Title: "Troika, zubsiy, horosho rabotit..."
Hi Everyone.
Thank you for visiting. It hasn't been too long since my last entry, but it seems like a year ago to me. I'll try to get you all up to speed!
Since we left off, I've moved to New Jersey. The moving day was very sad and it was really hard for me to leave my family behind. My parents along with my aunt, cousin, and a few friends moved me to Lyndhurst. I never realized how much "stuff" I have until the move. My parents stayed with me here for a few nights, and after a tearful goodbye, I started my new, grown-up life. I organized, cleaned, cooked and did a pretty good job of holding it together. I took my weeks vacation from skating on the week I moved here so I could get settled and not have to think about skating the next morning. I traveled around finding the best market, the Russian markets, the container store, and the closest sushi restaurant. It was kind of nice to be alone. I travel so much and am always around people and parents and friends that it was nice to clear my head, be alone, and only worry about the order my shoes would go in in my new closets.
The next week I started skating with Galina Yakovlevna Zmievskaya. I knew Galina through friends, and skating in Simsbury, but I never actually sat down and talked with her. She has a very clear routine for me to follow and I do my best every day trying to perform for her and make her happy. She has a great sense of humor, and she has been in the business long enough to be very understanding. At the beginning of our relationship, I wanted to be cautious and be very objective, but Galina really knows what she's doing and I trust her already. She is very caring and we end up making jokes and talking about fashion for a good part of the day, but when I'm on the ice it is all business I get dictated to and I do my job. Galina teaches me mainly in Russian, so I feel like I'm getting an education every day. I am really happy with my choice to come here and train with her.
Skating itself is going well. I think I'm more prepared for this Japan event than I was for worlds. We do full run-throughs of the programs and we work on jumps a lot. Every detail of my skating is worked on every day and it's almost obsessive at times the amount of effort we put into one toe step or spin position. I have a totally new game face on. When I am at the rink, I am there to work and do my best job with no excuses. Your leg is falling off, deal with it after this session. You feel like your starving, deal with it after ten more triple axels. It is really working for me and I'm so happy for people to see me skate this season. I hope it will be impressive. Skating really is my main priority.
Recently I was scheduled to walk in a fashion show for Heatherette, which is a big deal to me as I want to be in the fashion industry one day, but they had a scheduling issue and changed the show to a skating night, and I had to cancel so I could skate. Before, I never would have done that. I am not proud of the machine I've become, but I know it is overdue and needed. I want to be a champion again, and I'll fight to the death for it.
My programs are very interesting for this season. My long program was choreographed by Denis Petukhov with help from Melissa Gregory. I got it the week before I moved to NJ, working late at night at the Skating Club of Wilmington in Wilmington, DE. The concept of the program is very interesting. Denis said he wanted the program to be about me and how I have to fight for my opinions, defend my statements and judgments and how I still come out positive and more alive. It was very flattering to hear that from one of my peers, but I didn't want to seem vain or cocky when I told people the concept, so I decided to make the program about love and war and how love can be war. I fight for myself everyday, and so does every other person in this world. To find self-acceptance, and love, and joy, is hell to get to. To truly believe in something and fight for it is the most rewarding thing you can do. I fight to be an individual, I fight to have a voice, I fight for my opinions, I fight for my family, I fight for honor, life is a war and I wanted to show that in my program. The music is beautiful and was composed by Yoav Goren a dear friend of the "Fallen Angels" who also composed music for Melissa and Denis and our trio number. He did an amazing job and I'm so excited to put it out at Cup of China.
I finished making my short program in the beginning of July at Konstantin Hockey School in Anaheim, CA with Faye Kitarieva. I've known Faye since I was young and I wanted too much to work with her. We had such a great connection and worked so well together. We finished the short program in two days and spent our remaining time together detailing it. Faye is an amazing artist and I was so happy to hear her opinions and ideas for me. She brought out the best in my skating. The music is the love theme from "Yunona I Avos" which is a Russian rock opera and was rearranged by Svetlana Pikous who is a very talented pianist from San Diego. It was the first real Russian musical and chronicles a love story between Nikolai and Conchita. Nikolai is a Russian sailor and Conchita is a beautiful Mexican girl that Nikolai falls in love with on a trip to California. He ends up having to return to Russia and he and Conchita say their goodbyes and Nikolai dies tragically in a thunderstorm after his ship sinks. It is very heavy and dramatic. One of the last lines in the song is "Ya tebya ne kogda, ne zabudu," which is, "I will never forget you." It is such a beautiful song and you can hear the passion Svetlana played with through the music. It's almost as if the piano was sobbing by the end of the song. It's really gorgeous and Faye, Svetlana and I all worked together to make something truly artistic.
In between training, and being busy in general, I've had the pleasure of performing in a few shows. The first was a benefit for Kimmie Meissner's "Cool Kids" campaign. It is very classy of Kimmie to donate her time and efforts to such a great cause. The show was definitely interesting. My hair was enormous. I usually try to do a stylish little "power puff" as I call it when I skate, but that day in Baltimore was so hot and humid that it turned into a giant fro in no time. I thought it was funny so I went with it. As soon as I got done with the show, I had calls from friends who saw pictures on the Internet, a subtle style bashing from my mom and dad and even my Vanya was laughing. I skated fine and enjoyed myself. The hair was just a funny happening, kinda like when I trip walking up stairs or spill coffee all over my car. It comes with the territory of being me.
A few weeks later I performed in "An Evening for Iveta" in Marlborough, Mass. I was so excited to perform in Massachusetts and to perform in a show that could really help someone. Melissa and Denis came up to New Jersey and drove up with me because we also performed our trio number. The show was flawless. I got a partial standing O and the three of us got a standing O for our efforts. It was such a special show to be a part of. There were so many top names in skating who donated their time to this cause and I was really impressed. People forget sometimes with all the rhinestones, ice divas, and rivalries that we're all human and have hearts and that we all do care about each other. The skating family is so small and at times we don't all get along, but we are all connected through love of ice.
Two days later my husband, wife and I performed at Chelsea Piers in NYC for the Will Sears Memorial show. We brought the house down as I remember. Galina and Vika Petrenko even came for the show after Vika had won her event earlier that morning at the Middle Atlantics competition. Galina liked the number but told me I looked like a cartoon with all the blue make-up. I performed in a lot of benefit shows and they're all very personal for different reasons, and I hope one day to have a benefit show of my own for something or someone I really love or believe in and I hope all my friends will come and support it the way they did for these other shows.
My costumes have been started. I worked with Natella Abdulaeva-Denze again on my creations. Natella is an artist from Saint Petersburg, Russia who designed my costume for my free programs from 2004 until 2006. She is a great friend and a great artist and she came out with some beautiful designs. Stephanie Handler is making the costumes as usual and I'm really excited to debut them. They won't be too simple, but Galina is stressing the fact that they shouldn't be too theatrical and take away from my skating.
I am working on a few projects of my own. I am working on designing costumes for Melissa and Denis for their OD and free dance. I'm so excited they asked me to help again. Melissa, Denis and I are like a little family, which is why I refer to them as my husband and wife. We keep secrets in the family, do business as a family, and we even test drive cars like a family. We were joking how we should get a cell phone plan for the three of us like a family plan. Anyway, I love them. I support them and would do anything to help. I am also supportive of their decision to use Priscilla as their coach. It may seem avant-garde and risky, but I think it's a good fit. Skaters at our level don't need to be taught a lot of new elements or tricks, we need to be pushed and helped and looked after. I know a lot of people are probably going, "what the..." but you shouldn't worry. They know what they're doing, and this season they'll be better than ever.
I am also in talks with a newspaper about writing a monthly column on life as I see it. It is an extremely flattering offer, and it definitely won't take away from my skating, so I say why not. I'll do an official announcement when it's time for you all to start reading up.
In October I will perform in Grandioznoe Ledovoe Show in Moscow, Russia. It is a Russian awards show, and allegedly, if the memo I got was correct, I've been nominated for an award called "For the love of Russia." Let's not quote me, but if all that is true, it is a huge honor. I am the only non-Russian skater to perform and I am so excited. I will say that this trip to Russia won't fall through. I already have a visa, I have an ESCA and I have travel arrangements. I'm coming to Moscow.
On Friday, I will be monitored by my federation. The monitoring sessions are a new thing for me. They are asking us to unveil our programs to them so they can check the levels of our spins and steps, check our basic condition and see how my personal coaching situation is going. I am not anxious about this because if they want to give a good report they will, if they don't, they won't. It is a little awkward to perform your new programs for relative strangers in a closed session at an ice rink when your pre-season lungs are just starting to turn into competitive lungs and when you're still working off a little summer fat. I am not looking for any miracles, I will be happy if Galina is happy and I think I did well for them.
I think this might just be the longest entry ever. I suppose there was a lot to cover. Off the ice I'm having fun. The kids who work at Starbucks are just starting to learn my drink and have it ready before I get to the counter, I'm in New York often, but not often enough for it to be a habit, on Sundays I clean and go grocery shopping, that's basically it. Oh and I got my hair cut because Galina started making me wear a ponytail so she could see my eyes and proceed to call me the name of a Teletubby in a thick Russian accent, "Johnnychik, you like Tinky Vinky."
That's all folks. I'll try and write after my trips to Japan and Moscow. Be well, and get those furs ready for fall!
Love,
Johnny
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