Coach Top Tips For Making The Most of Your Ice Time!

Skaters, welcome back. I'm so glad you're here. I am Coach Julia and today's video is really fun. We have just finished our summer figure skating camp and during camp I was able to connect with each of our coaches and assistant coaches and get a top tip from them on how to get the absolute most out of your skating time. So today we're going to go through all of those top tips. Let's get started. All right, so I am going to get some tips from our coaches. Kristen, this is Coach Kristen. Kristen, do you have any tips for making the most of your practice time? Yeah, I would say work hard, stay in control, and most of all, have fun above all else. Especially since it's summer. Yes. All right. Thanks, Kristen. All right, I got another coach here for you. This is coach Luisa. Luisa, what are your top tips for making the most of practice time? I recommend at home making a checklist of everything you want to get done so when you come to the rig you're completely prepared so that you don't have to think about what I have to do and you don't miss anything. You can go straight Go straight through this checklist, check it off as you go, so you don't miss anything, and yeah. I love that staying organized and then you don't forget skills and when your coach asks you to try your south cow jump you're not like oh my gosh I haven't practiced that for a while. Thanks Luisa. Okay Sarah give me your top tip. So I like to never be afraid to go back to the basics, like if you're working on your jumps, going back to a back scratch, working on that air position, getting nice and tight, doing all your singles as many times as you need before trying a double to feel confident on your takeoff, like spirals instead of camel spins, all that. All that. I like it. So if you're struggling with something, break it down, go back to the basics, work on those basics, and then you can go back to the more difficult one. Exactly. Exactly. I like it. Thanks, Sarah. Thank you. Okay, Coach Kylie, you had a top tip for me. What is it? My top tip is you always have to have a positive mindset whenever you're skating, even if you're just practicing. If you say you can't do it, then you can't do it. So just say you can't do it yet. I like that. You can't do it yet. Everything in skating takes lots of practice. So even if you're struggling and falling, maybe give it a break, but don't like give up on it. Do not give up. Do not tell yourself you cannot do it. I like it. Positive mindset, positive reinforcement, good job coach Kylie. Okay we got coach Janella here with her top tip, let's hear it. Don't compare your progress with other people's progress. Oh I like that, that's a big one because everyone reaches things at their own timing, some people are better at jumps or spins or moves in the field than you and so yeah, then you can just... Focus on your progress and maybe what your coach is telling you about your progress. That's true. Love it. Thanks, Janella. You're welcome. Okay, well, I'm very excited about this top tip because this is Devin, my camera guy. And so usually you're behind the camera all the time. Now I'm getting you out in front. Terrifying. Do you have a top tip for me? I do. It's all about motivation. Basically, like what you listen to before you get on the ice, what you're listening to when you're on the ice and not. Don't start focusing too much on watching other skaters when you're on the ice. That way you don't lose that motivation. You got to come in motivated and stay motivated the whole time because as soon as you lose that motivation, you start skating bad. You start losing that je ne sais quoi. I like it. And part of that, what I like was you said not watching what the other skaters are doing. Now, it's great to have friends out there and practice with friends, but only if it doesn't detract from your own practice time. So you've got to stay focused on your own work and what you're trying to achieve out of that session. Exactly, yeah. You can't lose what you're doing. You know, it's fine to go and when you get water, chat on the wall, check in with your friends. Do a lap or two with them when you first get on the ice, but after that you got to really get in that mindset of like, what am I doing? You know, this is your practice time. You want to use the whole thing, so you might as well stay focused the whole time. I love it. Thanks so much. Okay, I have got Coach Adeline here. What is your top tip? My top tip is definitely to split your time between spins and jumps. I usually do 30 minutes for jumps, 30 minutes for spins, depending on how I'm feeling. Sometimes I'll do a little bit extra, but that's just how I conserve my time. So you go into it with an organized idea about how you're going to spend your time on the ice rather than just bouncing around between everything. Specific amount of time on each thing. Definitely. Just so that I can be as organized as possible and get through my session. Love it. Thank you so much. All right, skaters, I am here with Coach Hannah to get her top tip. What do you have for us? Just space out your time with your jumps, spins, and footwork, and make sure you equalize that time and work on everything. I like that. Yeah, that's such a good advice. You don't want to just go out there without a plan. You'll end up definitely missing things. So yes, spacing it out. Having a plan. For sure. I love it. Thanks so much, Janelle. You're welcome. All right. I am here with Coach Naomi. What is your top tip for us? My top tip is that every skater has its own rhythm. So find your own rhythm. I like that. Just like every camel spin looks different, every jump looks different, every skater has their own journey, right? Their own timing in how they learn things. Yep. Everything is different. So don't try to be like someone else. Always be just like you. I love that. Thanks Naomi. You're welcome. All right, we have Coach Paolo here. What is your top tip? My top tip is come with a plan to practice. That way you don't waste time and you know exactly what you're doing and you can have a really good session. I like it. Come in with a plan. That's great. Then you're not getting out there and wasting time trying to figure out what to do next. All right. Cool. Thanks, Paolo. I'm here with Coach Jessica. What is your top tip? My tip is to write down your programs right after you learn them so you can remember them. All right. So not just work on them in like full pieces, but each individual little section. I like that. Thank you, Jessica. Okay. I have with me Coach Jennifer today, and she has a top tip for us. Coach Jennifer, what is your top tip? Warming up. We are standing on a 200 foot ice cube given any moment. So warming your muscles up is super important. So in many other sports we kind of go into a warm environment or a warmer environment, but here it's cold. So your muscles need to be warmed up properly. So this is why it's super important. So when I tell my students the importance of it, I always go with this. So I get two rubber bands. So your little muscles work very much like rubber bands. This one's been sitting out in our 114 degree weather heat wave. This one has been sitting in the ice rink frozen. So to demonstrate what your muscles do, when they're warmed up properly, you're going to get a nice stretch. So all those ligaments and tendons are warmed up. So when you go to do a camel spin or you're doing your landing positions, it's not going to hurt. Not that bad anyway. Now, you take your muscles, cold, come into the rink, and you have not warmed them up properly, and you go and do that spiral. That's what happened, not good. So those muscle fibers, much like that rubber band, will actually break, and this is where you get muscle pains and aches, so make sure you warm up, a good 15 minutes, a little cardio, get your jump rope out, make sure you go through all of your muscle groups, and you'll be ready to skate. Thanks, Coach Jennifer, that is a great top tip. So my top tip is to bring a notebook to your practice session, but especially to your lesson times. So I always like to have a notebook out there so that I can go over anything that I feel like was maybe a little bit rougher, and then I can bring that up with my coach next time. Like if I'm struggling with a specific spin or a specific spot of my program, I'll make notes of it so that I remember next lesson, oh, I really wanted to work on this. Or, when I have a lesson, I like to I write all of my notes afterwards, so everything that my coach talked to me, say I'm having a moves in the field lesson, I will write down all of the little comments she made to help me correct things or if we're doing choreography, I'll write a little map of my program. So I like to bring a notebook so I can keep track of lessons and practices and it just helps me remember everything that we worked on. All right skaters, I hope you enjoyed all of those top tips and found some useful information among them. If you enjoyed this video please do give us that thumbs up and as always I'm looking forward to seeing all your comments in that section down below. If you haven't done so yet then hit that subscribe button and the little notification bell so you can see all my videos when they come out. Happy skating and I'll see you next time!