Overall, the novice and pre-novice ladies are very promising. They are exactly what Canada needs right now, up and coming young female skaters who are not in pairs or ice dance. We all know those skaters are in short supply right now.
These girls do still have the same issues as the higher level skaters, and who can blame them? The focus with young skaters tends too much to be on jumps, improving those and those and those alone, and everything else seems to fall to the wayside.
Like most skaters, the girls have the jumps they need, they have the spins (which were surprisingly good this weekend, a pleasant surprise for me), but the basic skating skills that are the base of everything we do are missing.
Their step sequences lose all the flow they have in the rest of their programs, sometimes coming to a dead stop midway through. This stems, in part, from shallow edges and from stiff knees, but the biggest problem is a lack of time spent learning the skills. I know from experience that many skaters neglect skills when they first start skating, sometimes forever, and in some cases until they are successfully executing double jumps, rather than starting right away with the base skating skills they need.
Watching the warmups, I noticed great extension from almost all the skaters, and they are clearly very flexible, but when it comes to the performance, they don't use their extension or flexibility as much or as well as they can. There were quite a few spirals and camel spins with bent knees, which is an easy fix that improves the overall impression of the element and the program. I know they can do it, but during the performance, they don't have the confidence yet to extend their lines completely.
Another quick and easy fix that will improve the overall impression of the program is holding the end pose. Many of the girls were in and out of their end pose before the music had even finished. This leaves the audience and the judges with the impression that you don't want to be there, or that your skate went poorly and you are desperate to get off the ice. This is the last thing they see, and you don't want to leave a negative final impression.
Most of the issues these young skaters have comes down to confidence on the ice. With better confidence, they will lift their heads, straighten their backs, and stay on the ice and take their time with their bows, which will not only leave everyone with a more positive impression, but will also make most of their elements significantly easier.
Overall, I'm glad I saw all these young skaters perform, and I look forward to what we'll see from them in the future.
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