Junior, Setter
Skating is pretty big out in Illinois.
My brother started playing hockey when I was 3 or 4 and so I wanted to get out on
the ice too. I kind of wanted to try hockey, but my mother suggested figure skating instead.So I started skating and went to a trainer in my area. At first I didn’t do so well and placed last in my first 3 competitions.
This Olympic gold medalist, Alexei Ulanov from Russia, started coaching at our ice rink and I noticed he kind of used to watch me skate and stuff. So one day my mom decided to call him up and ask if he would have time to train me. At first he said no, but then he was he asked my mom to describe what I looked like. So she did and he was like “I know who she is, I’ll take her.”
So he started training me 4-5 days a week for only about 40 minutes a day, but he worked me so hard it felt like 2 hours each time. At first, he just tried to build my body up and we didn’t even work on moves. Then went to moves.
He always taught me what he called the “Russian way.” He would always say “These other skaters walk on the ice. You have to skate. You have to be fluid and proud.”
So my first competition after he started training me was a pretty high level one. I went out there, performed really well and got second. Basically from then on, I always got first, second or third.
When I would land a new jump, he would never praise me or show excitement. I remember my mom telling me how he would skate over to her and say, “She just landed this jump. Not many people this age are landing this jump. But I’m not going tell her because I don’t want her to get too excited and to lose it.”
That’s just how he was and he would always tell me to expect great results and to never be surprised by them. He taught me a lot about competition—to have a good work ethic, to always just be proud, to be respectful, to attack everything and not to allow anything overcome you because you are strong enough to get over certain obstacles.
I was about 8 or 9 when I started training with him. He really developed me and made me very athletic. When I was still in middle school, he moved to Miami to become the director of a rink down there. My skating career kind of ended as a result because there wasn’t anybody that was comparable to him in my area.
I love watching figure skating and have enjoyed watching the Olympics. The Russian pair that won gold in the long program, I basically cried after they finished their performance. Just the pure emotion, the pure adrenaline they had after their clean skate really got to me.
When I have time, I still skate for fun. The last time I went was right before winter break. I was just doing some spins and can still do most of them. I want to get back into it a little bit more and start doing my jumps again. I don’t want to lose it. I think it’s a really good work out too.
