what's the lowest level allowed on your freestyle sessions?

[VAsk8r]

Well...tonight I was at a public, but it hit home for me why having kids around who don't know basic skating safety is dangerous. A lot of our Basic Skills kids stayed for public because they'd just had a practice, and they were excited, working on lunges and backward shoot-the-ducks a lot.

I was in the coned-off center section and went into a scratch spin and became aware of something very close to me, so I stopped as fast as I could. A little girl was doing some kind of lunge and I swear ran her hand right under my free blade. I'm sure it wasn't quite as close as I perceived it to be, but I honestly thought I had cut her until I saw her smiling up at me. My heart was pounding and I tried to gasp out some sort of explanation about why she had to be careful around spinners, but I don't think I made any sense at all.

Close call...

[davincisop]

Our freestyle sessions require Basic 4 and above. But I only really see higher level skaters (Freestyle 1 and up) on freestyle ice. Though there's a few in the "freestyle" class that would need a major talking to if they skated on freestyle ice like they do public ice. Some of our kids in LTS get a superiority complex when they pass basic 8. I asked one girl during a LTS practice session what level she was on since she was trying to do what LOOKED like backwards spirals near the toddlers I was teaching and she said "Uh, I'm freestyle 1" in a snotty little voice (she's about 11). I told her she can practice that stuff at the other end of the ice because she almost ran into several toddlers and they don't know enough yet to get out of the way. Then on a public session she was skating the opposite way with headphones in and I had to tell her to go the other way and she rolled her eyes at me and kept going.... She's not the only one that acts like that unfortunately.  ::sad

That's not to say though that there aren't "higher level" younger kids that should be on the freestyle either.... I've had to deviate a program while my music was on because they were doing program run throughs without music and for some reason thought they could jump right where I was coming around for a spiral. They just aren't taught etiquette.


But for the most part I am on pretty empty morning sessions so I don't have to deal with those girls, but when I do it's frustrating.

[treesprite]

I don't go to FS sessions at the rink where I currently skate, but I know the sessions are restricted to skaters who have already started working on jumps and spins.  I went to FS sessions where I skated as a kid, and that rink also restricted to that level of skating.

[turnip]

No lower limit! We don't have enough patch time (practice ice), to split it into high or low levels either. The after school and weekend morning sessions tend to have more lower level skaters though. I skate in the mornings, so most people are about my level or higher (MUCH higher in some cases!). Skating on the same sessions means I get to know who skates to what music, and even know the basic pattern of some of their programs so I know when to race for the boards and when it's ok to carry on what i'm doing.

Having said that, last week I was doing my program in my lesson, to music, and two of the coaches continually got in my way, and did nothing to move their skaters out of my way. Later on, doing landing positions in my field moves, I came within inches of kicking one of them, because she has ZERO awareness of anyone else, and after having to dodge her during my program, I wasn't gonna stop what I was doing for her.