Yes, live coaching is valuable. I've been away from this newsgroup while
trying out as a bicycle coach.

. . . lose sight of what is important.

Yes, I've been trying get them to learn key things like applying force
through the whole stroke cycle, and finding their lactate threshold. But so
far I've been failing:
http://www.roberts-1.com/t/b03/v
I guess I just don't have that special coaching "leadership" focus . . . or
something.

Unfortunately, we've developed a system of turf wars . . .
Instead of coaches cooperating and collaborating,
they're busy cutting each other down so as to sell
more books or attract more athletes.

"normal human society", is my term for this sort of behavior.

Providing coaching services is a competitive social status game. Some might
say: more interesting than the one-dimensional-racing game. Others might
say: a game which at least one "new skate" advocate has pursued with full
vigor.

One thing I've seen in other kinds of skiing that helps contain the
confusion: Somebody writes a really good _book_.

Like in the U.S. telemarking scene, Paul Parker wrote the definitive book.
And soon it was widely recognized as definitive -- even though telemark ski
technique is rather tricky to learn. I don't think the book made very many
people think telemark turns could be learned without taking lessons. But at
least that book helped educate the _instructors_ -- a function that may be
trickier than some people think, judging by my limited live experience with
officially-labeled "new skate" coaches so far.

Just look at the books in any XC ski catalog or shopping website -- It's not
hard to see why there's confusion about skating technique in the U.S.
community. Where is there a single book that clearly explains the new
skating ideas?

As someone who is coaching, it is frustrating to see
people "wasting time" trying to figure out things that
should be easily corrected by coaching.

There's no doubt that doing live coaching is quicker and easier and
rewarding (even as an amateur, see above). There's no doubt that writing
and drawing good diagrams is harder and slower -- and re-writing and dealing
with publishing. So it's very understandable that "new skate" coaches have
been putting off writing the definitive book that would provide both broad
context and focus on what's important.

The result is this: Other instructors may be stuck on old ideas, but at
least they've done the _hard_work_ of expressing them clearly in a
publicly-available format.

Until that "book" gap gets filled, don't be surprised to see amateurs like
me stepping into it -- and sometimes adding to the confusion because Yes, we
haven't figured out which things are important yet.

Ken