My Coaching Style & Philosophies
Every coach has their own coaching style. This is what I believe in that is reflected in how I coach:
-I treat skaters with intelligence because I am teaching them to think for themselves, be resourceful and to be independent. I do this to set them up for the highest levels of skating. When you are at the top levels, working on a show or simply attending a camp, nobody is going to coddle you. You will be expected to be on time, prepared and ready to go despite the fact that your flight was cancelled, your blade came loose five times in practice or that you had a flu bug the day before. The fact that you skated well despite all of that is what will make you prevail and what sets apart the normal athletes from the exceptional.
- Skating takes an incredible amount of intrinsic motivation, and this is something that I have to guide. When you are younger, there are decisions I will make or things you will participate in as a skater to help you become more internally motivated. As you become older, more things are going to become your responsibility as the athlete because it is YOUR skating, and you have to be the driver behind it. For skaters who become very high level, skaters and I have more of a mutual relationship to achieve the best results and to make the best decisions for the skater because at that point, the drive in the skater is very clear.
-I have high expectations for my skaters. Therefore, I believe in challenging skaters and working hard so skaters can achieve more than they realize that they could or to attain the big goals they have set for themselves. Skaters need to rise to the level of expectations for them to move themselves forward. Even if the skater decides not to pursue their big goal someday, I know that their training will still open doors for them since they have had high quality training.
-Skating is an education. Skating is more than just skating itself~ if you really pursue skating, you will learn about many other things along the way, and that is what makes this journey worthwhile, exciting and helps skater’s figure out who they really are, so I try to keep skaters as educated as possible along the way.
- I try to keep skating as positive as possible! I much prefer positive reinforcement over anything else, I try to be as encouraging as possible and mistakes are okay as long as we learn from them. However, sometimes we have to be realistic, have discipline, and I am always the coach and my role is to keep things moving forward.
-I always bear in mind the skater’s safety and well-being. A lot of my odd discipline rules are safety issues. For example, I don’t think skaters should spend most of their skating time falling (unless it’s a double axel or triple jumps) simply because skaters are more likely to get injured unnecessarily if they fall all of the time. I also don’t let the skaters lean on the boards because I’ve watched a lot of skaters who lean on the wall, and then their feet slip out from under them, and then the skater has a concussion.
On the “About” page, I have listed values and philosophies I abide by, and here is a more specific values and philosophies that we follow:
We Set Ourselves Up for Success
Our actions and decisions have to set ourselves up for success. The little things that we do everyday cumulates into conquering the big challenges.
We are Always Learning & Growing
Skating is an ongoing learning process for everyone! Skating is always changing and evolving, and we grow with it!
We Work Through Problems/the Hard Stuff
Just because things become hard or even boring, we don’t give up or try to find the easy way out. We find ways to work through our problems, and we have patience and trust the training process. Skating is not a simple sport so we need to break down problems and learn and grow from them.
Trust
For me to train skaters the best, I have to trust the families and skaters, and they have to trust me. We work together to help the skater become successful in this sport.
Integrity & Honesty
We maintain great sportsmanship by having integrity and honesty. This allows us to become our best selves through sport. I am also honest with families, and they are honest with me so that we work together to make the best decisions for the skater and their individual goals.
Discipline & Accountability
In psychology, discipline means self-control. We control our behaviors and actions so that we can achieve our goals, especially long term goals. We also have to be accountable for our actions~ you either do the work or you don’t. Skating is full of natural consequences so being accountable usually helps kids figure this out faster.