Tips For Having A Good Competition Day

Good morning skaters! Coach Julia here. I am excited because competition season is in full swing in my area. I live in California, United States, and we have that our skaters are getting on to our second competition of the season, but I thought it would be fun since it's competition season to get some advice from all of the coaches here at Skatetown. Some tips for how to have a good competition day. Competitions can be so nerve-wracking. You might practice really, really well and then the day of competition you just like forget everything or you get nervous, and so we have all different little tips from our coaches about how to handle competition day and have it successful. Let's hear what they all have to say. Okay, I have Coach Paolo here who has gone to the biggest competitions of any of us coaches here. What is your advice for a good competition day? Make sure you have rest and remind yourself to breathe and bend your knees. Rest, breathe, bend your knees. Yeah. Sounds good. Thank you. All right, I'm here with Coach Camilla. Camilla, what is your top tip for a successful or smooth competition day? Remember to eat, drink water, breathe, and not worry about the outcome. I like that. This is my student Jennifer, and she is a veteran competitor. She's an adult skater. She started competing as an adult. I had to twist her arm her first competition. She was like, no way, no way, and then she did it and she got completely hooked, but I wanted her to come on here because she does an incredible job of preparing herself for competitions. I watch her on competition day. She has a whole routine that she does to get herself ready. She almost doesn't need me. That's true. But I wanted her to share with you guys what she does to get ready for competitions. Well, I get to the rink, and after checking in, I first start to do my stretch routine, and I do it from start to finish like I would do on practice day, so like normal. So it's like you always do the same stretch routine? Yes, yes. That way it's very common, or not common, but you know familiar, and I'm not doing anything out of my norm. Okay, so your body feels the same way it always does at the end of your stretch routine. Yes, and also that I try to tell my brain this is just like any other practice day. Okay, normalizes competition. Exactly. Okay, and then from there, I will go and put my headphones on, and we'll do a full walkthrough of my routine with the music as best as I can. Of course, you can't spin. So you do this in like tennis shoes or something? Exactly, exactly. Okay, and then after that, I will sit down, and I'll visualize my routine and visualize every element in my brain, you know, doing this all cow, me doing this all cow, and doing, you know, and how I want it to feel. Okay, and I might do that a couple of times if I have time. Okay, so and when you're visualizing it, do you take into account the rink that you're standing in, or like does that make any difference, or just how it feels? Just how it feels, you know, because I don't always know the rink, but if I know it, yeah, you know, but and I'll also try to look out on the ice and see where blocking and all that. Yeah, sometimes too, but right, I tell students do that sometimes. Look at the ice, and then you'll like kind of see what are you going to be looking at when you check out of a spin or something like that. So okay, awesome. So it's stretching, it's running through with the music in your tennis shoes, and then it's visualizing. Yes, awesome. Thank you so much for sharing. Of course. I am here with Coach Kristen, and she has some things to say about having a good competition day. What's up, Kristen? Hey, so one of the things I like to say before competition day is this, Coach Julia, is having a really good attitude. So loving what you do, and showing it in your skating, and showing that, and really making that with your music, making it your own. Because when you make it your own, and you actually skate to the music, as you're doing that, it really becomes more personable, and your competition day will go great. Awesome. Thank you, Kristen. Okay, I am here with the fabulous Coach Ney, our Theater on Ice Director. Coach, what do you have to say about competition day? Besides being stressful, my little tidbit is to blow your own personal bubble, and put yourself in it, and just imagine your program, and nobody else is there, just you enjoying your own moment. So kind of like ignore the fact that there's other people, there's other competitors, like all of that, and just be in your own space. Exactly. It's not about anybody else at that moment. You've had all the time to practice in the world. Now it's time to go out and have some fun. I love it. Thank you, Ney. Bye. Okay, I am here with Coach Sam. Sam, we were talking about how to have a good competition day, maybe a less stressful competition day, and you had some really good thoughts. I want to hear them. Sure. So my advice is to treat every practice like it's a competition. That way, whenever you get to your competition, it feels just like another day of practice, and eventually your nerves stop being something that scare you, and become something that like fuels your skating and gets you excited. I love that. I tell my skaters all the time, when they're, especially when they have their music on the loudspeaker, I want to see it as if it was competition day. Exactly. They often will go out there and skate it like, I don't know, 70%. I'm like, no, if you practice it at 70%, then competition day is going to feel like a whole big jump. Exactly. Whereas if you practice every session as if it's competition day, competition day is a breeze. Yep. How you practice is how you compete, so treat every practice run through like it's a competition. Love it. Thank you. All right, I have one of our new assistant coaches here, Coach Ainsley. Now, you are a current competitor. I am. So you probably have some great things to say about getting ready for competition. Yep. Awesome. I want to hear them. When you're getting ready for competition, two things I would recommend are getting a good night's sleep before you skate, because that's really important to keep your energy up and make sure that you're skating well. And also, especially for first-time competitors, remember to go out and have fun. Competition can be really intimidating because you're competing against other people for places, but your place does not define you. So remember to always have fun when you're out there. I love the idea that your placement doesn't define you, and it doesn't necessarily define your skating. No. You may have had just an off day, and that doesn't define your entire career, or you may have just skated against someone who's really good, and that should be inspiring to push yourself harder. Exactly. So that's some great feedback. Thank you. No problem. Bye. I am here with Coach Phoebe, who's the most amazing and always helps me out here at the rink. I can always count on her, and I feel like you probably have some great stuff to say about competition day. All I have to say about competition day is make sure that you come early so that you have plenty of time to get warmed up and feel comfortable for your skate. Love it. Also, coming early helps because you never know when competitions are going to run on time. Sometimes there's scratches. Sometimes it's terrible when they run early, but they do run early sometimes. So I love that. Come early. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Okay. I am here with Coach Janella for some tips on competition day. What do you have for our skaters? So my tip would be to avoid looking at your competition just because that could cause you to become more anxious. That's true. That's true. And you know, it really is just every competition is a competition against yourself, right? And it's a question of how much training you've done, and the competition doesn't really matter at that point, does it? Yeah. And seeing what they do can make you really nervous. So thank you so much. You're welcome. This is Coach Mika. She is also still competing. You're a current competitor, yeah? Yep. I'm still a current competitor. Awesome. So this is like fresh advice as a skater, but you also have started coaching. So you have a few students. That's awesome. All right. What is your advice for skaters on competition day? On competition day, I recommend warming up first, at least for five minutes, start doing maybe jumping jacks, do some off-ice jumps, and then make sure you stretch too. That's also very important. Then after you go through all your jumps and spins, I'd recommend running through your program in your head multiple times, at least three times usually, because if it's just sometimes you'll be like, you'll have a mental block. I would just replay that over and over again in your head until it looks good in your head. I love that. Yeah. Do you do that with music or do you put headphones on and run through it, or do you just like thinking it all through? I put headphones on. I usually play my program music and then run through it in my head. Awesome. Love it. Thank you. Okay. I am here with Brandon, who is new on our coaching staff. You just started. You had some competitors already, but you're also still competing yourself, yeah? Yep. Awesome. What is some advice you have for skaters to have a good competition day? I would say the day before competition, make sure to get a good night's sleep, and the day of competition, make sure you eat a good breakfast. You want that energy from all that nutrition. Yeah, especially carbohydrates. That is going to give you lots of energy for your program. Speaking of programs, when you are out on the ice doing your program, make sure you remember to breathe. When you breathe, it's going to supply oxygen to your muscles. It's going to give you energy. Yeah. When you don't breathe, I mean, we get nervous. We forget to breathe. Sometimes we're spinning for a long time, we forget to breathe, and then all of a sudden, your muscles die early. You're like, I've run this so many times, and yet why are my muscles dead? It's often because you forgot to breathe and so you don't have that oxygen. It's going to be really hard to make those big jumps. True, true. All right. I have Coach Christina here with me. She had some great things. We were talking in the coach's room, she had some good advice, so I wanted to make sure she shared that with you. What do you have to say? I want to say that on the competition day, don't over-practice. Do 15 to 20 minutes of warming up. Then please imagine that your competition is the practice ice. Don't be over-anxious about it. Yeah. It's good advice to not over-practice on competition day because you can get tired. There's people who come out, they work so hard to warm up on competition day that then they're too tired to actually compete. Yeah, because if you over-practice, you can have really nice elements during the practice, but because you're feeling tired during the competition, you might mess them up. It's better not to do that. Yeah. Do all of your hard, hard work leading up to the competition and then warm up competition day, but then just let it be. Rely on your training. Yeah. Love it. Thank you so much. No problem. All right. I hope you enjoyed those tips and tricks from some of the coaches here at Skatetown. Some of them have been coaching for many years and have a lot of experience putting skaters on as well as competing themselves, and some of them are still current competitors and are experiencing all of those competition nerves themselves. I used to get so nervous for competitions. I would shake uncontrollably. It looked like I was cold, but I was just super, super nervous. It took me a long time to get over that, and I realized I don't really remember what helped me get over it other than competing over and over and over again. The more I competed, the better I got at competing. Competing is a skill of its own, just like learning all of the things you're doing in your program. You're learning how to jump, you're learning how to spin, and you have to learn over time how to control your nerves and skate well. Several things I encourage my skaters to do. Perform every single practice run as if it was your actual competition. Do it on the loudspeakers as many times as you can. The more you do it on the loudspeakers, the more used to competition environments you're going to feel. I also recommend you try practicing in your full competition get-up. I like to have my students practice their five-minute warm-up. Do the entire five-minute warm-up, take a little 10-minute break, and then go out and do their performance. That's going to make you feel the same way you will at a competition, where you have five minutes to get on the ice and practice, then you have to wait for other skaters to skate, and then you do your performance. You can recreate that in your practice sessions as well. Anytime your music is on the loudspeakers, you have to give that program 110%. I'm not just talking the skills, I'm talking your face, your arms, your energy, everything you put into that program during your practice. If you practice at 110%, then your program, your competitions will just be so much better, and the nerves of competition day won't feel quite so intense. My main thing is, do a lot of competitions, and understand it might take you a while to figure out how to calm yourself before a competition, and really be in the moment, and really enjoy the moment. All right, skaters, I hope you have a great next practice session. I hope your next competition goes really, really well. If you see me around at one of your competitions, come over and say, happy skating, and I'll see you here, or on my Coach Julia Club.