Skater's Short Term Memory Loss Syndrome (STMLS)

[Neverdull44]

I suffer from STMLS.  This is not adult onset, as I had it as a kid skating. 

Example #1.  Coach gives directions (e.g., keep your free hip up).  My mind comprehends it, I repeat it back to her, and I go off to skate.  I do the "move" and skate back, only for her to say, "What happened?  You didn't (keep your free hip up)"

Example #2.  No coach present. This time, STMLS happened running through my program.  Three different occasions.  I know my program, but right before going into each of my jump combinations, I completely forgot the combination jumps.  And, if you don't set up the first jump in a combination, the second jump (especially a loop) isn't going to happen. 

I am smart.  I have a graduate and an undergraduate degree.  But, I am skating "too" stupid!  I have to have a disorder.  STMLS.

Any other sufferers of STMLS?

[PhysicsOnIce]

I am right there with you!!!!
Unless I come up with my own understanding of what my coach is saying, no matter how many times she tells me, it doesn't happen.

Example 1 ( Working on double loops yesterday)
Coach: Keep tucked into your right side
Me: Yeah okay (Interally... yeah okay, I get it I have to hug a teddy bear on my right side)
Coach: See when you stay on the right it works.
Me: Yeah... I need my teddy bear.

Example 2: ( Working on Footwork)
Coach: Stay on a straight line. Keep your shoulders-hips aligned
Me: I'm trying.
Coach: NO! Shoulders!
Me (from the ice): This is harder than Differential Equations 2

Sometimes I really feel like I don't process things completely.

[Gabby on Ice]

LOL, yesterday I was working on my loop, and my coach kept telling me to keep my legs crossed, which is the hardest thing for me. It's something I need to work on, I guess.

[sarahspins]

This is me with any choreography - "wait, can you show me that again?" - and I say it over, and over, and over again   The other one I use a lot is "wait, which side was that?"

Once I get it, I usually have it, but it sometimes feels like I have -zero- short term memory on the ice - I can't retain what I'm being told to do long enough to duplicate it.  Sometimes it's pretty funny, but sometimes it's incredibly frustrating!

[lutefisk]

You're not alone.  STMLS is why I wear laminated cards of pattern dances around my neck.  It's sad, very sad but on an up beat note, I can still remember my name, most days, without looking.  That comes in mighty handy at the weekly STMLS meetings they hold at the church hall...

[Neverdull44]

Choreography!  Ballet school is incredibly frustrating.   A zillion different moves, "ronduland, bath, 4 to this side, 3 here, 2 there, repeat, switch, ok, eazzzy" says the ballet teacher.  And, she changes it up every move, and at every different class! 

[Query]

[alejeather]

Example #1.  Coach gives directions (e.g., keep your free hip up).  My mind comprehends it, I repeat it back to her, and I go off to skate.  I do the "move" and skate back, only for her to say, "What happened?  You didn't (keep your free hip up)"

I think in the case of corrections from a coach, sometimes the brain remembers the words, but the concept hasn't been transferred to the body. When you repeat the words back to her, try to think about what it will feel like to lift your hip in the move, or even lift your hip while imagining the move. Then skate off and do it.

[Rachelsk8s]

Oh I too fall under this category!! I've been trying to visualize things that my coach tells me to do before I skate off and try it. It doesn't always work but I'm finding that it's been helping.