Choosing a Coach

Your private coach (and perhaps one day, your team of coaches) is key to many of your successes as a skater. Keep these in mind as you select a coach:

  1. Shop around and make sure you know what you’re getting yourself (and your parents) into.
  2. Once you are with a coach, that coach is Head Coach (sometimes called Primary Coach)–you are with that coach and he/she makes decisions in the best interests of the skater.
  3. The Head Coach may enlist Second Coaches and Specialty Coaches to work with that skater who will focus in on choreography, jumps, spins, etc., particularly if this skater is a serious competitor. In effect, you have a Team of Coaches (like an actor’s entourage…hair, makeup, lunch, etc.)

USFS has a whole page of things parents should consider in choosing the coach for the child. And of course, the child has a say in this, too–they’re the ones taking lessons!