Dance + freestyle lessons?

[sampaguita]

My former freestyle coach is coming back from vacation. I'm now doing dance with another coach, 30 minutes, 1x a week. I go to the rink 2x a week, doing 2 hour sessions every time.

I'm still in ISI Dance 1, working on chasses and progressives. On the day that I don't have a lesson, I have my own practice routine, and I can't deny that it really helps when I spend an entire 2 hour session practicing my pattern. At first it was boring, but now that I've finalized my routine, it's almost hypnotizing. (And the best part is, I now understand why skating is considered a workout!)

On the FS level, I'm still in Delta, with some elements from FS1. I work well with my freestyle coach (that's actually why I want to work with him again), but he doesn't do dance. Freestyle coach has a different teaching style from dance coach, so I think I'll be getting something different from his lessons. However, I'm not sure if that's actually going to be COUNTERproductive for me -- I might end up with not-so-good 3-turns and not-so-good patterns because I spend less time to practice more stuff.

Has anyone had a similar arrangement? How did you manage it? The only downside that I see to doing beginner dance exclusively is that it completely ignores backward skating. Not sure though if that's enough reason to do freestyle again.

[amy1984]

If you want to take free style, take free style.  End of story.  At this level, that's all that matters.  Most of the people I know take skills (moves), dance and free unless they've tested out of something.  It's not abnormal.

[sampaguita]

Reading my OP, I think I'm actually dealing with a different issue. My dance coach and my freestyle coach are the best coaches in my rink, IMO, and I'd like to learn as much as I can from them before they retire from coaching.

Still interested in how other people manage it though, taking freestyle and dance lessons (and practicing both) in the same week.

[fsk8r]

I do dance and free. I allocating my practice days to being one or another. So with your schedule of skating twice a week, I would practice dance when you've got a dance lesson and free when you've got a freestyle lesson. OK, you may feel you're not going to learn as rapidly as if you focussed on just the one discipline, but you'll discover that they help each other ,and some people at your level will still only be skating once a week so you'll still be better off than them.
So if you want lessons with both coaches, I would just try it and see how you like it. You can always drop one discipline later. I would however recommend talking to the other coach to let him know that you're planning on having lessons with the freestyle coach.
You will hopefully find that the different approaches compliment each other and that you can apply things you learn in your dance lessons to your freestyle and vice versa.

[jjane45]

ditto what everyone said. it's normal to take both and they improve on each other. some skaters prefer to push as far as possible in spins and jumps first and then pick up dance, but solid basics actually make freestyle better, at least I was told so. 

don't know what do you guys see from my videos. I've picked up dance for about two years, mostly in group lesson, then add privates while getting ready to test. I think my power and strength improved, maybe a bit better on carriage (still not good enough though). dance also gives me an alternate when I get frustrated by a certain freestyle element. caveat: a picky coach can make dance frustrating too lol. 

[Kim to the Max]

I skate a lot during a week, but when I was finising up my moves, I would skate 1-2 sessions of freestyle and then spend an entire session working on moves. Now that I am working on Dance (the goal is to test the first 6 dances in August), I only spend 15-20 minutes on dance because it doesn't take me as long to work on them (and they aren't as complicated....I just need to make sure that I remember the steps since I am horrible at remembering those things at the beginning).

[CaraSkates]

I skate a lot during a week, but when I was finising up my moves, I would skate 1-2 sessions of freestyle and then spend an entire session working on moves. Now that I am working on Dance (the goal is to test the first 6 dances in August), I only spend 15-20 minutes on dance because it doesn't take me as long to work on them (and they aren't as complicated....I just need to make sure that I remember the steps since I am horrible at remembering those things at the beginning).

I didn't practice my dances (outside of a 5 min warmup before my lesson) till I got to my last Bronze - and only then because I decided to test it a week after coming home from school and only had 7 days of skating till the test.

I did find I needed more time on Pre-Silver - I probably practiced 30-45 minutes a week on them and now on Silver I try and practice 45-1hr on dance although that doesn't always happen. I skate 6-8hrs a week and currently 75% of that is freestyle as I have a competition in three weeks. After that I will drop back my freestyle practice and up my MIF and dance for testing. I have three 30 minute lessons, two FS/MIF and one dance per week.

[Icicle]

     I would say do both dance and freestyle. I didn't start taking dance lessons till a year ago after I injured my foot and wasn't allowed to jump. So my freestyle coach recommended dance while I recuperated. I never thought I would enjoy ice dancing. I thought it was a boring discipline. However, after the first dance lesson I realized how wrong I was. I found dancing captivating and challenging. Now I take three 30-minute lessons a week: moves, freestyle and dance. After almost a year of doing this, I started noticing improvement in my overall skating. Also several people keep telling me how much better I have become. I attribute it all to doing three disciplines. Of course, dance helps me with my  skating skills and posture. And freestyle experience makes learning new dance step easier, and there is no fear. For example, I know how many adults are scared of the cross behinds in Rhythm Blues, but I didn't find that step scary at all. I mean, if I do lutzes, why should I be afraid of a little cross behind? Of course, dance is extremely challenging, and while the beginner dances may seem easy, it may take you a while to learn them.
     Speaking about managing my practices, I try to squeeze everything into every session, though it's not always possible. I think it's better to work on each skill regularly . It doesn't always work, because naturally if I've just had a dance lesson, I spend most of the remaining time polishing my dances. Same with moves and freestyle. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed: it seems to me that I never have enough time to practice everything I want. But in the long run it helps.