Learning skating for beginners (kids and adults)

It's the second time some family friends ask me to teach their kids to skate. To me, this translates to take the kids skating on a public skate session. And I would absolutely love to. And I would also love to present to the parents that don't skate themselves and are not familiar with skating,  what options they have for their kids AND for themselves.

The first option is to skate around during public skate, nothing fancy. Learning to skate around the rink I would say is like learning to ride a bike. You need a little help (few private lessons or lessons from friends) to start, and then you get more comfortable as you do it more and more. Public skating is usually offered just during the weekend. I'm talking about the covered rinks, but of course  there are the outdoor rinks in the winter. You can rent the skates.

Now if the kids (or adults)  love it and they want to learn some fancy skills, that is gonna take time. The skills need to be broken down and learnt step by step and the body needs time to get comfortable and memorize the strange positions we are trying to get to. It takes time, patience and commitment to a schedule. The options here are group lessons and private coaching. And buying your own skates... Beginner skates are around $150, intermediate around $250. Specialty stores also sell used skates, a good idea because kids feet grow quickly plus used skates are already "broken in".

Most skating rinks are affiliated with the local park district and they have group classes, for different ages and different level. The price in my area is around $100 for 2 months of once a week class. You can rent skates for around $5 per class. I decided after skating twice that I need my own skates as the rental ones were too wide for me so hard to control. Group lessons have a curriculum for each level and a testing in each session. There are 5-6 beginner levels, and then 8-10 Freestyle levels and specialty classes like for example Ice Dancing. Beginner kids  are encouraged to practice once more a week. Now, for the first level beginners is hard to practice on their own as they don't know what to practice, but even being on ice on public skating time is helpful. Beginners usually pass a level after one or two sessions.

I think group lessons are great for all levels, as they offer skating buddies that inspire and motivate each other. Being enrolled in group lessons also allows the students to participate in the ice show each rink organizes every year. Parents also get to meet other parents and learn from their experiences.

My biggest regret in my learning to skate journey is that I didn't start private coaching earlier. I started when I was in Freestyle 4 level. Private lessons are expensive as you pay for the ice time $7-12 per hour and the coach time $50-90 per hour. As the student gets to Freestyle level, there is no way for a correct understanding of technique without personalized explanation. But starting private lessons from beginner level will get the basics solid from the beginning. Private lessons started later will anyhow have to correct the basics...

There are local competitions starting from beginner levels. The entry fee I think is around $100-200. Most of the kids get excited to dress up, skate on music and be a star and they are motivated to work harder and polish their skills.

The last thing I want to mention is progress expectation. Firstly, while a beginner, a skater doesn't look much like the skaters we see on TV. I would say students start to look as skaters just at intermediate level. So patience!!!  Secondly, how quickly somebody progresses varies a lot depending on personal abilities and how much time is put into it. Let's say these beginners skills could be learnt in 6 months to 2 years.