Juggling freestyle, moves, and ice dance | Golden Skate

Juggling freestyle, moves, and ice dance

skatingbeast

Rinkside
Joined
Nov 14, 2019
Country
United-States
Hello! I'm an adult skater who after a few years of doing freestyle and moves has added in ice dance (which I'm loving). I'm trying to figure out how to organize my practices now that I need to work on my dances and was wondering if anyone has recommendations for juggling the different disciplines. Ice dance is my new, exciting thing right now so I'm having to remind myself not to spend all of my time on dance.

I also went from two lessons a week with my moves/freestyle coach to one lesson a week to accommodate my ice dance lesson. I feel like moves and freestyle is a lot to try and fit into one lesson a week but I'm hoping it works out.
 

Ic3Rabbit

Former Elite, now Pro. ⛸️
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 9, 2017
Country
Olympics
Hello! I'm an adult skater who after a few years of doing freestyle and moves has added in ice dance (which I'm loving). I'm trying to figure out how to organize my practices now that I need to work on my dances and was wondering if anyone has recommendations for juggling the different disciplines. Ice dance is my new, exciting thing right now so I'm having to remind myself not to spend all of my time on dance.

I also went from two lessons a week with my moves/freestyle coach to one lesson a week to accommodate my ice dance lesson. I feel like moves and freestyle is a lot to try and fit into one lesson a week but I'm hoping it works out.

Are you considering going full in on ice dance and making that your discipline, or are you saying ice dance because you are learning the dance patterns for tests.

The answers to those questions will help me determine what further advice to give you.
 

skatingbeast

Rinkside
Joined
Nov 14, 2019
Country
United-States
Are you considering going full in on ice dance and making that your discipline, or are you saying ice dance because you are learning the dance patterns for tests.

The answers to those questions will help me determine what further advice to give you.

Right now I’m not planning on going full on ice dance. It’s too early for me to make that call. I just learned all three preliminary dances across 4 lessons and my ice dance coach asked if I would want to test my dances (vs just learn for fun) and said he thinks I’d do well with testing. I said I would like to test the patterns.

I’m also working on a moves test and working towards a freestyle test as well. Right now I plan on continuing with freestyle as well although if I continue to love dance I could see myself putting more of a focus on it at some point.
 

silver.blades

Medalist
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Country
Canada
As someone who did freeskate, dance and skills (Canadian moves) through my entire skating career, I'd recommend looking into multiple coaches. Once I'd made it past the preliminary tests, I had a freeskate coach and a dance/skills coach. This helped me budget my time as the different coaches were focusing on different things. Whatever you want to focus on the most is the coach that only teaches 1 discipline. I was a freeskater, so I got to spend more time on freeskate as my skills/dance coach had to divide their lessons with me between the two. Other skaters at my rink had a coach who focused exclusively on dance and then a freeskate/skills coach.

I know this isn't an option for everyone, but it does help with time management.
 

skatingbeast

Rinkside
Joined
Nov 14, 2019
Country
United-States
As someone who did freeskate, dance and skills (Canadian moves) through my entire skating career, I'd recommend looking into multiple coaches. Once I'd made it past the preliminary tests, I had a freeskate coach and a dance/skills coach. This helped me budget my time as the different coaches were focusing on different things. Whatever you want to focus on the most is the coach that only teaches 1 discipline. I was a freeskater, so I got to spend more time on freeskate as my skills/dance coach had to divide their lessons with me between the two. Other skaters at my rink had a coach who focused exclusively on dance and then a freeskate/skills coach.

This is great advice! I think right now I want to focus on dance, while keeping up with my freeskate. I'll try the freeskate/skills with one coach and then keep my dance lesson focused on just dance with my other coach and see how it goes. Thanks!
 

sandraskates

Final Flight
Joined
Oct 31, 2006
Country
United-States
I suggest dividing up your practice time. I am currently working on MITF and freestyle. Depending on how long the freestyle or public session is, I generally divide my time in half for each.
And I have one 1/2 hour lesson per week with my coach. I decide beforehand what we'll work on - it's usually what has been frustrating me the most. Sometimes we work more on one discipline over another, or I just divide that instructional time in half as well.

Once upon a time I did ice dance and back then many rinks had devoted ice dance sessions. If you're lucky and your rink does, I'd suggest using that for dance, and use other sessions to concentrate on moves and free.

I think the way you have divided up your lessons is fine. If the call of ice dancing lures you further then you can increase that discipline and decrease another. You'll figure it out (no pun intended :) ).
 

Ic3Rabbit

Former Elite, now Pro. ⛸️
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 9, 2017
Country
Olympics
I suggest dividing up your practice time. I am currently working on MITF and freestyle. Depending on how long the freestyle or public session is, I generally divide my time in half for each.
And I have one 1/2 hour lesson per week with my coach. I decide beforehand what we'll work on - it's usually what has been frustrating me the most. Sometimes we work more on one discipline over another, or I just divide that instructional time in half as well.

Once upon a time I did ice dance and back then many rinks had devoted ice dance sessions. If you're lucky and your rink does, I'd suggest using that for dance, and use other sessions to concentrate on moves and free.

I think the way you have divided up your lessons is fine. If the call of ice dancing lures you further then you can increase that discipline and decrease another. You'll figure it out (no pun intended :) ).

Agree with this.
 

bunnybarista

If I risk it all, could you break my fall?~
On the Ice
Joined
May 27, 2018
I'm also an adult skater doing both disciplines, though I started in ice dance and semi-reluctantly was dragged into freestyle haha... I now enjoy freestyle, but ice dance remains #1 for me. I have three lessons a week - one devoted solely to edgework/footwork (with a smidge of partnering), and then two where we do a pretty even mix of freestyle and dance. We don't divide the time in half, per se, but let things flow organically... maybe we start with jumps, then do some MITF elements that transition into a compulsory dance, then maybe back to some freestyle, etc. Honestly, at this level, I wish I was able to have more than three lessons a week - it's tricky to fit in everything that I want to work on in that time, and it makes me a little sad when we don't get through all the dance things that I want to in a week. I'd say we kind of rotate through elements... whatever we didn't do the previous week, we'll focus more on the next week. Of course, I practice a lot outside of my lessons, but practicing dances by myself isn't quite the same as doing them partnered. In a perfect world, I'd probably want to add in a fourth lesson a week that was just partnering. A girl can dream... :luv17:

Best of luck in finding a good balance between the disciplines, and welcome to ice dancing! :biggrin::clap:
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
I pretty much always do the same things in my ice dance lessons -- exercises for warming up in general and for warming up skills in the two dances I'm working on, then patterns of the dance I'm more comfortable with, then my least favorite move in the other dance, then patterns of that dance.

I'm kind of winding down my singles career and may stop lessons with that coach in 2020, whom I started with in 2003. My body can't handle most of the freestyle moves I used to do, or some of the moves on the moves tests I was working on, let alone learning new ones, so it's mostly all about combining and varying the limited repertoire of skills I can do into different programs with different music and working on my performance skills.

But if my body were more cooperative, I'd do more.
 

WednesdayMarch

Nicer When Fed
Medalist
Joined
Mar 24, 2019
Country
United-Kingdom
I suggest dividing up your practice time. I am currently working on MITF and freestyle. Depending on how long the freestyle or public session is, I generally divide my time in half for each.
And I have one 1/2 hour lesson per week with my coach. I decide beforehand what we'll work on - it's usually what has been frustrating me the most. Sometimes we work more on one discipline over another, or I just divide that instructional time in half as well.

Once upon a time I did ice dance and back then many rinks had devoted ice dance sessions. If you're lucky and your rink does, I'd suggest using that for dance, and use other sessions to concentrate on moves and free.

I think the way you have divided up your lessons is fine. If the call of ice dancing lures you further then you can increase that discipline and decrease another. You'll figure it out (no pun intended :) ).

Yep. Agree with that.

One thing I would add is that you should find that learning ice dance raises the quality of your skating and edgework generally, whether you decide to test patterns or not.
 

skatingbeast

Rinkside
Joined
Nov 14, 2019
Country
United-States
I suggest dividing up your practice time. I am currently working on MITF and freestyle. Depending on how long the freestyle or public session is, I generally divide my time in half for each.
And I have one 1/2 hour lesson per week with my coach. I decide beforehand what we'll work on - it's usually what has been frustrating me the most. Sometimes we work more on one discipline over another, or I just divide that instructional time in half as well.

I think the way you have divided up your lessons is fine. If the call of ice dancing lures you further then you can increase that discipline and decrease another. You'll figure it out (no pun intended :) ).

Thanks for the advice! Making sure to divide the lesson time in half for the freestyle/MITF less has been one of my struggles as well. I may need to talk with my coach to make sure we're working on both more equally now that I've gone to one lesson a week with that coach.
 

skatingbeast

Rinkside
Joined
Nov 14, 2019
Country
United-States
I'm also an adult skater doing both disciplines, though I started in ice dance and semi-reluctantly was dragged into freestyle haha... I now enjoy freestyle, but ice dance remains #1 for me. I have three lessons a week - one devoted solely to edgework/footwork (with a smidge of partnering), and then two where we do a pretty even mix of freestyle and dance. We don't divide the time in half, per se, but let things flow organically... maybe we start with jumps, then do some MITF elements that transition into a compulsory dance, then maybe back to some freestyle, etc. Honestly, at this level, I wish I was able to have more than three lessons a week - it's tricky to fit in everything that I want to work on in that time, and it makes me a little sad when we don't get through all the dance things that I want to in a week. I'd say we kind of rotate through elements... whatever we didn't do the previous week, we'll focus more on the next week. Of course, I practice a lot outside of my lessons, but practicing dances by myself isn't quite the same as doing them partnered. In a perfect world, I'd probably want to add in a fourth lesson a week that was just partnering. A girl can dream... :luv17:

Best of luck in finding a good balance between the disciplines, and welcome to ice dancing! :biggrin::clap:

Thank you! I wish I could do three lessons! I'm hoping every now and then I may be able to add in a third lesson. It sounds like you have one coach for all disciplines? Most of the coaches at my rink who coach dance don't coach any freestyle so I have two coaches. I'm still getting used to skating with a partner so right now I really like to practice the patterns by myself but that may change as I move past the preliminary patterns.

I pretty much always do the same things in my ice dance lessons -- exercises for warming up in general and for warming up skills in the two dances I'm working on, then patterns of the dance I'm more comfortable with, then my least favorite move in the other dance, then patterns of that dance.

I'm kind of winding down my singles career and may stop lessons with that coach in 2020, whom I started with in 2003. My body can't handle most of the freestyle moves I used to do, or some of the moves on the moves tests I was working on, let alone learning new ones, so it's mostly all about combining and varying the limited repertoire of skills I can do into different programs with different music and working on my performance skills.

But if my body were more cooperative, I'd do more.

My ice dance lessons sound fairly similar. I really like that we do stroking and progressives at the start of almost every lesson. Right now I'm going to keep up with freestyle, but I've been very frustrated with my lack of progress, so I may change my mind on that in the future.

One thing I would add is that you should find that learning ice dance raises the quality of your skating and edgework generally, whether you decide to test patterns or not.

I've already noticed this! I feel stronger and more confident in some of my skating skills after only a few weeks of ice dance.
 

bunnybarista

If I risk it all, could you break my fall?~
On the Ice
Joined
May 27, 2018
Thank you! I wish I could do three lessons! I'm hoping every now and then I may be able to add in a third lesson. It sounds like you have one coach for all disciplines? Most of the coaches at my rink who coach dance don't coach any freestyle so I have two coaches. I'm still getting used to skating with a partner so right now I really like to practice the patterns by myself but that may change as I move past the preliminary patterns.

Yes, I guess I am pretty lucky to have found a coach who can teach me both freestyle and dance, including partnering me for tests. My coach's specialty is dance, but ironically he most often coaches freestyle to his students so he's gotten quite adept at teaching both. I should have mentioned that the lesson with the focus on edge drills is a group class with several dance coaches, whereas the other two are private lessons where we divide our time as I mentioned above. The group lesson helps keep things economical, plus it can be fun with a different perspective from multiple coaches.

While it can be easier to practice dances by yourself (no need to worry about tripping over each other haha), I've always enjoyed the stability of a partner, especially once you're skating backwards and doing turns at high speed :drama: It definitely takes some getting used to, but I hope you'll come to love skating with a partner! :)
 

Flying Feijoa

On the Ice
Joined
Sep 22, 2019
Country
New-Zealand
I'm in a similar boat to skatingbeast, been doing singles for a few years and then started ice dance a year ago.
My schedule has been in a state of flux for the past year due to life being messy, but starting this season I skate 2 sessions per week as follows: Session 1: 30 minutes freestyle lesson (either jumps or spins, usually no time for both) + 1.5 hours practice; Session 2: 30 minutes individual ice dance lesson (focusing on pattern dances) + 30 minutes partnered ice dance lesson (on said patterns) + 30 minutes practice + 15 minutes group stroking class.
I have one coach for freestyle and individual ice dance, and another coach for the partnering (who trained in the same place as her and has similar technique). The group stroking class is led by yet another coach.
I mostly spend my practice time outside of lessons doing edges/turns and freestyle elements. I don't usually spend much time practicing dance patterns unless a test day is coming up, as I sort of count practising the edges/turns as ice dance?? I'm not even sure about the exact division between ice dance and freestyle skating skills (hence started a thread about it).

I don't know if I've distributed my time correctly, as I feel like my freestyle has stagnated a bit (but that could be due to a lot of other factors like changing technique, boot problems...) Also there is a lack of MITF/freestyle skills in my lessons so far apart from the group stroking class. But apparently my posture has improved :shrug:
 
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