How much are lessons nowadays?

renla said:

In my case, I was set up with a coach through my rink's skating director based on availability, which probably wasn't the best way. But I mesh well with his teaching style and he adapts to my personality, so I lucked out!

Click to expand...

The private lesson brochure here, which lists all the coach bios, says in it to contact the skating director regarding availability of coaches. I think most of the students though, had their private instructors when starting out with group lessons. Supposedly the coaches are not supposed to solicit group lesson students to get private students, but I have heard coaches complaining about other coaches doing it.

Annelegato said:

How long should I typical trial lesson be? How long should it take for me to know if I like this coach's teaching style or not ?

Click to expand...

One or two 30-minute lessons should be enough to tell. Don't be afraid to ask a lot of questions during the lesson as well.

treesprite said:

The private lesson brochure here, which lists all the coach bios, says in it to contact the skating director regarding availability of coaches. I think most of the students though, had their private instructors when starting out with group lessons. Supposedly the coaches are not supposed to solicit group lesson students to get private students, but I have heard coaches complaining about other coaches doing it.

Click to expand...

Oh, I didn't know that coaches weren't supposed to do that. I guess going through the director makes everything fair as far as how many students a coach gets?

It's a foggy area. PSA changed rules, so private coaches are now allowed to solicit IF their rinks allow it. But then group lessons complicate matters, because it involves the coach taking advantage of the students and the program, which is beyond the scope of simple solicitation.

There are adult skaters at this rink who take from whatever coach is available at whatever time the skater decides to do a lesson. The coaches don't seem to mind sharing the adult skaters in that way, but I don't know that they would want to do it with advanced young skaters who are training for qualifying competition (beyond it being just a matter of specialty areas).

Make sure the person you chose is actually contracted at your rink. Sometimes when I'm guarding, coaches come up to me about people they don't recognize who appear to be teaching. Even our old skating director went as far as to say that that even friends and parents are not allowed to teach, and managers will sometimes either ask me to question a person or will do it themselves if they don't recognize someone. I've had some people get really upset over being told they can't teach their own kids. Our newer skating director isnt so rigid about it.

renla said:

Oh, I didn't know that coaches weren't supposed to do that. I guess going through the director makes everything fair as far as how many students a coach gets?

Click to expand...

To clarify, if you as a student are taking a group class and you want to approach that coach, or any coach, that is totally fine. Those guidelines only refer to coaches approaching students.