Taking coaches to tests

[skatemommy]

For Moves tests, you can talk to your coach in between moves; just not during (but I usually mumble under my breath "STRETCH" or stick my arms out if I don't think you have yours up enough). You can get a drink of water; inhayler if needed, kleenex; just don't make the judges wait after they have been writing their comments. Good luck, relax and let us know how it goes! Last weekend I had a Junior MIF pass; they laughed when my student narrowly missed the boards on the pulls. Good sign!

[backspin]

Just chiming in--I'm a coach so this is from that point of view.

I charge the equivalent of a 1/2 hour lesson fee for tests. As it happens we just had a test session last night. So here's how that broke down:

Skater was scheduled for warmup at 8:30. I have my skaters come 1 hour early as this rink is notorious for running very early.

Naturally, I was there early too--7:30. This rink is 30 minutes away, so I left the house at a little before 7:00.

I got there just as my skater did, and the mom went to check her in, came back and said, "they're running ahead, & someone else isn't here yet, so they want to put her on the next warmup." The last skater in the previous group was on the ice & was almost finished with her test. I didn't feel that was fair to my skater, who was there way earlier than should have been necessary and had literally just walked through the door. AND they wanted to put her on an earlier warmup group just to fill a hole which wasn't when she was really scheduled to skate.

So I went to talk to the test chair (carefully, diplomatically!), and said something to the effect of, 'she just got here, she isn't in a frame of mind yet to just dive out onto the ice, she hasn't had her off-ice warmup yet, and is there any way she could be kept in her originally scheduled warmup group? PLEASE??" They agreed, so instead of whipping her skates on & jumping onto the ice with no prep, she was able to warm up, put her skates on, walk around in them & then re-lace before getting on the ice.

So--warm-up, then test skate. Then we wait for results. Got her sheets back (she passed!), and went through them with her, pointing out certain comments / praises / critiques so she understood everything.

Then, headed for home, by which time it was about 9:30. Got home a little after 10:00.

So the time I put in on it was over 3 hours, and got paid for 1/2 hour of that. Which is fine with me, I consider test sessions just one of those things you do for your skaters w/o getting a lot out of in monetarily. But if I hadn't been there, she would have been thrown onto an earlier warmup when she wasn't really ready to go. Who knows how that would have affected her, it may have been fine, it may not.

My point, I guess, is this: please try to understand that your coach isn't just raking in the dough on a test session--and that there's more to it than just the 5 or so minutes at the door.

[sfahrut]

+1 ^ It is much more then just standing at the door. Coaches fees are well justified if you choose to have one. You may go without coach if you handle your nerves well. Don't do it on your first test though.

[babbyrabbit]

My daughters coach charges for a 15 min lesson fee. He does get her through the warm up and puts her on the ice! Well worth 15 minutes on test day! lol