I've had a lot of parents ask, "What is the difference between ISI and USFSA Curriculums?" And I see this question a lot on various forums and Ask Boards. Here's my opinion on it:
ISI is Goal Oriented.
USFSA is Process Oriented.
Let's say the Goal is forward Crossovers... okay. This seems reasonable. It's a concrete thing; we can look at a skater and say, "Yes, she is doing forward crossovers."
But by focusing on the Goal/Element, we lose the Process. I've never stopped working on forward crossovers. Instead of just putting one foot over the other, now I have arm position, body position, free foot elevation and free foot turnout, placement and holding of the skating foot/free foot, and head position to think about. If my butt muscles hurt the day after, I know I did it right. Because Forward Crossover isn't itself a Goal, it is a part of the Process to a Progressive.
USFSA likes the Process of a Forward Crossover, because the process begins with "Glide on one foot," then "Glide on an FO edge on a circle," and finally, "Cross over." The Process makes it easier to graduate to a Progressive; since you're already so comfy on that FO edge, you're more willing to let it slide out behind you on that Progressive. It doesn't seem so insane when Coach has you try it.
ISI just goes for broke and says, "Cross over." And then is when we see kids gliding on a LFO and trying to cross Left over Right and getting confused and frustrated. ISI sets a list of given goals, and assumes that a skater will "connect the dots" so to speak, and intuitively Get the Process as they go. And some skaters can do this and do it very well. Others, like me, need more. This isn't saying one group is dumb and the other smart, it's simply that people learn differently.
I, for example, would have really appreciated some serious time devoted to two-foot turns before I spent six months struggling with FO3's. Now, I take a page from USFSA Basic Skills and spend time on Back to Forward Two Foot turns, just to get comfortable with the motion. I have no intention of repeating the same agony with Back 3's as I did with Forward 3's.
My old coach hated Shoot the Duck. Said it was useless and never had me practice it to any degree.
My new coach made Shoot the Duck as part of my warmup. I do them forwards and backwards on both feet.
Why the difference?
Sit Spins. Shoot the Duck is a part of the Process of doing a good Sit Spin. I knew this from the get-go, and practiced Shoot the Duck anyway, even though Old Coach told me not to bother.
Shoot The Duck is not itself a Goal, it is a part of the Process towards an element down the line.
In fact, one of Old Coach's Former Students called the Sit Spin the $3000 spin, she had so much trouble with it. Could it be that a critical part of the process (learning to do a solid one legged lateral squat in skates) had been omitted?
There are those who disagree with me. That's fine. I can agree to disagree. But I can say what has worked for me, and that's a Process Oriented method, one that doesn't focus on completion of individual steps and elements. Anyone can balance on one foot in skates. Not everyone can do Edge Pulls with ferocity, which is really the only way they get done. Anyone can do crossovers, not everyone can graduate that into pretty Crossrolls.
That having been said, this should answer another question I get asked, "What level are you?"
My rink operates with the ISI curriculum. I don't like it, so I try to operate outside of it. I'm not interested in testing through ISI. I'm gearing up to test USFSA Pre-Bronze MIF (and possibly Freeskate if I can get a Salchow and my spin happening with regularity) this year. I can do elements up to Adult Silver MIF, which is great but I need to get on this whole Jumping bandwagon pretty soon. My best jump right now is a Toe Loop.
So, the answer to that question is, "Don't know, don't care." I can skate pretty good, so let's go with that.
Showing posts with label ISI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ISI. Show all posts
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Can someone explain what's going on?
Okay, for more than a year now, I've watched kids skate in class levels that made no sense. I didn't say anything at the rink, I kept my ranting reserved for this space, and I kept going. No skin off my teeth.
Stitch passed Gamma and Delta yesterday. According to Dad, he was close to passing FS1, but his backwards edges were not "on the line" and while his spiral was high, it wasn't steady. I get the feeling we're being messed with or something. Mysteria is giving him a second chance to pass FS1 on Friday. Dad days Coach worked with him on the missing elements, which we all know are there, but for some reason decided to not happen on this particular day.
I was mad at Stitch because Dad reported he was sporting a rather sour attitude the entire time. I can understand why; having three skating tests tossed at you by surprise is upsetting. But the way to deal with it is not to get angry. (And had we done this my way to begin with, it wouldn't have been an issue at all.) The fact that Stitch chose this moment to wear his best "Mouthy Boy" attitude was what upset me more than the test situation. I came home and had a chat with him, threatening him with a grounding if it kept up. This means no friend's birthday party and no selling flowers this weekend. "Just do the test, I don't care about the result. Do the test and do your best, don't be mean about it. It's rude."
"I did my best, mom, but she just didn't care."
"She cares. She just thinks you're capable of better, and so do I."
Dad is using this moment to call Skating a subjective non-sport. "Coach said she would have passed his spiral, but Mysteria said it wasn't good enough. It's so subjective."
Right, but there's a reason why Coaches can't judge their own kids. I understand the rules, and while it sucks when they don't work in your favor, they stand. Because you know and I know that if Coaches could judge their own kids, chaos would erupt.
Dad tells me that there were somewhere around 25 elements that Stitch had to polish up, remember, and ID on his own to perform for some strange woman we hardly ever see. Mysteria's nice enough, she's just so absent as to be a relative stranger to the kids in her own skating school. Stitch probably sees her as "the woman with the clipboard and patches." And again, had we done this my way, the elements would not have stacked up so high and the test process not as arduous.
**taps head** See, I'm figuring this stuff out. Now I have real ammunition.
After all that, Dad says Coach wants me to cut more music for her. Um, okay, but I'm going to start charging for this stuff. She probably didn't get the memo, so no problem this time. I'll let her know when I see her next. Dad hands me a CD and says, "It's either track 32 or 33, I can't remember."
I play track 32, and I can't get through it without falling off my chair in laughter. It's some ridiculous Techno/Russian/Latin/Can-Can mix. I can't make this stuff up. No. I'm not cutting this because I won't let anyone skate to it. Track 33 is a much better Pop Jazz mix. I cut that. If they come back and say they wanted the other track, I'll have a talk with them about music genres.
I want to know if this was a blanket sweep of competing kids, or was it just a few? Because I can think of a dozen kids right off who would have gotten caught in this dragnet. For one kid in particular, it's a safety issue. No one in good conscience can allow this kid to start doing jumps when he falls on mohawks and runs into the boards on back crossovers out of control, but it's happening. I mean it when I say this, I don't give a rat's ass about him being some kind of threat to Stitch. What I worry about is this kid breaking his neck, and putting a stop to it would be the best thing.
Stitch passed Gamma and Delta yesterday. According to Dad, he was close to passing FS1, but his backwards edges were not "on the line" and while his spiral was high, it wasn't steady. I get the feeling we're being messed with or something. Mysteria is giving him a second chance to pass FS1 on Friday. Dad days Coach worked with him on the missing elements, which we all know are there, but for some reason decided to not happen on this particular day.
I was mad at Stitch because Dad reported he was sporting a rather sour attitude the entire time. I can understand why; having three skating tests tossed at you by surprise is upsetting. But the way to deal with it is not to get angry. (And had we done this my way to begin with, it wouldn't have been an issue at all.) The fact that Stitch chose this moment to wear his best "Mouthy Boy" attitude was what upset me more than the test situation. I came home and had a chat with him, threatening him with a grounding if it kept up. This means no friend's birthday party and no selling flowers this weekend. "Just do the test, I don't care about the result. Do the test and do your best, don't be mean about it. It's rude."
"I did my best, mom, but she just didn't care."
"She cares. She just thinks you're capable of better, and so do I."
Dad is using this moment to call Skating a subjective non-sport. "Coach said she would have passed his spiral, but Mysteria said it wasn't good enough. It's so subjective."
Right, but there's a reason why Coaches can't judge their own kids. I understand the rules, and while it sucks when they don't work in your favor, they stand. Because you know and I know that if Coaches could judge their own kids, chaos would erupt.
Dad tells me that there were somewhere around 25 elements that Stitch had to polish up, remember, and ID on his own to perform for some strange woman we hardly ever see. Mysteria's nice enough, she's just so absent as to be a relative stranger to the kids in her own skating school. Stitch probably sees her as "the woman with the clipboard and patches." And again, had we done this my way, the elements would not have stacked up so high and the test process not as arduous.
**taps head** See, I'm figuring this stuff out. Now I have real ammunition.
After all that, Dad says Coach wants me to cut more music for her. Um, okay, but I'm going to start charging for this stuff. She probably didn't get the memo, so no problem this time. I'll let her know when I see her next. Dad hands me a CD and says, "It's either track 32 or 33, I can't remember."
I play track 32, and I can't get through it without falling off my chair in laughter. It's some ridiculous Techno/Russian/Latin/Can-Can mix. I can't make this stuff up. No. I'm not cutting this because I won't let anyone skate to it. Track 33 is a much better Pop Jazz mix. I cut that. If they come back and say they wanted the other track, I'll have a talk with them about music genres.
I want to know if this was a blanket sweep of competing kids, or was it just a few? Because I can think of a dozen kids right off who would have gotten caught in this dragnet. For one kid in particular, it's a safety issue. No one in good conscience can allow this kid to start doing jumps when he falls on mohawks and runs into the boards on back crossovers out of control, but it's happening. I mean it when I say this, I don't give a rat's ass about him being some kind of threat to Stitch. What I worry about is this kid breaking his neck, and putting a stop to it would be the best thing.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Jumping
Stitch wants to jump. Bad. Last week I nearly had to restrain him in the grocery store as he was trying full rotation jumps next to the jarred pasta sauces. Winter has been agony with iced over sidewalks and me screaming, "NO JUMPING! STOP RUNNING! WALK!" which always sends me into mental fits because I'm stopping him from jumping on ice, which is ultimately what he wants to do. I can't wait for any semblance of Spring, so I can turn him loose again. (And those Spinning Poles on the playgrounds make for remarkable spin trainers. When people ask me how he can spin like that and not be dizzy, I point to the spinning poles in the playground across the field. Stitch spends hours on them.)
Sunday night I showed Stitch the video I took of his program. "It looked good," I said. "Crossovers and stroking were a bit weak, which is probably why you got second. But a good performance. Loved the ending."
"But I had the best spin," he protested.
"Sure, but you can't count on one element to win. They all have to be good."
He walked away.
Later, I was cleaning up the Thai food we had ordered, and Stitch was doing waltz jumps behind me.
"Stitch, you're going to bother the neighbors."
He kept jumping.
"Stitch. Why don't you do more of that on the ice and less of it in my kitchen?"
"Dunno."
"Why don't you talk to Coach and make that a part of your next program, instead of a spin? I think that's a solid goal."
"Hm."
The July Comp at Home Rink will be an ISI comp. So it will be different rules. He may be competing at a Gamma level, which is fine because he can still do a pretty good program with just crossovers, fancy turns and perhaps some (ugh) toepick hops. (Me, I want to try some dye tricks with black crystal accents.) ISI rules state that anyone in the Alphabet levels can do one and only one move from Freestyle 1. Choose between Two Foot Spin, Waltz Jump or Spiral. This is their idea of a challenge, but most girls pick up spirals like it's their job, so what you end up seeing is a bunch of basic elements connected by endless spirals. Stitch is okay at Spirals, but he kills at spins.
It's a rare thing for a Alphabet level kid to do a Waltz Jump, but I think Stitch can pull it off. We have three months, and he's got them once he learns to actually JUMP and not step into a back one-foot glide. So, if he does ISI with a waltz jump, he can't rely on that Tasmanian Devil spin anymore.
Stitch jumps all the time. Full rotation, half rotation, trying to land on one foot, etc. But for all his play practice jumping, something is stopping him on the ice. If he's afraid, I get that, and it's something he's got to work through. Perhaps setting that as a goal for the July Comp is a solid bet, and performing it may help him get over his fear of jumping. My own fear of him jumping will never die. I will always view Toepicks as inventions of evil, and whenever Coach mentions "doubles" I get faint.
Oh well. Pass the smelling salts.
Sunday night I showed Stitch the video I took of his program. "It looked good," I said. "Crossovers and stroking were a bit weak, which is probably why you got second. But a good performance. Loved the ending."
"But I had the best spin," he protested.
"Sure, but you can't count on one element to win. They all have to be good."
He walked away.
Later, I was cleaning up the Thai food we had ordered, and Stitch was doing waltz jumps behind me.
"Stitch, you're going to bother the neighbors."
He kept jumping.
"Stitch. Why don't you do more of that on the ice and less of it in my kitchen?"
"Dunno."
"Why don't you talk to Coach and make that a part of your next program, instead of a spin? I think that's a solid goal."
"Hm."
The July Comp at Home Rink will be an ISI comp. So it will be different rules. He may be competing at a Gamma level, which is fine because he can still do a pretty good program with just crossovers, fancy turns and perhaps some (ugh) toepick hops. (Me, I want to try some dye tricks with black crystal accents.) ISI rules state that anyone in the Alphabet levels can do one and only one move from Freestyle 1. Choose between Two Foot Spin, Waltz Jump or Spiral. This is their idea of a challenge, but most girls pick up spirals like it's their job, so what you end up seeing is a bunch of basic elements connected by endless spirals. Stitch is okay at Spirals, but he kills at spins.
It's a rare thing for a Alphabet level kid to do a Waltz Jump, but I think Stitch can pull it off. We have three months, and he's got them once he learns to actually JUMP and not step into a back one-foot glide. So, if he does ISI with a waltz jump, he can't rely on that Tasmanian Devil spin anymore.
Stitch jumps all the time. Full rotation, half rotation, trying to land on one foot, etc. But for all his play practice jumping, something is stopping him on the ice. If he's afraid, I get that, and it's something he's got to work through. Perhaps setting that as a goal for the July Comp is a solid bet, and performing it may help him get over his fear of jumping. My own fear of him jumping will never die. I will always view Toepicks as inventions of evil, and whenever Coach mentions "doubles" I get faint.
Oh well. Pass the smelling salts.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
USFSA
I have mentioned before that Stitch is ISI. This is "the Fun League."
But Coach has begun to state the Stitch's weird amalgam of skills might be better suited to USFSA. (United States Figure Skating Association.) That's the Big League.
I took a look at the testing structure of USFSA Basic Skills, and she's right. Stitch has Basic 1 through 3 cleared, and can do skills up to Basic 8. I don't know how their competitions are judged, but if Stitch competes at ISI Alpha, the crowd will only get a sampling of what he can do. ISI would hold him back.
She's mentioned a USFSA Basic Skills competition in the Spring.
That is all.
But Coach has begun to state the Stitch's weird amalgam of skills might be better suited to USFSA. (United States Figure Skating Association.) That's the Big League.
I took a look at the testing structure of USFSA Basic Skills, and she's right. Stitch has Basic 1 through 3 cleared, and can do skills up to Basic 8. I don't know how their competitions are judged, but if Stitch competes at ISI Alpha, the crowd will only get a sampling of what he can do. ISI would hold him back.
She's mentioned a USFSA Basic Skills competition in the Spring.
That is all.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Ice Skating Insitute
Just to clarify what's going on here, K belongs to the Ice Skating Institute. This is the organization that is all about fun and games, no pressure. The classes are easy to understand, the competitions only require a check to participate, and everybody gets a prize at the end of the day. There's nothing here that will get you into the Olympics. The path to the Olympics begins at USFSA, and K has stated that he doesn't want to be in the Olympics. This is fine with me. (Really!)
The various levels, Pre-Alpha, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta are all Pre-Freestyle. This is Skating Code for "Not Jumping Yet." This is where the kids learn the basics of staying up, falling down, getting back up, moving around, turning, going backwards, and eventually getting fancier and fancier to crossovers, turning on one skate really fast, and something called a Mohawk turn that sounds really intimidating. It's only in Delta that the kids learn a true jump, the Bunny Hop. Very simple, no rotation, not a lot of chance for damage here.
After you get through Delta, our rink has a "Pre-Freestyle" level, and then you start all over again with "Freestyle 1." I don't know anything about Freestyle beyond the fact that those kids fall a lot and are seriously determined.
I have accepted that our journey through the pre-freestyle levels is going to be long and arduous. Even with the recent skip, at twelve weeks per level and assuming we repeat Beta (from what I've heard, everyone repeats Beta) we have about a year and a half before we enter Freestyle. I'm kind of happy about this. At one point I was hoping for a kid who would zoom through these levels and be some kind of phenom, but as we progress I see that: he's seven, he's a boy, he likes to do things his way, and it will take a long time to learn the skills, much less why these skills are relevant and necessary. It's not just the skating, these are more life lessons I want him to have. K's a strong skater, but it's going to take some serious coaching to get that strong skating going in the right direction. (Good luck with that, Coach Y!)
In the meantime, I will be in the stands, shunned by the other Skating Moms whose kids are landing doubles and wearing Vera Wang. That's fine by me. Me and my Bourbon flask will be just fine, thanks!
The various levels, Pre-Alpha, Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta are all Pre-Freestyle. This is Skating Code for "Not Jumping Yet." This is where the kids learn the basics of staying up, falling down, getting back up, moving around, turning, going backwards, and eventually getting fancier and fancier to crossovers, turning on one skate really fast, and something called a Mohawk turn that sounds really intimidating. It's only in Delta that the kids learn a true jump, the Bunny Hop. Very simple, no rotation, not a lot of chance for damage here.
After you get through Delta, our rink has a "Pre-Freestyle" level, and then you start all over again with "Freestyle 1." I don't know anything about Freestyle beyond the fact that those kids fall a lot and are seriously determined.
I have accepted that our journey through the pre-freestyle levels is going to be long and arduous. Even with the recent skip, at twelve weeks per level and assuming we repeat Beta (from what I've heard, everyone repeats Beta) we have about a year and a half before we enter Freestyle. I'm kind of happy about this. At one point I was hoping for a kid who would zoom through these levels and be some kind of phenom, but as we progress I see that: he's seven, he's a boy, he likes to do things his way, and it will take a long time to learn the skills, much less why these skills are relevant and necessary. It's not just the skating, these are more life lessons I want him to have. K's a strong skater, but it's going to take some serious coaching to get that strong skating going in the right direction. (Good luck with that, Coach Y!)
In the meantime, I will be in the stands, shunned by the other Skating Moms whose kids are landing doubles and wearing Vera Wang. That's fine by me. Me and my Bourbon flask will be just fine, thanks!
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