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How to Afford Ice Skating | Skating On a Budget || Coach Michelle Hong

Mar 26, 2024
Hello everyone, welcome back to my channel. I'm Coach Michelle Hong. In today's episode I'm going to cover

skating

on a

budget

. As you know, I am very passionate about making figure

skating

accessible to everyone. I'm excited to really dig into how we can make figure skating accessible to everyone, giving my tips and resources on how to save money, how to cut costs so we can support your skating journey. Growing up, I knew the financial burden that figure skating entails. I had in my family and fortunately my parents were very resourceful and thought of ways to allow me and my sister to be a part of the sport and in a way give them a history, my parents came from Cambodia, they are survivors of the genocide of the Khmer Rouge, so finances were a big issue in our family, but because we loved skating so much, they wanted to make it work, so if you're out there and you're really struggling to understand all the finances that go into figure skating, don't forget watch this full video because maybe it will change your perspective on how you can participate in this sport and with that being said, if you really like this video, don't forget to like and subscribe.
how to afford ice skating skating on a budget coach michelle hong
For more content on figure skating, now let's look at my top five tips, so my first tip that I'm going to emphasize is to start group classes, so group classes are a great way to get involved in the sport at a low cost, I think, when people think. about figure skating, they're like private lessons, let's do private lessons right away and private lessons are very expensive, if you think about it, you can do a private lesson for forty or sixty dollars in half an hour and that can add up to 120 a year. hour and if you are not ready to invest that amount of money yet, you can still learn the skills in group classes and another way to reduce costs on the lesson front is to do semi-private lessons, so if you have a friend who wants to take classes with you or want to learn from an instructor, that's a great way to split the cost and I do semi-private lessons myself because I want to help skaters who are interested in learning but don't.
how to afford ice skating skating on a budget coach michelle hong

More Interesting Facts About,

how to afford ice skating skating on a budget coach michelle hong...

You necessarily have the financial means to support just one private lesson in general, so talk to your local range about group classes to see where you can start. You may also want to consider semi-private lessons for additional training, so my second tip is to look for

afford

able equipment. What I mean by this is that you don't have to buy high-end equipment. I think a lot of people get obsessed with the idea of ​​getting the best skates and the best quality blades, but I want to share with you that when I was a kid I had second-hand skates up to the youth level.
how to afford ice skating skating on a budget coach michelle hong
I had a lot of dance skates. I had secondhand practice clothes. I had second-hand tights and skating dresses. It was a big part of how I was able to cut costs and save money for lessons because lessons are something that would really help me excel to where I wanted to go, as opposed to a dress or costume that won't increase my performance. I'm on the ice, but it definitely helps me build my confidence when I'm competing. Luckily, growing up I had great friends who let me borrow their costumes, let me borrow their dresses, and had used skates. -me-down skates is another great option for those of you who are struggling to understand how to get custom skates or boots that cost close to a thousand dollars, so you are thinking about trying out the skates of other people you know in your local area. or you can look at rummage sellers who sell things at garage sales or on eBay and it's a great way to reduce the cost of equipment and still feel like you can still be a part of the sport and I know many People maybe don't think they want to use someone else's skates, but I want to normalize it.
how to afford ice skating skating on a budget coach michelle hong
I think you know that a lot of skaters only get one year out of their boots because they outgrow them or break them down themselves, but it could still be cool. for someone else who is coming up behind them or who is younger, so if you can talk to your friends in your area or you can talk to the manager of your skating rink to see if they have any used options for you, that's a great place to Besides that, in terms of skates, you can start thinking about getting original boots. Original boots are an amazing option and are quite

afford

able.
There are skates that cost 300 and come with a blade, so in my previous video I said I'm going to do it. link above of the comparison between custom boots and original boots, that's why I shared with you that original boots are also a great option and can help you know where you want to go as long as you don't have any foot problems or foot problems, so that's another great option to reduce costs in the equipment area. My third tip is to consider public sessions, so public sessions are a big price difference from freestyle sessions if you add it all up, so I'm going to think about what.
The cost of public sessions is in my area, it may be different for you, but I think the cost of public sessions is around 10 in our local area, compared to 13, 15 or even 20 for style sessions free so if you calculate that and add it all up you know you are saving money over time and a lot of local tracks have punch cards for public sessions so I remember when I was a kid I had a 12 pack and you only paid for 10 sessions and you got two free, something like that. Those kind of local ranges really want to help encourage public skating and get people involved in the sport, so it's a great way for people to come in and feel like they can afford it, so I always use public sessions.
I actually grew up at the fremont ice center and we only had one surface, we had one ice rink, so most of the ice time was public session, we had freestyles in the morning and maybe an hour of freestyle in the morning. afternoon, but everything else was hockey in public sessions and people. I'm really put off by public sessions because there are too many people, the ice is very bumpy and all that, but for me I was very grateful for the time I had on the ice and That's another thing you should consider is that if you have ice you can practice it.
You don't need to be in a freestyle session all the time, so there comes a time when you have to start moving to freestyle sessions when you become more competitive and want to be around skaters of your level who will help you. they help motivate and energize you so that's another thing to consider but starting with public sessions first is a great way to keep the sport for yourself so the fourth tip I have is to use office training videos on youtube , so growing up I had a lot of opportunities. being able to go to the library with my dad and I loved it so much that we would watch pilates videos, ballet videos, Zumba videos and all that cool stuff so we could train off the ice at home and occasionally here. and there I could take ballet classes, jazz classes, dance classes in person if our family could afford it, so it all depended on our

budget

, so that's something you have to consider as well, so if you don't have the right option. now to be able to pay for in person classes or it's not part of your financial structure right now, maybe you can set aside some finances for that when you have an opportunity maybe once a month to do it, but in the meantime you have all these free resources on youtube i will share my skating office videos on youtube above.
I have two series, the skate with

michelle

series and the stretch with

michelle

series so you can have the opportunity to train at home, that's exactly why I created those two series. because I know that a lot of people don't necessarily have the means to be able to pay for office lessons and also because I know how important it is to share my knowledge with everyone who has never touched skating before in their life, but I want to take a look at it, so no forget to watch those videos. Working hard and practicing at home is what will help you be able to skate on a limited budget.
My last piece of advice and this is something really amazing. Trying to find a job at your local ice rink, there are so many job opportunities in your range that you might not even consider because you're busy with school work or all that, but there are little things you can think about, like group captain , so the captains of the group are the figure skaters who help with the planning of the party and are the ones who make the child's opportunity so much fun on the ice, so you can teach the children on the ice and also being a part of the whole experience of throwing their party is fun and special, another thing to consider is maybe volunteering for group classes and then you can also talk to your local skating director to see if you start volunteering then that could influence you to actually get a full-time position and that's what happened. me, so I got a job at the ice rink when I was 16, but before that I volunteered around 14 or 15, maybe even 12 because I really wanted to and I love teaching.
One of the best things about volunteering is that you gain that experience and that experience will be leveraged and develop opportunities to get you hired as a teacher or a group class instructor later on and when you have these job opportunities you will get paid and then you can take that money and Put it in your training not only because you will have the opportunity to skate for free on the ice rink, which will save you a lot of money if you think about how much it costs to skate on a day-to-day basis and when you add it up. annually so with that being said there are a lot of different ways to think about how to cut costs in skating and how to skate on a budget so I hope this video helped you and these are my top five tips that were essential for my growth . and development and if you want more tips I'd be happy to share them but I just wanted to shed light on the top five tips that really helped me and I'm so happy to have you all on this journey and I hope you are.
Inspired to keep skating, that said, I'll see you all in my next video and I'll see you next time, bye.

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