Do you enjoy coaching skating? What kinds of students are your favorite ones to teach?
I do love to teach. I love doing seminars that I have started with my business associate, Marcia Little. Because I travel so much and shows are my main gig, I only teach as a part-time coach. I teach anyone, anything, and enjoy teaching adults as much as tots. I use comedy and very vivid analogies to get my point across. My motto is "You learn more if you are having fun doing it."
What are your favorite things to teach?
ANYTHING. But if I had to pick one thing, Arabians would be it.
Tell me a bit about the different coaches you have worked with and how they helped you.
Mitch Moyer: Mitch was the coach who was patient enough with me and helped me TREMENDOUSLY with technique. It is amazing to find when on tour, all the top skaters actually have a ton of key fundamentals that are always the same, and he is the first coach I have taken from that gets that, and is willing to always learn more, and never assumes that he knows everything.
Stephanie Pizzo: Stephanie is my off-ice ballet instructor and my on-ice "fix up everything to make it look right" instructor and a close personal friend. She made me work on making my skating look smooth opposed to dorky lines. After competing in 1995 Skate Detroit, I looked at a video and for the first time in my life (after nineteen years of skating) did I actually LIKE what I saw. A dozen red roses and a "from the heart thank you" was given to her for that.
Scott Driscol: Scott choreographed my long program in 1996, "Legends of the Fall." I remember seeing him in the Southfield Ice Show, which was an amateur, yet very professional, show that I was also in. (The show was very complete, and included group numbers....that, incidentally, is why I know how to guide, do a kick line, and run into a pinwheel.) Anyway, the first year of that show, I had little respect for him because he appeared to always be goofing around. Little did I know...the following year he had a solo...and I walked in during a practice and watched him skate to his famous "Danny boy." He finished, and I walked right up to him and said, "Please teach me how to skate like you!" He was smooth, powerful, and amazing. I'm so glad to have had him teach me in his career.
Simone Grigorescu: Simone choreographed my "Angel" routine and "Tappin With Bob." She is a great woman, and very humbling to skate next to. I would video tape the two of us next to each other so I could look at the tape to see what I needed to do to get down what she was doing. I always get so mad looking at that and seeing how I look like a Pre-Preliminary boy next to her!
