Developing a Good Stride: Skate Less?

What's the best way to develop a good skater? If you listen to all the hype it's to do clinic after clinic, AAA leagues, and private lessons. Basically, what most skating coaches will tell you is this: "Johnny's stride is good, but he bends at the waist a little too much. He doesn't get low enough a lot." They might go on and on about a certain issue with Johnny's mechanics. He doesn't extend fully or doesn't use his full blade on his crossovers.

Now, as a skating coach, these are things that I tell my clients too! Here's the ticker though. Teaching proper skating technique is like learning a language. If you pronounce a word wrong, your teacher immediately corrects you because if you continue to pronounce it incorrectly, you will LEARN that word incorrectly Eventually, let's say you say the same word incorrectly 50 times, you will need to say it the right away a lot more before your brain fixes the mistake.

When kids go to clinic after clinic, AAA league to youth association season, to private lessons, they simply don't get any rest. A kid that is fatigued is like a language-learner that is continually mis-pronouncing words. Even if a kid performs proper repetitions with a skating coach, if he goes to two hour AAA practices that night, he'll be too tired that entire time to skate correctly. He'll shorten his stride, bend at the waist, lift part of the blade up, get sloppy on his edges, etc.

When this happens, parents and child alike get concerned. The natural tendency is to do more. It's to hire a skating coach and sign-up for some new skating clinics. This tendency may not be the right one. If a kid is skating a lot already, the issue simply can't be resolved by doing more. It will only be made worse because bad habits will be re-enforced. Even if the youth athlete works hard at skating lessons and performs repetitions correctly, they will mean nothing if he skates poorly throughout the rest of the week. The good will be erased by the bad.

Remember: Repetitions make permanent, not perfect. Developing a good stride requires an insistence on perfection and an attention to detail. It also requires proper rest and recover. Depending on the child, he or she may need more rest or more practice. However, in general I think we are seeing a trend where what kids need more quality less quantity.