Switching coaches

[axelwylie]

For those of you who have switched coaches or are contemplating a new coach, when and how did you know it was time for a change? Did you identify a new coach before you made the switch?

[AgnesNitt]

I 've only left a coach once, otherwise the coach leaves me (rink closed, divorced and moved, quit coaching, whatever). So, my experience is skate coachless for a while then see who has an opening and is good for my skill level.  I'm not the level that I think anyone is looking for me as a student. I'm the student you take to put your kids through school

[amy1984]

As an adult, I certainly have a mental list of people I would NOT hire and a list of people I've seen around that I like.  I've had several times where because of schedule or a coach moving on, I've had to switch.  I usually approach both - current and possible future - with the news around the same time.

I switched recently because I felt that my coach wasn't pushing me.  I figured she was close to retirement and her focus wasn't really on skating.  It turned out I was right.  I just found we were working on the same stuff over and over and I wasn't really progressing.  So I started looking around at who I thought might be a good fit.

My list of people I would not pay for lessons based on how I've seen them treat others is way longer than my list of people I'd hire lol.  It can be hard because as an adult I have expectations and there's no middle man - parent - to handle them.  Like I'm not gonna tolerate you yelling at me and I expect you to be on time and I don't want to have to have the awkwardness of bringing these things up.

[AgnesNitt]

\  Like I'm not gonna tolerate you yelling at me and I expect you to be on time and I don't want to have to have the awkwardness of bringing these things up.

I've found that being perfectly straightforward with the coach is the best and most polite way. My present coach would step off the ice with the skater before me and talk with her mom for 5 minutes. Because she was full my lesson got shortened. I started out with "You know, my lesson starts at xx o'clock, but end up by starting late because you're talking to Skater X." My coach said, "But I need to talk to her mom", my reply was something like a reasonable, "Talk to the mom on her time, not my time." Fixed.  Now her lessons aren't as full as they used to be so she always gives me a head's up she's going to have to go long. Which is okay as long as I get my full time.

Nobody ever yelled at me. At 66 that's just crazy talk. It's like yelling at a puppy. I can say, I did have a coach be rude to me off ice when I said 'Hi', I looked back at the last few months of skating with that coach and decided it had been building up. I decided I was just a money stream and wasn't making any progress. I quit the next week.

[holdontilmae]

When I was learning more from watching youtube videos and instagram posts than from my previous coach, I knew it was time. I still dragged my feet for something like another three or four months because I didn't want there to be any hurt feelings, but all I ended up doing was hindering my own progress. She was understanding, and I wish I had done it earlier. I was super nervous about the switch, because there was only one coach I could move to and there was no love lost between them. I am quite happy with my decision.

[Doubletoe]

I quit my first coach when it was 2 months before Christmas and--without even talking to me about it--he gave my lesson time away to a group that was working on a Christmas show program, just assuming I'd be willing to bend over backward to find a different time to get my lesson from him for the next several months.  Nope!  As an adult who worked full-time and was preparing for my first tests, I needed a coach who was going to be there for me when I needed him.  I already knew which coach I wanted to switch to, and I got his number from one of his students before even leaving the rink that day.  The coach I quit first tried to convince me to stay with him, and when that didn't work, he started badmouthing me to people at the rink.  But he was a lousy coach anyway, so the change was well worth it!

[icedancer]

I quit my first coach when it was 2 months before Christmas and--without even talking to me about it--he gave my lesson time away to a group that was working on a Christmas show program, just assuming I'd be willing to bend over backward to find a different time to get my lesson from him for the next several months.  Nope!  As an adult who worked full-time and was preparing for my first tests, I needed a coach who was going to be there for me when I needed him.  I already knew which coach I wanted to switch to, and I got his number from one of his students before even leaving the rink that day.  The coach I quit first tried to convince me to stay with him, and when that didn't work, he started badmouthing me to people at the rink.  But he was a lousy coach anyway, so the change was well worth it!

Great story!

I had a coach for a couple of years when I first moved to Portland - not sure how great of a dance coach he was since he didn't dance with his students but he dropped me after I was off the ice for a month with a broken toe - when I came back he said he didn't think he had time for me (I was DEVASTATED) - but a couple of weeks later I asked another coach at the rink for lessons and she was glad to oblige - I think he was really surprised because my impression is that he wanted me to beg him for lessons LOL

I never looked back.

[Query]

I've had too many coaches.

Coaches use and teach many different athletic methods to achieve goals. E.g., you have an incredibly large number of muscles, and you can use different sets of muscles, and different body positions, to achieve similar results. These methods vary from coach to coach. This can confuse you. Unless your coach is unable to meet your needs, it may be worth staying with your current one. Especially if the current coach has a teaching style that fits your learning style. Of course, if your current coach doesn't teach in a way that you learn from easily, or isn't good enough for your skating level, or can't meet your schedule, it may be time to switch.

For me, part of the problem is that I am not a natural athlete. I needed a coach who could do all of the following:

1. Demo the moves well.
2. Explain what to do, in extreme detail - e.g., help me figure out which muscles would create the most efficient way to achieve the desired motion.
3. Explain what I was trying to achieve - in a physics sense. For example, a lot of figure skating involves transferring linear or angular momentum from one body part to another, and/or to the ice. Ideally this involves moving certain muscles to create certain motions, often very subtle motions, but it also involves stabilizing certain joints (e.g., in your core), so the transfer occurs efficiently. A good athlete possibly KNOWS this instinctively, and does not need help achieving it - but I did not.

Few athletes, no matter how great, meet these requirements, because most athletes don't need to think about what they are doing - like the Nike commercial, they don't think, they just do. They can watch someone else do something, and imitate it, without much thought. And they can't explain what they are doing. If you aren't like that, it can be frustrating for both of you.

(Most young kids learn more instinctively than most adults. Analytic and word-oriented learning styles are more typically associated with adults - but I take it to an extreme.)

I also like people with well organized disciplined teaching styles. I like being given practice drills that practice all relevant skating skills in a repetitive, organized manner. That's not for everyone, but it is for me. I find it a very time-efficient way to warm up and practice. I also like to master one skill right before moving on to the next - many coaches teach you to just barely sort-of learn something, then go on, and later go back and correct the incorrectly learned skill several times over. (In fact, all ISI and USFSA group lesson plans encourage that poorly learn, unlearn and re-learn approach.)

A lot of my problems were that I asked an officer of a local club for an entry level ice dance coach recommendation. She gave me the name of a Russian coach with Olympic credentials, that she had worked hard to convince to come into the area to coach, so she was trying to help him find students. Needless to say, he was very expensive. In addition, he was a guy, whereas ice dancers are better off with someone of the opposite sex to partner with; his English wasn't very good, which fit very poorly with my learning style (but worked very well for some of the more athletic skaters); and part of what had made him a successful competitive ice dancer was that his skating and partnering styles were unique and distinctive - which made it difficult for me to partner with other American ice dancers. I also wanted to do some low level freestyle skating, which he didn't teach. On top of that, he mostly coached private lessons at rinks that were a bit far from me, during expensive club sessions of those rinks' clubs, which I had to join. And his other students were competitive level ice dancers, so he could not help me get together with an ice dance partner.

It took me a long time to understand all these issues, so I switched several coaches before I found one who fit my needs better.

None of my coaches had any problem with my taking lessons from other coaches. Maybe that is partly because I wasn't a competitive level skater, so I was no great loss. But it is very polite to ask your coach's permission, before taking a lesson, even a trial lesson, from another coach. If a coach was too insecure to let me try a lesson with another coach, or try to learn some things from the Internet (like this forum, or Youtube videos) I personally would avoid them, and I would ask that question of a coach before trying them out, but I admit a lot of coaches disagree with that opinion.

If you must switch, I suggest you watch other coaches teach a few other students before trying them out. Avoid anyone who is in the least bit abusive or inconsiderate. You shouldn't have to deal with that, and they are also likely to get banned from rinks. Figure out what your learning style is, and see whether they ever use that style, and see whether they have experience teaching someone of your age. Do their students appear to advance in skill during lessons, and find out (e.g., from skating judges or people who run club tests and competitions) whether their students do well in tests (they should almost always pass any test they take) and competitions. Take a group lesson with them if possible first - not only are group lessons with the same coach a good inexpensive supplement to private lessons, but group lessons are very hard to teach - if they can manage that well, they can manage almost anything. If you belong to ISI or USFSA, you may be able to find out what their genuine coaching credentials are from those organizations. As with most things, credentials are largely irrelevant - but to guide you during a test or competition at your level, they may be required to have a certain level of credential and/or rating. And of course ask their other students, especially other adult students (assuming you are an adult), how they feel about them as coaches.

It would be very cool if one of the coaches who writes on this forum happens to teach in your geographic area. Look at their explanations, and see if you understand what they say. Some of the coaches here are extremely good at explaining things. Otherwise, the best you can do, like I indicated, is to come close to where they are teaching, and listen to them teach, and see whether you understand what they are saying. (Do NOT come so close that you interfere with the other person's lesson. Give them plenty of space. And never talk to the coach during another person's lesson.) That is sort of impolite, because it looks like you are trying to get their teaching advice for free, and I'm sure some coaches wouldn't like it at all, but I can't think of a better way to find out if they meet your needs.

[sampaguita]

It's very tricky to switch coaches, especially if they are from the same rink. It's usually easier to switch when your former coach is on vacation, and you need a new coach. This happened to me: I had been eyeing an excellent coach in my rink for a while then, but I was under another (rather sensitive) coach. Once he went on a very long vacation, and I switched to the other coach -- and by the time the previous coach went back, I was already happy with my new coach. Of course he couldn't blame me for finding a new coach, could he?

Some people I know take lessons simultaneously, and then gradually make the shift. Or some hire a "primary" coach and several secondary coaches, which gives them flexibility.

[DressmakingMomma]

When you switch, you are firing someone. Some people are professional and operate with tact when being fired and some do not - which is true for any field.

My daughter switched coaches twice. The first was easy, we were at a rink that only gave competitive group lessons on Saturdays during the summer, which we could't attend.

The second time was a disaster. She had worked with a coach for almost three years. When we left, she spread rumors about us and said very cruel things to my kid. It was awful, but in the end, it certainly confirmed we made the right decision. We did not stay at that rink, my daughter lost all her skating friends, and she really just wanted to quit. It was a rough, rough time.

We took 3 months to find her next coach. I was upfront with each person we trialled, she took some lessons at different rinks until we found the right place for her to skate. It was the single best skating decision we have made as parents. She truly loves her coaches (husband/wife team) and they love her too. They know how to motivate and push her to full capacity but in a way that is respectful (tough love sometimes, but none the less, always loving). Her coaches and all of their girls operate like a second family. They make her life richer, and I believe she will always look back on this time with fondness.

I feel like in this sport people have an unusual coach/athlete relationship. Maybe because they spend so much one-on-one time together, or maybe because the sport is so difficult to begin with. Any which way, working with the right person is so, so important. You need to feel good about who you hire to teach you. Leaving a coach may be hard, but if you feel it is the right thing for you, then do it.

[Query]

I think that even if a coach accepts being fired gracefully, you should still be up front and honest with them about the fact that you are looking. Being sneaky about it just leads to bad feelings, and also creates a potential for conflicts between the two coaches, because it is often considered bad form for a coach to "poach" another coach's students without prior discussion between them.

Also, if you explain why you are looking, maybe the old coach can his or her teaching style to the student's current needs. It's important to give feedback to your coach - if they don't get feedback, you can't expect any coach to do a good job, no matter how good the coach.

Think about how you would feel if you were doing a good professional job for someone, and they suddenly switched to someone else without notice. Especially if they hadn't first explained to you what they wanted different, and didn't give you a chance to adapt. Maybe you could have adapted at least as well as the new person, if they had explained what they wanted changed.

Don't forget to ask the child. They may have a good connection with the old coach, and may have a better feel for the way the coach works, and whether there is a problem, then you do.

BTW, my personal feeling is that there isn't much clear correlation between what a coach charges and how good they are with you or your child. So if you are just switching to get a higher priced coach, that isn't a good criteria.

And like I said, if you switch, the student will probably have to waste a lot of time and effort adjusting to techniques used by the new coach. In some cases, they may also have to switch equipment. E.g., to some extent, if you change your skating technique, such as where you place your weight, you may need to switch blade shape. Likewise, if a coach advocates using ankle bends to deepen edges (some ice dancers do that, but I don't think it is common in freestyle), you can't use boots that are too stiff for that.

So, just think it through carefully, and be open about what you are doing. That's almost always best. I bet the coaches on this board would mostly agree that is usually the best practice, for both the student and the coach.