So, You're in LTS and You Want to Skate a Freestyle Session

So, you're in Learn to Skate and you want to practice your new skills, but you find public ice just too crowded.  You've heard of this mysterious thing called 'freestyle' ice, where there's only a handful of skaters on it. So you check the schedule, you pay the fee and you get on Freestyle Ice.

Oops! Maybe you shouldn't be there.

Sadly for you, you've just violated one of the sacred rules of figure skating. As a skater for you to get on Freestyle Ice one of 4 things needs to happen:
1. You have passed Basic 8 (or Delta in ISI)
2. If you have not passed Basic 8 or Delta, you are in lesson with a coach
3. A coach (probably the skating director) has approved you to skate on freestyle sessions even though you're in LTS (I don't know how rare this is, but it doesn't seem to be frequent)
4. In some rinks (apparently training rinks) you have to get the skating director's approval to go on freestyle

The skaters on a freestyle session are relying on all the other skaters to know freestyle etiquette, be able to skate and observe the other skaters, and be able to avoid other skaters.  If you don't have good heads-up skills and good stopping skills, you can irritate the heck out of the other skaters and maybe be a safety hazard.

If you are in LTS and you don't understand the problem list below, that's an indicator you shouldn't be on freestyle.

1. You don't yield properly to skaters in program or lessons
2. You hang around harness alley
3. You hog the lutz circle.
4. You can't stop quickly enough
5. You don't have a sense of where the other skaters are headed and you get in their way

I've never seen a figure skater kicked off a freestyle session for not being qualified, though I suppose it does happen. Coaches will not talk to you in case you are another coach's student, so don't look for any help there. Initially people will be polite and avoid you, but eventually they'll get frustrated with you in the way. What may happen is some of the other skaters will find you an irritant and may do, shall we say, ice bullying to get you off.  They may skate really close to you, they may spin in your path, they may jump close to you, or try other ways to physically intimidate you to get you to leave.

If you can't play by the freestyle rules, they want you gone

This is not bullying of one freestyle skater by another (bad enough in itself) but bullying of someone who doesn't know the rules, and doesn't belong on the session. It's their only way of letting you know you don't belong. Because:

"The skaters on a freestyle session are relying on all the other skaters to know freestyle etiquette, be able to skate and observe the other skaters, and be able to avoid other skaters. " You are a danger to them, and their polite actions to avoid you means they waste precious training time, so eventually they get more forceful.

So you're frustrated with the ice tourists getting in your way? Multiply that by 10 and you have the frustration of a freestyle skater avoiding your LTS self.

Yeah, frustrating, but you'll have to keep practicing on public for a while longer.

And before you cry 'It's unfair!', there are certain sessions I avoid because they have a higher proportion of high level skaters. So, even in freestyle, there's divisions.