LIIDLII KUE/FORT SIMPSON
Fort Simpson speedskaters got a workout for their brains as well as their bodies last weekend.
Debby Fisher, right, pushes Aron Gu while demonstrating an exercise to teach speedskaters to stay low while skating. Fisher led a three day development camp in Fort Simpson. - Roxanna Thompson/NNSL photo
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Debby Fisher, a speedskating instructor from Calgary, led a three-day development camp in the village from Jan. 11 to 13.
Fisher, who has taught in the village three times before, uses a teaching method called decision training.
In the past, sports coaching involved coaches telling athletes to do a series of things in order to achieve the desired results, such as proper speedskating technique.
There has been a shift in sports towards more discovery-based coaching, said Fisher.
With decision training athletes are given choices and have to figure out which way works best.
Athletes do better through discovery because they understand why they are doing things instead of just doing them because a coach said so, said Fisher.
On the ice, Fisher puts this into practice by asking skaters questions about techniques she is teaching them.
While emphasizing the need to stay low to the ice, Fisher asked the younger skaters if they would skate faster if they stood up and caught wind like a parachute or stayed low like a race car.
You relate the skills to things they already know, said Fisher even though there are more complicated physics principles.
Over the course of the weekend, Fisher used games and drills to focus on skills the young speedskaters need to skate better.
She also touched on tricks and skills they need to race more effectively such as learning to pass people, do crossovers and how to skate the track.
The older skaters worked on similar skills, but at a more advanced level.
During the camps, Fisher said she can quickly see improvements.
"They were skating better just in the one practice," she said.
Lia Fabre-Dimsdale was one of Fisher's more advanced pupils during the camp. Fabre-Dimsdale said Fisher was teaching how to make bigger strides.
"She said it's going to help me a lot," Fabre-Dimsdale said.
The 12-year-old athlete said the camp was helping her work towards a goal of competing at the Canada West Short Track Championships in Canmore in March.
Coaches join in
In addition to working with the skaters, Fisher also worked with the Fort Simpson Speed Skating Club coaches. You want to be a resource for them so they can make speed skating more fun while teaching technical skills after the camp is over, she said.
Val Gendron, the club's primary coach, said she always collects ideas from other coaches.
The principles of skating are the same, but different coaches have different ways of teaching of them and athletes respond to some of those methods better than others, she said.
The skaters benefit from the development camp because the training is so concentrated over the course of three days, said Gendron.
The camp ended on Sunday with a mini-meet where the athletes were able to put their new skills to use and establish a skating time.
