Skating history of top coaches or choreographers

[Pixie Cut]

Tarasova skated in pairs, not ice dancing.

I was going to say that. In fact, a fall from a lift that resulted in a career ending injury ushered her into coaching at the tender age of 19.

 

[Zanzibar]

Tarasova skated in pairs, not ice dancing.

Sorry - the exclamation mark (!) after ice dancer was supposed to be a (?) question mark as I wasn't sure what discipline TT did before turning to coaching.

 

[passion]

I don't think that success as competitor equals success as a coach. It is one thing to know how to do it yourself and quite another to explain it to someone else in a million different ways until it is clearly communicated. Success as a competitor may make one more visible to parents, ice school directors etc, but it doesn't make you patient, organized or a solid communicator! If you have to be able to do it to teach it, there would be even fewer men out there doing quads

ITA. I think being successful as a skater is like advertising. It gives you a reputation, but teaching and skating are two different things. I'm sure there are great coaches out there who noone has ever heard of.

 

[blue dog]

Don't forget that Bin Yao, world class pairs coach, was once himself a terrible skater.

 

[hockeyfan228]

Kawahara was part of Curry's company.

Moskvina/Mishin also won Russian Nationals, beating the Protopopovs and Rodnina/Ulanov.

 

[mskater93]

No, because Ward is already coaching and choreographing for skaters as a way to pay for his own skating -- he has been for quite a few years now and does some good work, I've heard.

Isn't Kate Charbaneau one of his students? She's done well in the Intermediate and Novice ranks.

 

[Mathman]

They say that sometimes the very best athletes don't make good coaches.

Everything came so easily and naturally to them that they don't know how to teach it to someone else that doesn't have the same knack that they had.

 

[skatergirlaj]

Don't remember if it's ok to post youtube urls here or not..but here is a link to a video of Tatiana Tarasova skating pairs in her younger days.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uIfB4YwQJI

 

[maureend]

Tarasova suffered a serious shoulder injury and switched from pairs to dance. She was coached by Chaikovskaya for a time, but at a fairly young age (20-ish) gave it up and turned to coaching. She started working with Moiseeva-Minenkov from the beginning. She didn't get handed Rodnina, IIRC Rodnina-Zaitzev approached her.

BTW, Tarasova wanted to study at GIPIS for a creative arts degree (dance, or something), but her father said "no artists in this house". She eventually got - after a prolonged/interrrupted/renewed study - a degree (like a masters) from Institute of Physical Culture in Moscow.

 

[Hsuhs]

switched from pairs to dance.

Where did you read this?

 

[discoduck]

Don't forget that Bin Yao, world class pairs coach, was once himself a terrible skater.

Yep he and his partner were dead last at worlds although I'm not sure of the year. 1980 maybe? It's amazing how he took that experience and built the Chinese pairs program from it.

 

[maureend]

Tarasova's switch from pairs to dance has been mentioned in a lot of TV programs (russia) and articles. So I don't have a citation... when something can be found in a lot of materials, you can call it "common knowledge" and not cite in term papers... so there you go!

 

[Zanzibar]

Tarasova suffered a serious shoulder injury and switched from pairs to dance. She was coached by Chaikovskaya for a time, but at a fairly young age (20-ish) gave it up and turned to coaching. She started working with Moiseeva-Minenkov from the beginning. She didn't get handed Rodnina, IIRC Rodnina-Zaitzev approached her.

BTW, Tarasova wanted to study at GIPIS for a creative arts degree (dance, or something), but her father said "no artists in this house". She eventually got - after a prolonged/interrrupted/renewed study - a degree (like a masters) from Institute of Physical Culture in Moscow.

Thanks Maureen! Interesting stuff!

 

[Ptichka]

Thanks Maureen! Interesting stuff!

Zanzibar, a lot of this is also mentioned in a made-for-TV film on TT I recently translated; it's in my blog - http://ptichkafs.livejournal.com/tag/tarasova_movie in reverse order.

 

[Zanzibar]

Thanks! Off to look at that link now!

 

[Olderbear]

Ken Congemi

I know Ken Congemi works with Frank Carroll (and BeBe), but who is he and where did he come from? Was he ever a competitive skater?

 

[blue dog]

Yep he and his partner were dead last at worlds although I'm not sure of the year. 1980 maybe? It's amazing how he took that experience and built the Chinese pairs program from it.

I remember watching fluff recently (with that horrid Peter Carruthers doing the commenting) and he said that Bin Yao and his partner were laughed at in one of the worlds competitions, and then they finished last in Sarajevo. Guess who's laughing now? =)

 

[SusanBeth]

I didn't see it mentioned, but John Nicks was a World Champion in pairs. I believe he is retired now, but he's coached quite a few elite skaters.

 

[hockeyfan228]

Bin Yao and his partner weren't as bad as the Dortmund audience's reaction would lead us to believe. They had a lot of guts and directness going into many of their moves. The main issue is that the early Chinese coaches tried to reverse engineer pairs skating from video of Russian events, which led to some interesting technique. But I remember seeing a video of theirs, and I've been a lot more worried that the man would drop the woman and seen far more tentative pairs skating at some of the recent Euros and Worlds I've seen than from the video of Bin Yao and his partner.

 

[vintagefigureskater]

Doug Leigh was the Canadian junior men's silver medalist in 1966. Here's a great article about him from Coach's Report:

http://http://www.skatemariposa.com/team/doug.jpg