ARTISTIC SKATING SUMMER TRAINING CAMP Ipswich, Suffolk Thursday 10th & Friday 11th August 2006

The British Roller Sports Federation
Coaching Committee

Is pleased to announce a two day Summer Camp on Thursday 10th & Friday 11th August 2006
to be held at the Pipers Vale Gymnastic Centre & the Gainsborough Sports Centre
on Braziers Wood Road, Ipswich (click here for map)

The aim of the camp is to provide an extended non-competitive event that will enable both skaters and coaches to learn new and to extend existing skills at selected skill levels, while providing an opportunity to develop friendships, respect and camaraderie between skaters and coaches within the artistic skating community.

The camp will assemble on Wednesday evening 9th August, so that participants can arrive, settle in and get to know one another. The camp will finish on Friday evening when parents can pick up their children to take them home.

Coaching will be available for both figures and free skating. We will also cover dry work in some depth and can also include sessions on strengthening, flexibility, line and form, diet etc.

The development of the World Class Coaching System by Sports Coach UK has allowed us to identify that we are training very differently from countries such as America, Italy and Australia and we have not previously adopted many of the techniques that are transferable from other sports such as gymnastics or our sister sport of ice skating as is done in other countries.

The British Roller Sports Federation (BRSF) together with Sports Coach UK have negotiated for Artistic Roller Skating coaching to be paired up with British Gymnastics coaching to aid in its future development.

This is similar to the twinning of other roller disciplines, such as the way speed skating has been twined with cycling as much of its training and facility needs are similar and inline puck hockey has been paired with ice hockey and adopted the whole of their international coach development programme, as their coaching needs are virtually identical. (Ice has been prepared to modify their coaching courses slightly to accommodate inline roller hockey as they dry train on inline roller blades). For these disciplines of roller skating these alliances seem to be working well and to be showing benefits for the disciplines concerned.

This strategy and our designation by Sport England as a development sport has meant that that we are able to avail ourselves of sophisticated and costly training facilities and the specialist help of full time sports specialists from both other sporting disciplines and academia to help us.

We have the use of the Pipers Vale Gymnastics Centre together with coaches Andy Watts and his wife who manage this facility. Andy and his wife are both part of the National Gymnastics coaching squad, the facility itself is regarded as the finest of its type in Europe. It gives us classroom facilities with video facilities, a dance studio, a high bounce training floor, floor tramps, and a host of other facilities that most skaters and coaches do not usually have access to.

We also have the use of Gainsborough Sports Centre (next door to the gymnastics centre) which gives access to a skating floor.

We will also use Deben High School in Felixstowe (about 10 miles away) as this gives us a five badminton court skating hall, another smaller gymnasium and other facilities that are likely to be useful to us. Transport between the two centres of operations has been addressed and the advantage of being in Felixstowe is that it is a sea side town giving the children some fun in the evening with a chance to play on the beach. Deben School also has a brilliant indoor pool facility if any coach is aquatically inclined and wants to include swimming as an activity.

It is proposed to run four or five groups to accommodate differing abilities, with similar activities but structured to the differing ability levels. These groups would move between the centres as required.

Evening activities will be included as will food and accommodation.

Dormitory style accommodation meeting both Health & Safety and Child Protection requirements, has been made available within the Gymnastic Centre itself. This accommodation is regularly used by young people attending overnight gymnastic training events at the gymnastics centre. However for parents who wish to make their own accommodation arrangements, a list of alternative accommodation in the Ipswich & Felixstowe area can be provided by clicking here.

The Summer Training Camp is Free of Charge for registered club coaches, for everyone else there is a £60 charge.

Each coach attending will go home with a DVD on aspects of dry training that might be new to them. The video will also show how to fabricate some of the equipment used, that is not readily available in Great Britain. Input in this subject has come from America, Australia and Italy who now train in excess of 30% of their time dry.

If proved successful it will be possible to extend this type of event to a full week in the future and hold them twice a year as is provided for both Gymnastics and Trampoline.

You have an opportunity to share in this project, to be involved in future developments and help to help steer our Artistic Skaters in the direction they should take in future as part of the whole sport and facility funding negotiations British Roller Sports Federation are at present engaged in with Sport England and other funding partners.

Letters concerning this event have been sent to the last known contact for each Artistic Roller Skating Club currently affiliated to the Federation of Artistic Roller Skating. Club Secretaries, Coaches or individual club members who were previously un-aware of this event and are interested in taking part, or if you have been a Roller Figure or Free skater in the past, and are currently not attached to an affiliated club and would be interested in resuming the activity, should download a registration form (click here) and return it to the BRSF Director of Coaching using this mailing link.

For those requiring additional information, the BRSF Director of Coaching is available on 01394 384704, most evenings, but please, no phone calls after 22.00.

Director of Coaching,
British Roller Sports Federation.

Additional links:
Federation of Artistic Roller Skating
Gainsborough Sports Centre
Pipers Vale Gymnastics Centre