Moving to Florida 2011

Well with our season behind us we took the start of our new term a little easier than normal to get our heads in the right place. We visited family in Kent and trained in Gillingham for a while as we have no real base in the UK. Talking to family and friends always lifts our spirits and with Europeans in Sheffield this season we have a very clear goal. With all this in mind we knew we could no longer train in Poland and couldn't stay in the UK for too long so I phoned our friends Amanda Evora and Mark Ladwig who are currently ranked USA’s number 1 pair team and asked if they would mind us training in Florida.

Three weeks later we are arriving at Tampa Bay airport with a little luggage and a lot of hope! A British ex-pat who coaches at the rink took us in, one Mrs Alison Smith. She actually coached the infamous British skater John Curry along with a very successful coaching career and is still going strong. She lives in a beautiful area of Florida with two Huskies and one other very talented skater. We were welcomed warmly and told to treat the place like home which we felt like we have really settled in well and just think that everything feels so right. The training centre, the athletes and especially the coaches all have a very much ‘we are the best’ mentality. The whole package works as a well oiled machine that just believes in hard work to get the job done. We have four new coaches Mr Lyndon Johnson who works our lifts and elements, Mr Jim Peterson our programme choreographer, Mrs Smith our jump technician and Mr Jeremy Barrett our new primary coach who kicks our ass in to gear.

So a fresh season has begun, anything can happen. As part of the training here we were assigned a very motivated young lady called Barb Fitzpatrick who plans our off-ice conditioning and pushes through our plateaus. In our strength classes Barb plays famous American Football speeches one that starts with “all men are born equal but some work harder in pre season!”. So with a little bit of pre season left our new base coach Jeremy Barrett pushed us harder than we ever worked before. Six days a week training with four on ice sessions a day and two or three off ice sessions a day. It is mentally and physically very demanding but if we want to be the best we can be we must push our bodies to their very limits.Two weeks into our new training schedule at our new base we competed at our first competition of the season in the prestigious South West Florida Figure Skating Club Competition. We had only put our free programme together the week before and knew it would be tough but managed to come away with a Bronze medal.

We landed our first ever side by side double Axels (a jump element where you turn two and a half rotations in the air) together and held our own against the best pair teams in the USA. Needless to say we were more than impressed with our fast progress we've made over the last few weeks.
Next week we compete for Great Britain at Coupe de Nice our first international assignment of the new season and feel in great shape, ready to be the best we can be.
All my best, a changed man.