Skate Canada Issues Body Positive Guidelines

[Erin]

https://skatecanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/BodyPositiveGuidelines_EN_Dec2.pdf

I’ll be curious to see what impact this has on coaching practices and if any other other countries follow suit.

 

[Orm Irian]

That’s a good document. A lot of thought’s gone into developing it (and it’s well edited, which I appreciate).

I’m very impressed by the changes Skate Canada is trying to make in its coaching culture, and hope they spread outwards from here. But it must be hard knowing that whatever they try to do will be derided as simultaneously too little/too performative and too much/too politically correct by many.

 

[overedge]

This is a really good document. It's thoughtful and it presents the information in a way that's accessible and not finger-pointing with blame.

As @Orm Irian says, Skate Canada has a lot of work to do in changing the culture around this issue. One thing that could have been added to the document would be to address judges and officials, as well as coaches. I'm sure I'm not the only Skate Canada member who knows of judges, officials, and administrators that have said things like "You need to lose some weight" to skaters. Focusing on coaches is important, but the coach's job will be extra challenging if the coach is trying to be positive with their skaters and the skater is getting non-positive comments from powerful people in other parts of the sport.

 

[Sylvia]

Thanks, @Erin! For those interested, the Body Positive Guidelines document is linked from the PROTECTION THROUGH PREVENTION area of the Safe Sport section of Skate Canada's website (scroll down the page to ADDITIONAL RESOURCES):

Safe Sport - Protection Through Prevention

skatecanada.ca

 

[Tinami Amori]

One can change the "language", but one can't change the law of physics...

 

[starrynight]

Yes it's always good to remember that sports isn't just the 0.0001% that become elite -- it's just mostly children/adolscents that do it for enjoyment and development through childhood and school. And so it's important that a sport doesn't become a damaging thing for regular citizens to carry on into their lives. I think this a challenge faced by many sports. For example on the flip side there are lots of stories of the negative side macho/rough culture of football/rugby having serious ongoing impacts on young men through adulthood.

It’s tempting to look only at the elite side and think for example that you need to have a certain figure to do a quad toe. But so much of grass roots sports is irrelevant to what is required of the most elite 5 or 6 skaters in the world. The extreme elite often has nothing to do with sports for regular children. If society is going to have fit and healthy people, I think organised sports can't be something that parents need to be afraid of for their children. Adult life is hard enough without carrying baggage from child sports into it.

 

[Judy]

That’s a good document. A lot of thought’s gone into developing it (and it’s well edited, which I appreciate).

I’m very impressed by the changes Skate Canada is trying to make in its coaching culture, and hope they spread outwards from here. But it must be hard knowing that whatever they try to do will be derided as simultaneously too little/too performative and too much/too politically correct by many.

I think it’s an excellent first step that cannot stop there.

 

[AxelAnnie]

I wonder how much time and money has been spent on coming up with that document. Most of the document is exactly what my mother told me: Eat a balanced meal and exercise. The rest is silly. If they are trying to deal with body dysmorphia....that document is not going to do it.

Working hard and doing your best deserves praise....always. There are unfortunately a some hard realities .
1. Not everyone can do everything.
2. The laws of physics do apply.
3. There are only 3 places on that podium.

How you handle that information and those limitations makes a difference. IMO that has less to do with how you love your body, and more to do with your dignity, pride and abilities.

And one of my favorite quotes: "With this in mind, it is important to be mindful about the way in which we speak about and towards an individual and their body. For example, a casual comment of: “athlete A has the perfect body for skating” could be interpreted negatively and could result in an athlete believing that to be successful that is the only body type accepted."

The problem is some people do have the perfect body for skating, or gymnastics, riding, skiing, and on and on. To say nothing of the fact that people can interpret anything in anyway. There was a comedy routine years ago about a person who complimented someone on the shirt they had on, and they responded "Does this mean you didn't like the one yesterday?"

 

[overedge]

[snip]

Your comments are an excellent demonstration of the sort of attitudes that need to change. The document is not "silly". It's attitudes like yours that have made this kind of document necessary.

If eating and exercising "right" were all that anyone needed to do to have the "ideal body type" for skating, then don't you think everyone in skating would look like you think they should look?

 

[Aerobicidal]

Both of the above posts criticizing Skate Canada are incredibly superficial and--at best--vaguely/arguably responsive. Agree or disagree with the guidelines, but a lot of time and research was spent creating a substantive, academic report here. It's insulting to people on all sides of the relevant issues here to make such lame/nonexistent attempts to engage.

(Also, the references page has some rather glaring errors, but APA formatting is hard.)

 

[AxelAnnie]

Both of the above posts criticizing Skate Canada are incredibly superficial and--at best--vaguely/arguably responsive. Agree or disagree with the guidelines, but a lot of time and research was spent creating a substantive, academic report here. It's insulting to people on all sides of the relevant issues here to make such lame/nonexistent attempts to engage.

(Also, the references page has some rather glaring errors, but APA formatting is hard.)

Spending a lot of time on something or working hard does not mean that the product is any good.

 

[overedge]

Spending a lot of time on something or working hard does not mean that the product is any good.

The suggestions in the document are based on scientific research, all of which is cited. That's much more thorough than your argument of "no one can skate well if they're not skinny".

 

[Frau Muller]

I wonder how much time and money has been spent on coming up with that document.

...

As much time & money as it took for the Mohawk-Choctaw names study.

 

[Lemonade20]

Skate Canada is trying, but action speaks louder than words. It’ll take more than a document to change people’s mindset.

 

[AxelAnnie]

As much time & money as it took for the Mohawk-Choctaw names study.

Groan.

 

[Erin]

Skate Canada is trying, but action speaks louder than words. It’ll take more than a document to change people’s mindset.

I struggle to understand this kind of criticism. First of all, the organization has to start somewhere. Second, it is a lot easier to take action (e.g. suspending abusive coaches who encourage unhealthy behaviour) when you have words documenting what is and isn’t appropriate coaching.

 

[Aerobicidal]

Skate Canada is trying, but action speaks louder than words. It’ll take more than a document to change people’s mindset.

Action and words aren't mutually exclusive, and anyone who has studied history even minimally should know that documents certainly can and have done a lot to change people's mindsets.

If someone wants to argue that stuff like this is counterproductive, I'm more than happy to listen and won't necessarily disagree. But the objections raised in this thread (and the Mohawk/Choctaw one) are more performative than persuasive, IMO.

 

[manhn]

We can find actual people saying actual words denigrating skaters who didn’t fit a certain body shape. If all we were doing was changing words, that’d be a lot of change.

 

[Lemonade20]

A document is one way to start, but not everyone will be inclined to follow it. It’s hard to break bad habits and change a toxic culture overnight

 

[misskarne]

No surprises that the two posters making "physics" remarks are two with generally abhorrent views towards such things.

I think the document is a good start. But it will need to be reinforced with mandatory training or seminars for all coaches, judges, officials, and top-level skaters. I imagine there are many coaches in Canada with views as abhorrent as Tinami's or AxelAnnie's who will just toss this document in the bin and continue to tell perfectly fit and healthy skaters that they're fat, that they're elephants, that physics doesn't allow it.

 

[dramagrrl]

I should not be surprised to see ridiculous comments about weight/body image issues in skating on a thread like this after reading FSU for 20+ years, but the continuous stupidity from certain posters never ceases to astound me.

Good for Skate Canada taking a first step in acknowledging that these issues clearly exist in the sport and trying to do something to start changing the culture.

 

[jenny12]

Glad to see Skate Canada taking a step in the right direction and hopefully it will be reinforced systematically. Yes, actions speak louder than words but sometimes you need words to start and provoke the action. It has been a long time overdue. There is no perfect body for skating just as there is no such thing as the perfect body. And using “physics” as a cover for body shaming is disgusting.

 

[Lemonade20]

Exactly, it drives me mad when they call Tonya Harding fat because she doesn’t have the same hot dog legs as most skaters do. It’s not how you look, it’s what you can do!