Comprehensive figure skating coaching with 6 to 8 year old children
Mälkki, Kati (2010)
Mälkki, Kati
HAAGA-HELIA ammattikorkeakoulu
2010
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2010061812383
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2010061812383
Tiivistelmä
The purpose of this thesis was to research how children 6 to 8 year olds can be coached in a comprehensive way in figure skating. Nowadays children in general are in a poor physical condition and are not participating in a great variety of physical activity, in particular during their freetime. There are many children active in an organized sport club, in this case figure skating, so in my opinion they have the responsibility to offer the children enough stimuli to gain versatile motoric skills, although not with the expense of sport specific training. The question is how versatile practices can we offer inside one sport?
The theory part of the thesis concentrates in general in children’s exercise, main organ systems of human body and their development in childhood, motoric skills and their sensitive periods. The main target group in the thesis is 6 to 8 year old children, who practice figure skating so therefore the theory part has been investigated mainly from this group’s point of view.
The empirical part of the thesis was carried out by sending a questionnaire to figure skating organizations, which are under the Finnish Figure Skating Association. The reason why I wanted to execute this questionnaire was to investigate the current situation in our country in relation to the topic of this work. What is the real situation today in the figure skating clubs and how do they develop their athletes in a versatile way starting from the early childhood? Or is it neglected, and focused only on the sport-specific skills? The reason why I wanted to do this questionnaire was also to give solid fact of the situation, rather than just making general assumptions. All in all, the empirical part is a supporting element for this thesis.
Based on the theory part and the results from the empirical part, I have assembled a package of practices of ways to practice different physical features in a versatile way that can be ex-ecuted in practices in figure skating clubs nationwide. This material will be sent to all respondents and also forwarded to Finnish Figure Skating Association for more research.
I have made some more suggestions and recommendations based on this research at the end of my thesis.
The theory part of the thesis concentrates in general in children’s exercise, main organ systems of human body and their development in childhood, motoric skills and their sensitive periods. The main target group in the thesis is 6 to 8 year old children, who practice figure skating so therefore the theory part has been investigated mainly from this group’s point of view.
The empirical part of the thesis was carried out by sending a questionnaire to figure skating organizations, which are under the Finnish Figure Skating Association. The reason why I wanted to execute this questionnaire was to investigate the current situation in our country in relation to the topic of this work. What is the real situation today in the figure skating clubs and how do they develop their athletes in a versatile way starting from the early childhood? Or is it neglected, and focused only on the sport-specific skills? The reason why I wanted to do this questionnaire was also to give solid fact of the situation, rather than just making general assumptions. All in all, the empirical part is a supporting element for this thesis.
Based on the theory part and the results from the empirical part, I have assembled a package of practices of ways to practice different physical features in a versatile way that can be ex-ecuted in practices in figure skating clubs nationwide. This material will be sent to all respondents and also forwarded to Finnish Figure Skating Association for more research.
I have made some more suggestions and recommendations based on this research at the end of my thesis.