The Coaching Years

Sheldon states "At the outset it should be understood that I did not invent anything, I merely borrowed upon those teaching methods, processes and philosophies that other people had been successful with in various teaching groups and communities and adapting them to my sport".

"I used synthetic teaching devices extensively. They give a feeling and a sense of what it is to succeed at the task without having the danger of attempting it in the real world. One of the important things about film and one of the things today is that they have simulators. These simulators are to teach pilots to fly an airplane before they ever actually have to do it. These methods have been proved throughout the years, going back more than 50 years now".

"They were using those synthetic devices, which I adopted and tried to use in the form of for instance, I had my skaters on spinning devices. The skaters hung from straps and skated until they got enough momentum until they could draw themselves off the ice and develop the rotation that has been accumulated and thus practice rotation without the dangers and fears associatied with falling".

"We also practiced on a little bit of pole vaulting by swinging children with a board lever, or pulling them around the circle with a rope increasing the velocity that required them to not only maintain control but to establish a strong enough body line that they would not lose control. Then having them stroke (skate) while being pulled by a strong thick rope about 25 feet long. Pulling with all my might they eventually got strong enough to where I could not get them off balance. The victory was theirs and ours".

At his summer school in Schumacher skaters used the trampoline and spinning devices to gain more feeling and time in the air associated with jumping and thus speed up the rate of progress with safety. Skating is almost all one legged at least in the landing of jumps therefore jumping and feeling the balance in the air was necessary. The skaters would practice jumping and getting the feel of being in the air and orienting themselves. He reminded them, "You can look if you wish, but you dare not put your head down or drop your head in order to see. This is a fatal mistake of most jumpers in the early stages". The trampoline helped bypass that problem.

Sheldon often used what he called a "soft eye" technique with is pupils. In 1943 during navy training they were taught as pilots especially when coming in for a landing after a long cross country flight to look at the small print on the instruments where the manufacturers would put down a patent number and their own specifications of what the design was and then back to the runway and around it getting the eyes used to changing rapidly to different focus because a staring eye does not see movement. He transferred that information by teaching his pupils to make sure they consistently blinked their eyes at certain points in the school figures and in a free style program every one of the events within the program was a singular event and they all come one thing at a time. They were taught there was a certain amount of preparation for each individual item in the free skating program.

At the World Championship of 1962, he noticed that one of the English skaters was using what was known then as the nuts and bolts blades where you could change the blade at the stanchion by merely undoing the bolts in the three places that held a blade and they were skating with no bolts in the center stanchion. Understanding that the pressure on an edge bent the blade outward, Sheldon had a pupil from Montreal whom he got permission from the parents to have an old pair of blades that belonged to them and he cut the center stantion with a hacksaw so there would be freedom for the blade to bend. These stiff blades and boots were really hurting the skaters and as a result of cutting the stanchion and getting a bit more flexibility this girl eventually passed her gold medal in figures which was a big improvement for her as she was not necessarily a great athlete.

Another skater, Wendy Griner was nearsighted and for some school figures required a great deal of head turning to see turns especially when going backward. He suggested a special grinding on her glasses that trapshooters used where the focal point was spread over a large area of the lens. Sheldon was able to relieve some neck stress from practice by understanding that people blind in one eye gain additional freedom to turn their heads. They would practice closing one eye temporarily during critical approach areas when backward skating to gain an extra bit of turning freedom. This helped all of his pupils when skating school figures. Once learned this practice could be performed without closing the eye to gain the benefit of additional free movement.

In the late Sixties, Sheldon had a conversation with one of the Gershwilers regarding experimenting with a spring in the heel stanchion of a figure skate. The blade would be free with the same kind of freedom that speed skaters were using at the time, but they found it uncontrollable to the extent of the way it was done to benefit either figures or free skating.

As a result of their concept he advised his pupil Greg Folk (now a coach in Calgary, Alberta) who hid a small screwdriver in the shoe when he performed the loop in school figures which required more pressure up near the ball of the foot he would loosen the screws in his skate, especially the long screws in his heel so his skate could move freely. Sheldon personally filed out the holes in the rear stanchion of many skates so there would be no friction there and that a skate could rise and fall in a small movement, enough to release that pressure against yourself when the boot is so stiff.

This followed with photographers, officials from various countries and newspaper reporters wishing to engage in the more enjoyable work of reporting the sport of figure skating after the many years of war.

It is fair to say we met many warm and friendly people in all of the skating community as well as those who covered it or worked in an official capacity.

"Sometimes I would come upon a moment in teaching with a pupil or pupils that would offer resistance and my argument was before they could convince me that it would not work we might have been able to come up with several better solutions to the problem".

"Let's go along with it until we can prove it does not work".

From all the factors mentioned he created the philosophy of his coaching career.

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