Not beating yourself up

[Feebee]

Long rant coming

Ok here goes: I'm scared I'll never really progress. I''m really tough on myself and it's affecting my skating. The more I set myself up for an awesome lesson, the worse I perform. Suddenly my crossovers are choppy, and then it throws me off even more thinking things like "I'll never get this. I've been working on the same basic elements for 6 months and I'm STILL scared to do crossovers".

I just feel like other people learn so much faster, or am I wrong? I need to work on so many factors - flexibility, coordination, balance, fear of falling - none of those things come easily to me.

I started a year ago (but took a 6 month break, so it was like, 3 months last winter, 2.5 months this season). I'm 30 years old and I feel like time is running out - not because I'm too old, I know folks are on here that are upwards of 60, but in terms of the amount of time/money I'll have to dedicate to the sport. Right now things are perfect. I freelance, I'm single (by choice, his choice, lol), so time/money isn't a problem really, but it might be within the next year or so, and if all I've learned by then is the 3-turn...

Just tell me it took you AGES to learn backwards crossovers and I'll be re-assured 

[mamabear]

I've been skating for about 4 years and have definitely had some of the same thoughts.  Especially since my coach proposed testing over a year ago and I thought-"sure, why not?" just to be faced with many times when I've thought "I cannot do this".  I'm very lucky in that my coach seems to sense this and will point out that something has improved so much since we started or will say that whatever I'm struggling with is really hard. 

It took me a while to realize just how much skating seems to be about continual improvement.  My coach isn't happy with my backward crossovers on a pattern for the test.  And it's really frustrating.  But then I remind myself that at one point, I couldn't do a crossover at all.  Now, she is saying that I do them but I don't have enough extension on the second push.  That is still such an improvement in skating from when I couldn't do them!

Do you love stepping on the ice?  Do you still look forward to lessons?  Want to go practice?  (okay-maybe not all the time but most of the time) then I think it's worth sticking with it.

And yes, it took me ages to learn the backward crossover.  And I have never thought of myself as athletic or sporty (I might frame the poster that says if I'm running look for the bear) but all of those things you mention struggling with?  They've gotten better.  Not perfect but better.

[Matsumoto]

Feebee -

If there is one thing that I've come to appreciate about figure skating is how difficult it really is.  I started about 2 years ago, and I realized after a while how amazingly complex it is to be able to control my whole body's movement using my arms, hips, shoulders, legs, and head.  My biggest problem to this day is still trying to get past the fear of falling (injury) so you are definitely not alone there.

It did take me quite a long time to get the feel for backward crossovers (especially going clockwise - I'm a counterclockwise skater); don't give up on yourself.  One day, it will click for you and then you will be ready for the next figure skating challenge!

[skategeek]

About 2.5 years of skating (once a week at first, now twice a week, ~2 hrs/week total) and I still can't get myself to do backwards crossovers away from the wall.  I can do them on the circle with someone holding my hand, but when they let go my feet stop.  Backward one-foot glides are even worse.  I know it's mostly in my head, but I'm also just not naturally good at this.  But all of it is still better than it was a year ago, and I'm making progress in other areas while these things are stalled.  So it's not just you.     But while I'm kicking myself for chickening out on the crossovers, I'm doing grapevines, pivots, and itty bitty spreadeagles, and still having fun!

[AgnesNitt]

Please read this. It won't solve your crossover issues, but it may give you a way to deal with it.

Negative Self Talk.

[riley876]

It's a shock to most people just how long it takes to learn to skate.   Regular life doesn't prepare us with many prior experiences of learning something that's SO hard.   

I tell people who ask (lol, and those that don't):  "Imagine how long it *should* take.   Then multiply that by 10.   And if you're teaching yourself,  multiply that by 4 again!"

David Wong calls it "Effort Shock" and puts in nicely here (NSFW):

http://www.cracked.com/article_18544_how-the-karate-kid-ruined-modern-world.html

I was lucky enough to have had my baptism of fire learning Swing Dancing, which is also ridiculously difficult (though in different ways to skating).  So I started skating at least with the idea not to expect anything but glacial progress.   Even so, it's easy to get disheartened.

My experience is that "no progress" need to be stomped on before it becomes a spiral-of-depression.  Watching frame-by-frame videos, one off private lessons, online paid tutorial sites, asking here, asking suitable victims at your rink,  dreaming up new drills, inline skating, skating every day for a week,  ANYTHING to shake things up and get some sort of breakthrough.    In fact, I took up *ice skating* in order to help progress with my *inline skating*!

After 3.5 years of (1-2x/week), my 3-turns are occasionally one-footed, my backward glides are short and wobbly, my backward crossovers are stilted and ugly.   And I'm very happy with all that!

[Feebee]

Please read this. It won't solve your crossover issues, but it may give you a way to deal with it.

Negative Self Talk.

Read it (and all the other responses above) - So perfect, and so true! Going to kill my Negatron ASAP.

Thanks to everyone who responded. You are all awesome!

Side note, that shortly after posting, I gave up working for an hour and hit the arena next door, even though I'd had a lesson just a few hours earlier, and it reminded me why I'm in this for life, it's pretty much the closest we'll ever get to flying.

I actually let myself fall instead of doing the usual *flails like crazy to avoid falling*, which was probably the highlight of the whole session 

[jlspink22]

Little kids have a very short fall and are way more flexible than us adults, so (generally) they are more likely to keep falling, subsequently trying and making progress.

Injury also costs an adult more - recovery time/PT, potential issues with your job, etc etc so naturally we are more cautious. Its totally normal.

I think I need butt padding, knee padding and a helmet before I attempted some of the things my daughter willingly tries. But if you are enjoying yourself, don't worry if you take a long time to learn something!

[rd350]

When I went back to skating last year after way too long off the ice (aka my first love) - I remember the first time I fell (in a group class after they told me to go back to the more advance group a week after I demoted myself out of fear) and thought now I know I'm in the right class.  (I never ever used to fall at all but I skate better now than I ever did.)

Try not to overthink skating before you get to the rink.  Let yourself go to just feel the glide under your feet once in a while and everything else will be icing (pun intended) on top of the cake.  Other times go with a practice plan.  I just started an Edge class and it's really helped me have a process for warmup and working on edges when I'm at the rink myself and I like the structure and momentum.  If you are stuck on something, move on.  I had a time when FO 3 turns were my nemesis and I hardly did anything but.  It was only when I stopped and made them a tiny portion of my practice that I got better.  Also trying to work on something that has the 3-turn as an entry.  It took the focus off the 3-turn and made me focus beyond it and viola, I could do the 3-turns.

Love the Angel Positron!!

[icedancer]

DON'T BEAT YOURSELF UP!!!

I skated as a child - came back as an adult in my mid-30s and now, at 60 - still skating but you have to know that skating is a really really hard sport!  You have to be very strong to stand on a 4mm blade and let it take you - all of your body parts have to be in the right place and that is hard to do!!

But you have got to love the glide, the flow, - it is so fantastic!!

I totally admire people who start as adults - I would never have done this sport if I hadn't done it as a child. Never.

And as I have gotten older, skills that were simple in my 30s and 40s are now difficult.  So I start again, each time, and start with the basics - edges, stroking, (figures) before moving on to more difficult turns, backwards cross-overs, all of those things.  You just have to keep at it!!

[sarahspins]

I started a year ago (but took a 6 month break, so it was like, 3 months last winter, 2.5 months this season). I'm 30 years old and I feel like time is running out

You are not running out of time.  Everyone learns new skills (skating and otherwise) at their own pace.  I've personally witnessed skaters at my rink pick up backward crossovers like they're no big deal (which is unusual, but does happen), but more commonly, you'll see some progression, some regression, and then slow but steady progress - which the skater is not always very aware of, often I hear people lament that they're just "not" making progress, but I can usually see it quite easily that they are.  For only having about 6 months on the ice, I think you are doing pretty well to already be working on backwards crossovers - my daughter had been skating for almost 2 years before she got to that point (and I teach classes)... and she's supposed to be young and fearless (she isn't, but she does "okay" on the ice compared to other sports we've tried that completely stressed her out - and part of that is because she's absolutely allowed to progress at her own pace, there's no pressure to move up with a group/team, so if she needs to spend more time on something, that's absolutely fine).

The best thing I can suggest, if you don't feel like you're progressing, is just go back to the skill your learned before, which in this case is backward 1/2 swizzles, and work on those, and focus on the good things, and about much much easier that is now than when you were first learning - it will build your confidence, and practicing those earlier skills is NEVER a bad thing.  You can add in backwards edges on a circle as well, which is good for getting more comfortable with the weight shifting that is required while doing crossovers, and just don't stress out about the crossovers for a while.  It's okay if it takes you a while to get them - the time you spend working on them will only make them better/stronger in the long run, as most people who seem to "get" them right away often have to spend a great deal of time later fixing mistakes they were making that weren't necessarily super obvious in the early stages - but when you are forced to break them down and work on components while you are learning them, you usually end up with a better skill in the end, and avoid having to re-work them as much later on (crossovers however, are a skill that is constantly under development - there's always something you can do to make them better, so even once you "get" them, don't feel discouraged if someone suggests something slightly different to you - it happens even with very high level skaters).

As far as "the future" goes - it can be scary and intimidating not knowing what is in your future, but I can tell you from experience that skating is something that you can always come back to if for whatever reason you end up having to take some time away, and the more your skills advance, the less it seems like "starting over" each time - you do lose some confidence in your ability to do certain moves, but usually not the ability to do them unless you take a significant amount of time away (years), so most of it does come back fairly quickly.

[twinskaters]

I've never related to a post on here more than this one! I've been skating about as long as you--started last April but no lessons over the summer. And I'm a freelancer, too. But lately I have felt a ton of frustration, feeling like I should be further along than I am. I'm still scared to do FORWARD crossovers most of the time, let alone backwards. I used to have my group lessons all to myself, but this session there are two other skaters. One is a woman 8 years older than me and one a guy about 15 younger. It drove me crazy last week that both of them were doing crossovers without fear and when we were skating backwards, they were about halfway down the rink before I had even gone 20 feet, because even though I can do the actual motions of going backwards, it scares me so darn much that I sometimes literally shake. I've posted a few times in the practice thread about some of this frustration and always received the absolute kindest comments in return, and it really does help me feel better, as does re-reading Agnes' Negatron post.

Skating is hard! There's just no way around it. I try to remind myself that just by showing up for lessons and pushing myself past my comfort zone, I'm being  brave, so if I chicken out on certain skills, I just need to keep working until I get there. Sometimes that helps. I also try and remember the good things about my skating, even if that's just that one of my kids complimented my pretty stroking and the fact that I can stop without crashing into the boards. Even that puts me ahead of 90% of people at public skate.  Some weeks it's harder than others to push the demon down, but I do still think it's worth it to keep skating.

[Gabby on Ice]

I've been skating for 3 years, and I have had the same thoughts. And it can be frustrating at times- one day, I can do a great sit spin, and the next, I can't spin at all. Skating is hard, and it takes time to be able to do things well. But are you having fun? If so, then that's all that matters

[fsk8r]

I see skating like climbing a mountain, there are times you get stuck on the plateau and you don't feel you're progressing, and then you hit the next cliff face and you're really progressing. But the plateaus are when you're consolidating your skills and making progress in other areas of skating (confidence, flexibility, posture, etc). It's also like a mountain and sometimes you think you're really near the top and are amazing (relative to those around you) and then you turn the corner and realise just how much further you've got to go.

I've had many times of sitting on that plateau or even going back down the mountain following injury and illness, but having had a major illness the other year where the doctors were telling me I needed to stop skating. I came back following surgery with another attitude. Without surgery I'd already admitted to myself that I would need to stop skating it was too risky in the long term. With surgery there was a risk of a major accident which could take away skating as well. So when I came out the other side healthy, I came back on a different journey of relearning to skate. So far, I'm still appreciating that I can skate. I don't care about my rate of progress or how well I skate, just that I can. The new mental approach has reaped rewards as I'm skating better than ever. How long I can keep this mental attitude before I get fed up of being stuck on a plateau again, I don't know. But I'm really enjoying it at the moment. It means I always wake up looking forward to going skating.

[Neverdull44]

Skating teaches persistence and patience like no other sport.   It takes years & years to master.   1,000+ times to just do it once, another 1,000+ times to lose it over & over, and another 1,000 plus hours to master it.   Plus, you are out there alone, thinking all the time.  This gives one alot of time to think.   What move to practice on, what did the coach say to do, what am I going to do next, look at that other person skate, will I do a competition,  etc.  It's alot of introspection time.   And, all of this leads to "beating yourself up."

As a kid, I progressed at a good clip.  Came back to skating in my 20s, and had 'mastered' alot of what I could do in a reasonable pace (but not as quick as I could as a kid).  Now, at 46 years old, things are learnt slower and slower.   I will two foot jumps that I "know" I can totally land!    My mind is now wiser, and my body dumber.   So I will refuse to rotate a jump, double foot the landing, etc.  It's all a head game.

I think you should take videos of yourself periodically.  Say, every 3 months.   Videos are a wonderful self-teaching tool.   In a year, you will most likely see a big difference.  There was a poster who did their waltz jumps each year, and in 3 years they were doing a totally different jump!  It was high and light.

[axelwylie]

My coach said it best: skating is a marathon. You will never get to where you want to be in a short amount of time. It takes training, patience and dedication. And don't forget to celebrate the little victories along the way. Paul Wylie told us at Adult Nationals last year to keep a notebook and write down the day's accomplishments. That way you remember the little bits of progress you made along your journey.

[Feebee]

Been busy with work, but I stop every so often to read the replies - thanks everyone! Glad to see how many people relate to this!

I do love it though, on my good days I even love the struggle itself. I know that half the fun (or maybe all of it) is because of the struggle, it makes every triumph so sweet.

I'll probably start taking videos periodically, I wish I had when I started because I tend to forget that I had never even heard of edges or stroking a year ago!

[mamabear]

The same day that I read this post (and responded initially) I had my lesson.  And discussed testing at the next session.  And agreed that I'm not ready.  Which is so frustrating because there are plenty of days when I feel like I will never, ever get these patterns. 

Then I went and practiced yesterday.  It was public but oh so empty-just a hockey guy and a family of 5 were skating with me.  And this cute little girl (maybe 3-4 years old) came to a complete stop, stared in awe and says to her mom...

"She is going backwards!"

Which was a nice reminder for me of just how far I've come!  This family was oh so determined and probably made it around the rink 6-7 times during the session.  That would be a warm-up for me now but was exactly how it was when I first started.

[Feebee]

@mamabear, the empty publics are the best! I just came from a public session that is normally pretty good but today was annoyingly full :/

That's disappointing about not testing yet - but don't let that discourage you! It doesn't mean you'll never get those patterns, just that you could use more time to really nail it.

Re: progress, my coach (without knowing about any of this) suggested we keep a log book of skills I've mastered, which made me SO happy to hear from her! Like, oh wait, she's saying she sees improvement! I really do forget that 4 lessons ago when she told me to cross one foot over the other, backwards - I absolutely could not do it. I would lift the foot to cross and immediately put it back down, I kept insisting I had NO idea where my feet are in relation to each other and therefore could not possibly get one over the other without tripping!

So I guess it's a balance, looking ahead to new goals/challenges but not forgetting how far we've come

[rd350]

I love the idea of a skills log book.  Any suggestions of how to put this together?  I think others have done it here.  I'll start a new thread.

[ls99]

Starting around four years ago, sans instructors, coaches etc. Just spent lots of time falling down.

Then continued along slowly. I started skating for my own curiosity and entertianment. No goals set any time until today, see my note elswhere on waltz jump, that is more along the line of wishful thinking, may actually happen in two or three years time.

I never cared if what I did was correct, so long as it worked for me and I had fun along the way. Seems I got good enough where I had been accused of being an ex professional, by some skating moms, they must be blind, I say.

Reality is, I just have great posture, spend lots of time on one skate glides, and have fairly good ear and timing for the music that happens to blare. Even the kiddie music. Bottom line is that I enjoy the exercise, experimenting with moves and don't care if it is to any sort of judgeable standard. Have no interest in testing, coaches, instructors, shows or performances, just do palytime for me. I do have skaters I hold up as models, and like to watch videos of  their footwork; John Curry, Minenkov, Dean, Beacom, Katerina Witt, Gordeeva to name a few.

Oh and I refuse watch any modern day competitions of any sort. I found most of those performances have nothing whatsoever to do with the music that was pre-selected. Don't care what the reasons are. 

So that is my method of not beating up on myself.

[Meli]

I tend to drive myself nuts because I see the kids that started around the time I did and they're SOOOOO much further along.  It's hard to be patient when I'm not feeling much of a difference, even though my coach insists it's there.  Tonight a hockey player that I haven't seen in about 9 months or so commented that my skating had gotten so much more advanced.  I guess I need to video myself more often so that I can go back and compare.

[amy1984]

It's hard to see how much you're progressing because, well, you're you.  I've had similar thoughts only to have my coach say 'X has improved so much', and then when I think about it, the skill HAS improved.  Or I notice that I now have footwork in my program that I couldn't even dream of being able to do a couple years ago.  Chin up.  Figure skating isn't easy.

[Doubletoe]

The curse of this sport is that you never truly master anything!  I've been taking lessons for 18 years now, and I still consciously work on my crossovers every single time I skate.  The sooner you embrace the sport of figure skating as a *process you love* instead of *results that you hope for*, the more you'll get out of it and the less you'll get in your own way!  Meanwhile, you will have good days and bad days, gain skills and then suddenly lose them for no reason.  So just take inventory once a year and ask yourself if there's anything you're able to do this year that you weren't able to do last year--or that you do better than last year.  If there is, you're making progress!  And on the days when you can't seem to do anything well, just remember, even bad skating is good exercise.

[Neverdull44]

The curse of this sport is that you never truly master anything! 

Amen