What in the World is Baby Bootcamp?

Skaters in many disciplines and other athletes often refer to serious training as bootcamp. Bootcamps include a lot of stamina and endurance training, discipline specific drills and anything else needed to help prepare for a sport.

In recent seasons, my basic skills classes and many of my private lessons for kids have become "baby bootcamp" sessions. Limited gym programs and school sports, door-to-door driving of the children to everywhere, lots of TV and too many digital distractions result in little ones attempting to learn balance and stamina activities like skating with very little muscle to work with. So, we have our own little on-and-off-skate drills, stretches and endurance game activities to off set missing activities and make the learning process easier and teaching more fun.

Believe-it-or-not, although the name scares some parents, the children love baby boot camp, especially when they begin to learn to skate better or faster.