Are you a thinker or a feeler?

[PinkLaces]

This is question is based on a conversation that I had with my coach this week.  I was telling her all the things that I have to think about when I do a jump or spin before it becomes "automatic."   For example on the lutz, I have to think about setting a nice outside edge, the draw, and "let it rotate" in order to do a it correctly.  If I miss a thought, most times things go wrong.   I am a thinker.

My coach also coaches my DD.  She says DD is a feeler.  She has to get the feeling of something by walking through some drills.  Coach says she can tell when DD isn't feeling it because DD fidgets in a certain way.

So are you a thinker or a feeler?   Maybe you are a combo platter?  How does that affect how you learn things in skating?

[sarahspins]

I am a feeler.. if I think too much, everything just falls apart for me.

Now, that said, I am good at listening to and applying corrections, as long as I can FEEL the difference it makes pretty quickly, but when I get too much in my head it just feels like nothing works.  If what I'm being told to do isn't working for me, my frustration level (with myself, not my coach) just skyrockets, and it's horrible.

I have overcome a couple of very significant mental blocks over the past year.. they had nothing to do with the ability to physically do it, and everything to do with just over-thinking what I wanted to do and not letting it just work - my brain saying "no, don't do it" was just too much to fight.   Those two blocks were with my flip jump and back 3 turns. If I could get through the third completely, I'd be a happy camper and I'd have a consistent lutz again - I can only do it when it "feels" right and I don't have to think to make it happen.

[sampaguita]

More of a thinker, definitely. Which is why my skating isn't very graceful. I've tried feeling it, but without success -- it always has a thinking component to it, in some way.

I think that most elite skaters are feelers, while most elite coaches are thinkers.

[taka]

I have pretty bad levels of proprioception so I HAVE to conciously think of where my arms or legs are supposed to go for quite a while until I learn what to do (and for a good while thereafter). If I don't understand where my body parts are supposed to go in detail and how they should move then I'm a lost cause!

Starting skating again has helped improve my body awareness no end! I now don't fall over my feet just walking along a couple of times a week! Oddly I've fallen less on or off the ice in the past 2 years (since I've been back on the ice) than in an average 2 months before I started back.

Unfortunately there is a limit to the numbers of things I can think about and still remember to do so my poor coach has to contend with me utterly forgetting my arms while I'm trying to fix my legs for something.  She is also frequently amazed as I have to ask her what my body is doing as I have no idea. I often can't tell which leg I just did something on nor where my free leg was at all! I really need to get over my hate of being video-ed as I think that would really help me. I often know what I need to do but have no idea where to start as I have no idea what I actually do!

I also tend to overthink things that scare me...

The only time I have a sense of "feeling" something in skating terms is when I manage to do something I used to be able to do as a kid.  When I (rarely!) hit the correct bit of my blade trying to backspin, or that one glorious day last November (when my loop was suddenly easy, had height and landed on 1 foot with flow out of it)... it feels really familiar! Sadly I rarely have an idea how or what I did to get there so can't repeat it... It just gets me even more frustrated as I know I can do it! 

Oh well it is all part of the challenge that is skating! 

[FigureSpins]

Feeler.  While I can listen and make adjustments, I'd rather go off muscle memory.

[jjane45]

I'm a lousy thinker who practically does not feel anything. What edge was I on? Was I broken at the waist, really? Ball of the foot? WHAT???

[karne]

I'm a combo platter, I think.

Sometimes it's a thinking scenario - the most extreme of which was me somehow not getting a scratch spin no matter what coach tried until she put it in the terms of the laws of physics...at which point I nailed it first attempt. Yeah, I don't know either.  I blame my engineer dad.

Sometimes it's feeling. To this day, the only time I have landed my loop jump on one foot was when coach and I were skating side by side, chatting at the end of my lesson, and I just stepped into a mohawk, crossed the feet over, and jumped. I have no idea how I did it and have never been able to replicate it.

During my Free Skate 2 test (with the godawful change-of-edge), I actually spent the entire pattern muttering to myself. "Stay DOWN, stay DOWN, move LEG, HOLD body, SWITCH arms, DON'T toe push"...I'm sure the judge thought I was nuts, but she passed me anyway. (In fairness to myself, I had spent nearly four months completely unable to do that pattern and the required changes of edge...the pattern was the stimulus for the comment in my signature.)

[TreSk8sAZ]

I think I'm more of a combo.

For most of my elements, I can very often feel exactly what I'm doing wrong. I can understand the corrections and can often apply them, but sometimes I have the problem of I can feel what I'm doing wrong, tell you what I'm doing wrong, but I just can't change it because then it doesn't feel right.

On certain things (especially if they're new) I have to think. I need to know how I should be so I can get the feel. But once I am able to feel it, then the thinking can only hurt me.

For example, we are changing my axel a little bit right now. I can tell you every time I do it wrong because it doesn't feel right. But I also have to actively think about bringing my free leg out and around a bit or else I would do it the old way.

As far as feeling the music or artistry, it comes naturally to me. That I don't have to think about at all. Once my program is choreographed, I just know it.

So maybe 80% feel, and 20% thinking?

[Live2Sk8]

I'm a combo as well.  I am a thinker on new elements (probably should say I am an over-thinker).  But once I really have an element, then I just feel it.  I have a very hard time explaining how to do an element I feel to another skater because it's just become instinctual - I guess that's where muscle memory comes into play.  But until that happens, I am thinking about every tiny thing and there are just too many body parts to keep track of. 

My first jump of a session is often the best, because I have no expectation of it going well, and I just do it.  Then I start thinking about what I did, and the subsequent attempts go downhill.  Same thing when I am tired - I usually jump better when I am tired.

[JSM]

Good thing to think about!

I'm a feeler on my jumps.  I really don't like working on jumps with my coach as much as I should, because she is extremely analytical, and we go over EVERYTHING with a fine tooth comb, and it doesn't really help me actually DO IT.  I'm better off just jumping a dozen times on my own, and falling, because with every fall I learn a little bit better what I am doing wrong.  I know what position I need to get to, I just need repetition to get the feel of what it is supposed to "feel" like.

I have a tendency to overthink as well, and I jump much better if I just let my body do what it is supposed to do.

MITF, on the other hand, I LOVE the analytical approach.  I'm a definite thinker there and I am constantly using key words and phrases to get myself into the right position.  I couldn't have picked a better coach for this!

Spins is a bit of both.  I'm not a natural spinner so I have to be constantly thinking about getting into the right place.  However, once something is going it's a lot easier to KEEP it going by feel.

[Query]

Definitely a thinker.

I used to think you either feel things like body part alignment, spin travel, and correct free leg trajectory, or you don't. But My coach is trying to make me learn to feel. To some extant it works.

[Icicle]

Me too, I'm a hundred-percent thinker. When I learn something new, I have a checklist, like bend your knee, look in the direction you go, etc. I wish I were more of a feeler because it's better for any sport. On top of everything else, I'm a word person. For me, everything has to be translated into words. I think it drives my coaches nuts.

[VAsk8r]

I'm a combo, but more of a feeler. When my coach gives me instructions, I have to think to do them -- "OK, I glide on two feet, then I cross left over right, and then I pick..." If she tries to correct too many things at once, I lose track, because each correction has to become automatic before I can add something else. In other words, it needs to feel right.

Only once I've thought through everything and the maneuver feels natural do I have any chance of doing it successfully.

[mamabear]

I'm a thinker when I first learn something but I need to feel my body doing something correctly in order to really get it down.  Tonight for example, the coach wanted me to start something new and I had to start with a volley of questions (where is the arm?  what does the foot do then?) before I tried it.

[PinkLaces]

I tried to be a feeler but my feelings often betray me or are flat-out wrong.  Like yesterday for example,  I went into my camel and bailed after about 1.5 revs.  Coach starts exclaiming "That was the best camel position I've ever seen you do."  Me: "But it felt wrong."   

[SynchKat]

I would say I am a feeler.  When am skating I am rarely thinking about what I am doing on the ice.  I can also pick up footwork and the like better by watching and doing than hearing an explanation of what/how to do something.

[supra]

Thinker, but the problem is, I have to more or less learn to be a feeler. I have to learn to just turn my brain off and do things, as all the thinking gets in the way of doing it. I think it's better to think before or after, but not during. If you think during, it's more or less a distraction.

[alejeather]

I'm mostly a feeler, but the occasional application of thought always helps. I generally try things, using years and years of muscle memory from dance, which doesn't always work. Then I'll apply some thought to a piece of it and if it works, think it a few more times until I get the feel of it, then forget it and just feel it. Lather, rinse, repeat.

[sarahspins]

I tried to be a feeler but my feelings often betray me or are flat-out wrong.  Like yesterday for example,  I went into my camel and bailed after about 1.5 revs.  Coach starts exclaiming "That was the best camel position I've ever seen you do."  Me: "But it felt wrong."   

Oh my gosh, that is completely what I do 

I find it really hard to push the limits of my "comfort zone".. my coach however is *really* good at knowing just what I'm capable of and pushing for it.