The Balancing Act

By Abigail Wallace & Kelly Morris Adair

The alarm clock goes off, you dress in your warmest teaching garments, you grab your work clothes, and head to the rink to teach. After you teach, you head to the locker room and change out of your teaching clothes and into your work clothes and head to work. You work a full day at your full-time job and then head home to answer e-mails from parents, cut music, do your billing, or maybe scheme costume and dress designs. You might eat dinner, handle your other life and family obligations, and then head to bed to repeat it all again tomorrow. Sound familiar?

Many of us, even before the pandemic, did and do more than just teach figure skating. Maybe your teaching income supplements your regular full-time job income, or maybe a second job supplements your teaching income. Or maybe you just love to teach skating so much that you make time for all of it. No matter the reason you juggle teaching skating with other job commitments, having multiple jobs/commitments is difficult to manage. So how do you balance?

The first and most crucial step in balancing (and balancing it well) is to identify why you teach skating and setting expectations (and sticking to them) accordingly. Is skating your main priority and/or full-time job? Great! Then that means you may be able to take on the full range of responsibilities for your skaters. But if teaching skating is your secondary, part-time, or an intermittent job for you, then you need to take stock of what you can handle and handle well. For example, maybe your teaching schedule doesn’t allow you to take on skaters as their primary coach. Maybe your part-time position doesn’t allow you the opportunity to travel with your skaters to competitions or test sessions. Or maybe it does but only in certain situations. This may mean you switch your focus to working with younger skaters on developmental skills, or choreographing for more advanced skaters, or perhaps you focus solely on one aspect of a skater’s development, for example, moves-in-the-field. Whatever your time commitment and whatever your strengths, make sure you are using those to aid your skater’s development.

“So be sure when you step, step with care and great tact. And remember that life's a great balancing act!” ~ Dr. Seuss

The expectations you set for yourself as to what you are able to do for your skaters will also require you to communicate those expectations to your skaters, your skaters’ parents, and the other coaches in your team. It is imperative that you clearly communicate to your team how much time you are able to dedicate to teaching, the aspects of your skater’s development for which you take responsibility, and if and when there are changes to those expectations that those are communicated as well. An open line of communication is key for there to be success among your team.

It is important to remember that just because you may have chosen to teach part-time, that it does not mean that you are only responsible for attending to part of your coaching obligations. Whether you teach one hour a week or 40+, your education, ethical, and professional requirements and obligations must still be met. Even as a parttime coach, your lessons deserve full-time attention and preparation. As a part-time coach some rinks still require you to have a current PSA membership, carry liability insurance, U.S. Figure Skating membership, CER’s, ratings, etc. Given these potential obligations, it’s important that you evaluate what you are able to do and make sure that your coaching choices make sense for you, your skaters, and your lifestyle. Misrepresenting how much you may be able to handle will create a level of conflict and frustration down the road with the skater, their parents and yourself.

In the end it is not always how much time you teach but how you teach during the time at the rink.

Even your part-time professional principles should be quality over quantity! Similar to IJS, you shouldn’t try a level 4 spin if you don’t have a level 4 spin. If you don’t have the time to juggle all the obligations asked of you, don’t agree to it. This will result in negative GOE’s with weaker components scores and you, as a professional, will appear as a weaker coach. Do what you can do and do it well! Your clientele will appreciate the honesty and authenticity of what you bring to each lesson. You will demonstrate a set of values centered on the importance of the work you can do. You will create boundaries that are healthy and professional.

Lastly, as coaches, we are good at serving and taking care of others. Don’t forget in a world where your teaching is just one piece of a multitude of other obligations and responsibilities you may juggle, it is important to take time for you. We can only be our best for others if we take the best care of ourselves.

Submitted by Abigail Wallace, Vice Chair of the Committee on Professional Standards and Kelley Morris-Adair, Chair of the Committee on Professional Standards.