Bella & Colin Blog 2: Coaching

Our combined 30 years of skating has been rewarding, satisfying, and three decades of our young lives that we’ve “wasted” – so, why not put it to good use?

Coaching…it’s a glorious lifestyle filled with crying children, overbearing parents, and more time in the god-forsaken rink. Needless to say it’s not a viable option for all skaters, but being both masochistic and desperate for cold hard cash we say, “Why the hell not?” For as awful as we make it seem, coaching has its pluses. For example, you often come across some adorable kids, sweet families, and you get a sense of pride when you see your students improve.

Finally our two weeks vacation arrives, and what do we have planned? Coaching! A friend asked us to come and teach some skating skills and footwork to her Theater On Ice team. While not our typical cast of characters — and by characters we mean 2-4 year olds — we dove right on in. We didn’t feel too far out of our comfort zone when a girl started crying, but what is figure skating without the occasional crier?

We spent two hours working on tracking and skating skills, basically dance 101. The group had diverse skating ability; while some struggled to understand 3-turns, others were able to comprehend intricate tracking. Naturally we had to divide the group into lower and higher level skaters. Of course Colin got the group of higher level tween girls who fell in love with him at first sight, and Bella got the group of awkward pre-teens and the inevitable crier. Sounds like a typical coaching day at Learn To Skate for us, but all the kids seemed to have a great time and learned a lot (except for the crier).

While we sincerely love coaching, it seems that we will be stuck in “Tot-Land” forever! We guess the term “paying your dues” applies to more than just one aspect of skating, but gosh darn it those kids win us over every time. We can’t help but melt when we see those three-foot-tall, big-eyed rascals waddle across the ice like a pack of penguins. With every unruly kid that comes our way, we can’t help but thank him or her for reminding us of 15 years ago when skating was just a hobby for the two of us.