Pre-Preliminary vs. Pre-Bronze

[Doubletoe]

Well, the question is whether you're going to your coach mainly for technical instruction or if you also need the coach to be your guide through the rules and regulations, as well as off-ice training, performance psychology, etc. Not every coach will excel in all those areas. So pay them for what they can provide, but if you know you need something else they can't provide you, then you need to get it somewhere else. If it's just information, you can do the research on your own. But make sure the coach also knows what he or she doesn't know and listens to you or to other experts who do have the right information.

Once again, excellent advice from Gkelly. I have to tell my coach what the adult rules are (and sometimes the standard track IJS rules, which keep changing every year), but I would be a fool to think that meant anything about his expertise in correcting my skating technique! Those of us who are "book smart" tend to be rule junkies who have more in common with technical specialists and judges. Coaches, on the other hand, are usually former elite skaters who would be better classified as "athletes." To some of them, poring over rules is like reading through a 30-page legal document.

[zaphyre14]

It may be boring and difficult but learning the rules is part of the job, IMO.

And it doesn't take any great skill to know what's on a test. A coach who sends a junior level skater into a competition with the wrong elements in the short program because she couldn't be bothered to get a new rulebook or who is asking the test chair what the elements are on Juvenile Moves the day before a test session isn't earning her paycheck.

If a coach expects to be paid for teaching adults then the coach should take the time to look up the rules specific to adults, especially before advising the student to go the adult route.

[Skittl1321]

My coach has learned most of what she knows about adult skating from me.

If I expected my coach to do all the legwork, I'm not sure I'd have a coach. I want her to coach me because she is an excellent coach and has great expertise in MITF and low level freestyle elements. But she knows nothing about the adult system.

She can use a computer to look up the rulebook as well as I can- but the little things about the system that you just pick up through experience, are things I have picked up from others on message boards. She doesn't have time to go through all the posts to learn those sorts of things, and I don't expect her to.

Unless a coach is advertising themselves as an adult-track expert, I think most adults expect they'll have to do some of their own legwork. Most coaches know the standard track system, and learn the adult system by taking an adult through it.

[zaphyre14]

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then. I expect my coach to know more about the sport than I do because that's what I'm paying her for. I can look up things for myself and there are things I've learned through experience, but when it comes to rules and test requirements, that's her job to find out what they and to teach me correctly. Just as I'd expect the coach of a low-test kid skater to know the difference between Juvenile and Open Juvenile events, I expect a coach of an adult skater to know the minimum age for adult tests. Or if the coach didn't know, I'd expect her to go look it up.

Too much incorrect information gets passed out because coaches don't know - or can't be bothered to find out - the details.

[Doubletoe]

I agree that all coaches SHOULD stay on top of all of the rules, but I have also learned that other people in the world rarely do what I think they should do, no matter how hard I try to change them.