About iCoachSkating
iCoachSkating was launched in 2008 and is the brainchild of figure skating coach and Founder Trevor Laak. As a young coach, Trevor was seeking detailed information from experienced mentors for his own coaching development. During this process he quickly realized there was a large demand from other coaches for the same information.
When iCoachSkating was launched, membership was limited only to figure skating coaches. Over time it became clear that the information at iCoachSkating could be very valuable to the much larger audience of skaters and skating parents. So the website was opened to all skating participants in 2010.
Skating knowledge is traditionally passed down from one generation of skaters (who become coaches) to the next generation of skaters. Thus old ideas about technique and teaching methods persist far longer than they
should, even though better and more modern approaches may be available. There are so many misunderstandings, myths, and half-truths in the skating world.
Thus, Trevor has attempted to find mentors who think more deeply about how we coach skating and how skaters actually skate, with an emphasis on those coaching mentors that bring new understanding and new methods to the sport. These ideas and methods tend to focus on recreating how successful skaters actually skate, rather than on how elite coaches used to coach (or even how elite skaters used to skate).
At iCoachSkating our goal is to help ALL SKATERS reach their potential, either directly or through their existing coaches. We accomplish this by publishing theoretical and practical knowledge from some of the top figure skating coaches in the world. All coaches, adult skaters, and skating families can benefit from an independent source of high quality information to be able to make better skating-related decisions and make more consistent and faster progress.
Traditionally, coaches only had two sources of information – their own coaches (when they skated) and live-in-person seminars and conferences (and there are major drawbacks to both). Traditionally skaters have never had access to any other source of skating information than their own in-person coaches (with all their limitations). But, online video has changed all of that dramatically. Online delivery of skating information is inexpensive, effective, and it allows a tremendous range of flexibility and convenience. How else could you possibly get this level of instruction from this caliber of faculty in such a consistent manner?
Over time, iCoachSkating has been developed with input from hundreds of coaches and skaters and skating families. This input was instrumental in determining the content and the selection of top coaches providing the content. And although Trevor is a passionate coach and teacher himself, the site has never been about him or his teaching methods. He does provide opinions and commentary about the content (especially in the notification/summary emails) and he has contributed a few videos to the site, but the focus is on the ideas and methods of elite and specialist coaches who are shaping our sport today.
As an active coach, Trevor specializes in on-ice jump technique. He works almost exclusively as a consultant to other skating coaches by providing pole harness, computer video analysis, and regular lesson services to them and their skaters. Trevor has presented at a number of coaching seminars and workshops. Outside of skating, Trevor has a graduate research degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. He holds 6 patents in the areas of digital signal processing, advanced control systems, active sound cancellation and acoustic control, and he’s provided technical consulting for a number of Fortune 500 companies.