
One of the dancers moved to France to train and she was telling us on a trip home how she only trained on high level ice. The ice was split into junior or senior skaters (I don't know if there was ice for the mere mortals as she was skating junior at the time) and she was lucky enough to be allowed to skate senior ice. They warmed up together doing edge class before working on their individual skating. As a junior dancer she found training with these higher level skaters (the senior skaters were the French national champions at the time and possibly the 2nd placed couple as well - both ranked high at Worlds) was an inspiring experience as she could see how much better they were than her and that inspired her to work harder. We all noticed the difference when she returned home. She was always the best at the rink, but she'd never have made the improvement in such a short space of time if she hadn't moved away to train.

Ultimately, people move to the training facilities because being a big fish in a small pond doesn't help you develop. You've got to push yourself by going back to being a small fish in a bigger pond. It's the on ice competition when you practice with better skaters which forces you to improve. It's very difficult to be inspired when you're on your own.