Why do I get so upset?

Hello! I'm new here, so if this topic belongs anywhere else, feel free to move it.
My name is Emily and I'm 17. I've been skating for a few months now and I do 2 lessons a week, I also have 11 years of ballet training.
Right now, I am working on toeloops and scratch spins, and I am finding that I am getting EXTREMELY frustrated with myself when I practice without my coach. Mainly because of spins. My lesson on Teusday focused on crossing my leg over in my spins, and I've been trying to practice it, but I see NO improvement. Today, when I went to practice, I worked as hard as I could and still, nothing gets easier.
I was just wondering why I am not seeing any improvement, and how I can keep from getting so upset, sometimes to the point of crying, on the ice. How should I structure my practices, and what can I do to help my spins? I find it hard to cross my leg over, and I find myself falling to my inside edge a lot.

Any advice at all would be greatly appreciated. Thanks xx

Hi Emily. I am not a skater, so I do not have any advice. But I can welcome you to Golden Skate! Thanks for joining us. Post often, post long!

Give yourself time, Emily. It sounds as though you're determined to become a proficient figure skater, and your years of dance training will be helpful to you, I'm sure.

ENJOY yourself, and much success!!!

Hi Emily - I actually just started ballet less than a year ago. In class, I lose my posture -arches of my foot drop, tailbone sticks out, my ribs aren't "stapled" to the back of my chest, my shoulder rise, etc. - the instant I begin a dance move, even if it's something "simple" like a tendue. I have never found simply standing up to be so difficult! I haven't seen much, if any, improvement either. But, ballet is something I do for fun. So while I do focus on technique and trying to improve, I take the class because mostly because I enjoying dancing.

With skating, if a move isn't going so well, forget about it for awhile and start practicing something else. If I popped a jump 5 times in a row, and was getting frustrated, I'd move on to something else. No point aggravating yourself (or training yourself to do something incorrectly). You can always come back to the spin later in the session. Figure skating isn't easy (if it were, it would be called hockey ).

You can also ask your coach for more basic drills that can help with the moves you're working on. That way you can practice your spins by focusing on a specific component of the required technique, without actually doing the spin over and over and getting frustrated. For example, when I started working on my flying camel, my coach just had me practice the entry of the spin - the outside edge to hitting the toe pick, without actually doing the flying or the spinning part. We slowly built up the spin from there, in several steps. If I was having a bad day, I'd go back several steps and work on the part that was giving me trouble.

Hope this helps, but like silverpond said, it takes time! Make sure you enjoy it, and eventually, you will see an improvement in your skating.

When you get frustrated by a certain move, stop, take some deep breaths and stroke a couple laps or do a couple of a move you're really comfortable with. Also it helps to remember that you need to be working hard in the right way. If your frustrated that means its time to take a break because working when frustrated is how you can end up injuring yourself. I had the same problem when I was starting at the test level. Remember that skating is hard and everyone progresses at their own rate. Everyone who's ever skated has had at least one move that took them forever to get right. A couple of months isn't very long and you probably are improving, it just doesn't feel like it. Improvements can be small and you as the skater might not be able to feel them, but they are progressing you in the right direction.

As for your spins, I can't say for sure as I haven't seen you skate but it sounds like you're not getting your weight fully over your skating side or possibly letting your hips go soft. Try pulling up through the head, neck and torso, just like in ballet. Also if you have the ballet background there is a possibility that your turnout is giving you problems. You want your hips to be square on a scratch spin and slightly closed on your jumps.

Emily, I think others above have given you some excellent advice. I can't and won't give you technical advice but your problem is your mind so maybe I can try to help you understand why you feel as you do.

So why do you get so upset? The question should be posed to yourself. Why are you skating? What is your goal? If you skate because you love it and you want to, it doesn't make sense to feel anything but joy. If you have ambition to reach a certain level of competence, then feeling upset and frustrated is most counter productive. Do you have unrealistic time frame for your progress? Are you doing the proper skill level? Why are you so hard on yourself? Or is somebody else or your situation hard on you? Are you being unnecessarily competitive with someone? Are you comparing your progress and feelings on ice to those while learning ballet? Are there extrinsic factors, e.g. parents, peers or social pressure, etc? You need to get rid of unnecessary, unwarrented and unfair pressures and demands on you.

Your frustration happens when you are practising on your own. Since you have only 1 or 2 lessons a week with your coach, it is obviously not enough for you. Are you frustrated with having a coach for so little time, which is incongruent to your desire and ambition? Can you change this situation? Are you upset because you can't? Can you ask your coach for help outside lessons like you just did here? Is there a more advanced skater on ice who can observe you and point out anything obvious?

If your access to a coach is limited and much less than you wish, you need to maximize the benefit of lesson time and your practice time. Communicate clearly with your coach exactly what your problems are and listen intently, and don't waste valuable time venting or focusing on your frustration. If you love skating and are doing it out of your own choice and free will, be grateful and treasure every minute you have on ice. Be your own good humoured best friend and laugh at yourself a bit when you begin to feel upset. Take deep breaths and remind yourself that being upset and frustrated is the worst thing against your goal and desire. Relax and do something that makes you feel good. When you come back to try it again, focus, remembering your coach's instruction, or any insight you get from watching good skaters do the same element, not on your last failure and frustration. Do not anticipate failure and frustration. Believe and know you are improving.

Do a lot of mental practice. Thinking about failures is practicing failures. Instead, picture yourself doing your spin beautifully and perfectly, from entry to exit, just as your most admired skater does. Feel good about it. This is best done right before you fall asleep, and visualize it again upon waking and right before getting on ice. (An epiphany may hit you upon waking or some other time when you are relaxed.) When you practice again, focus on the moment, not past or future, and trust yourself to do well as in your visualization. Do not remember and do not anticipate failures. You will be amazed at the new ease or at least the realization of how to improve your technique.

Love and appreciate yourself.

I wish you the best and hope for some good reports.

Emily, I can completely understand where you're coming from. I started skating when I was older, after years of dance and gymnastics, and after a few months I was about at the point you're at and also struggling with spins. The speed of the spin and the fact that it's too fast to spot had me on my back side a lot for the first month, and even after that I thought I'd never be a great spinner, but with time it's become one of my favorite parts of skating. Something to remember here is that skating, though it has many similarities to dance, still has very different biomechanics and physical forces, and it will take time for your mind to figure out that you have to move your muscles differently than you do when you dance.

With eleven years of ballet, I imagine that you are used to brining your toe to your knee and maintaining turn out during pirouettes. This won't work the same in skating, and could possibly pull you off your center. Your coach has probably covered the proper leg position, and please take his/her advice before mine, but it helps to remember that scratch spins pass through an "h" position instead, with the knee facing forward, and the foot pointed straight down to the ice, not brought in towards the body. After this "h" position is attained and you still have your center, then you can bring your foot around your leg and pull in more easily. Additionally, in the long run, this will give you more centrifical force when you do pull in. Perhaps you can practice centering your spins before pulling in, and then only trying to cross the legs when you're comfortable on your center. After you've started your spin from whatever entrance you're comfortable with, try centering with your arms in second position, and your free leg mirroring the arm above it, extended to start. Once you're comfortable there, bring your arms to fifth en avant and your free leg to the "h" position. Make sure your knee is bent to only 90 degrees at this point, no more. Work on centering the spin in this "h" position. Once you're comfortable there, think of bringing your knee slightly across your body before pulling in. This turning in of the leg may feel awkward at first. Pull in only so far as you feel you can with control. Eventually you'll be able to bring your leg all the way across and slide your free foot down towards your ankle, but don't rush it. Though there are similarities between your center in dance and your center in skating, there are also some differences that you need to get used to.

Another thing that might help is allowing your skating knee to stay slightly soft instead of pulling up through the knee as you would in ballet. This slight softness is very subtle, not even really a bend, but it's important to centering your spins. Also, if you're entering your spin from the tradition spin entrance with a step forward to outside edge, be sure you're stepping "into" the circle you were on on your backward inside edge before the step, and not behind . You'll make more of a 90 degree angle and should feel you're momentum is going forward as you push into the spin, and not sideways. This will allow you to curl that edge into the spin a bit tighter, and thus your spin will be tighter and more centered after the 3-turn that starts it.

I've used all of these techniques and more to overcome dancing habits and make my skating spins better. If I'm working on my spin entrances, I'll think something along the lines of "into the circle, tight edge, soft knee, second position, h, pull-in" as a way of giving myself mental cues that I can attatch to the ideas of what my muscles should be doing.

Some of this can be practiced off-ice as well. The movement from the open/second position into the "h" position can be done in tennis shoes, and this exercise might help if you find yourself subconciously trying to maintain turn-out into your spins on ice. At the same time, you can practice keeping your standing/skating knee softer.

I often get frustrated on the ice, too, although I've gotten better about that with time. Coming from a background where dance movements seemed to come more naturally than skating movements, I expected skating to be less foreign to me. My first coach was constantly reminding me that skating is not a natural motion, and that my body will need time to learn the totally new muscle memory it needs. Nothing else we do- dancing, walking, even just holding a position on the floor- requires us to cope with the fact that we are on a moving blade. Our bodies intrinsically react to that strange new motion in ways they would have if they were stationary, and this just doesn't work; as such, we have to learn to move in a new way. My coach reminded me of this again and again as he could see me getting frustrated that I couldn't just do everything right away. Also, I had hoped that my initial pace of progress would be maintained through higher levels as well, but I've found that that thinking was completely unrealistic. I'd love to believe that I could have gotten doubles over a summer of work like Casey did in the movie "Ice Princess," but in reality it takes most people, young and old, years to master singles and basic doubles and the spins and steps that go with those levels. I've had to learn I can't force it, as much as I really want to, and that I need to instead focus on what I need to work on instead of what I think I should be doing. It's not easy for me, and I still get frustrated to the point of stomping the ice and grumbling at myself, but I find that if I focus on technical things to work on I'm a bit better with solo practice.

I don't know if that all helps, but I hope it does.

I think it is wonderful to see people in the ice skating community trying to help and offering suggestions. There are so many things that can cause frustration, my daughter is 9 and completely lost her double salchow. Was totally consistent, then, bam, cant land a single one. She would get so frustrated, but like the advice given by these nice people on this thread, she began working on something else and truly it helps. Just do your best and dont rush it. Do it the right way first, because bad habits are soooo very hard to break in this sport. Good luck and ENJOY your skating!

I would recommend relaxing and focusing on one piece of the technique at a time. This has been my process for getting consistency in each and every new thing I learn. For me I can't concentrate on getting arms and head and shoulders and hips and knee and feet correct all at once, so I focus "bottom up" so to speak in that I focus on what my feet are doing first until I can do it the same way every time then I work on knees and hips and then core and then shoulders and arms. This helps me build incremental improvement on an element and keeps me from getting frustrated because I can't do it immediately. (This is part of your problem - you are impatient and are expecting it to come instantly. Skating isn't like that and sometimes there is something that should be easy that takes you seemingly forever to get and sometimes there is something that should take a long time that you get almost right away). Stop, relax, and enjoy the trip because if you are going to stick with this sport in the long haul, you can't get worked up when something doesn't work immediately.

Hello Emily, I am new to the forums as well and like you, I had strict ballet training before I tried skating. In fact, I was forced out of skating by my ballet teacher due to a skating injury and I do have some good advice for you. Listen to Moonlight Skater !!!!! I have no idea who this person is but, I can tell you from experience. This is exactly correct !!!

From the upper post. " Something to remember here is that skating, though it has many similarities to dance, still has very different biomechanics and physical forces, and it will take time for your mind to figure out that you have to move your muscles differently than you do when you dance.

With eleven years of ballet, I imagine that you are used to brining your toe to your knee and maintaining turn out during pirouettes. This won't work the same in skating, and could possibly pull you off your center. Your coach has probably covered the proper leg position, and please take his/her advice before mine, but it helps to remember that scratch spins pass through an "h" position instead, with the knee facing forward, and the foot pointed straight down to the ice, not brought in towards the body. "

If I could give advice to parents when thinking about putting their kids into skating, it would be. Skate first, then go to dance class. The muscle memory you get from years of ballet conflict in many ways to skating. Believe me, I felt your pain at the rink many, many times. It sucked to be so good in ballet, then go to the rink and fall like the worst beginner in the rink. Finally, during a moment of frustration, I got injured and never skated again.

Emily, it's decision time. Skate for love or it's going to be an expensive, painful, time consuming experience that you, and your parents, will regret you ever tried. Advice, tell your coach everything. I mean everything, not just the spin problem but the reason you become frustrated when things don't go well. " I could be at the mall with my friends "/ " I can't believe I gave up Cheer for this "/ and one of my inner demons " I can't believe --- can do this spin and I can't " . Every good skater has an ego and nothing is worse than seeing someone else get something before they do.

I know this is probably more than you wanted to hear but, I have one last thing for you. Your mind is best friend when it comes to training for almost anything. Prepare, write things down before and after practice. Reward your success, and evaluate failure and the steps needed to fix your problem. It's hard work but the benefits are huge and well worth it. Good luck, and keep us posted on your progress.

WOW! Today I spent most of the day reading through all the posts, and all I can say is this advice is GOLDEN!
I just got home from my practice today...and overall, I think it went REALLY good!
It started off shaky...my crossovers on my weak side weren't as good as they were last week but I'll work on those.
My spins seemed to improve by leaps and bounds it seem!! Something that has helped me for some reason is to pull up as I bring my leg down, like there is a string going through my head and down my torso that pulls up as I bring my foot down.
Also, I am thinking about starting a skating practice journal, where I keep a journal of my practices. Right after my practice, I'm going to write down what I worked on that practice, what went bad, what went good, goals I achieved, and goals for the next practice. Maybe this will help me focus my practices and note my improvement. I might share it on here as well

Thanks again SO MUCH everyone for all the advice!!

Also remember that figure skating is a journey, not a destination. That journey is full of ups and downs and plateaus. Just when you get frustrated because something hasn't improved in weeks, you have a moment where you go "Aha!" and all of a sudden you get it. Then it's gone the next session. Then it comes back in two weeks. Then you try a different entry and "Aha!" happens again. Remember to celebrate the "Aha!"s. Analyze the plateaus and downs objectively AFTER you leave the ice. Listen critically to your coach and make sure you understand what he/she wants you to work on and HOW they want you to work on it. You've been skating for such a short time, really. Just because you don't get something right away even though you think you should is no cause for frustration. Heck, I've worked on this one element for over a year and it still comes and goes.

Great advice here! One more thing to remember is to keep your skating knee deeply bent and your free leg extended way behind you until you've made a half circle on the ice with your spin entrance edge. To make a half circle, you will probably have to *feel* like you've made a full circle. If you practice your entrance edge starting from a T position (spinning foot front and facing forward) on a hockey line, you can look at your tracings and see if your entrance edge curled all the way back to the line before you started your spin. When you do bring your free leg through, keep your foot facing forward so your hip is closed. Also, keep it fairly low and close, not high and in a wide arc. You'll be amazed at how little resistance you feel when bringing it through, and how easy it is to bring it all the way in front of you! Like most things in skating, it's about timing and technique, not power.

And Emily, whatever you do, do NOT take jazz dancing. Wait until you are totally secure about your edges. Jazz dancing with its oppositions will throw you off when trying to hold especially outside edge. Ballet is more complementary, except for its rigid knees. I am sure you realize you will have to soften your knees for skating. Great advice from MoonlightSkater.

Welcome Emily. It's always frustrating when one practices and practices and does not seem to make any progress. I skated for many years and can remember moments like yours. It's normal. My advice about the spin is to practice a two foot spin until you feel really centered, then try a one foot spin. Just bring your free leg up to your knee. Once you get the hang of it, you will find the crossfoot spin not so dificult. With spins, the key is being centred and not on your toe picks. I hope this helps.

I know the feeling, I'm tough with myself, but what works for me is to let go of skating for a few hours a day, go out, have fun ... and you'll see that if you relax and enjoy yourself, you'll get it.