{"id":15622,"date":"2019-05-28T12:04:41","date_gmt":"2019-05-28T16:04:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/?p=15622"},"modified":"2019-06-27T14:12:29","modified_gmt":"2019-06-27T18:12:29","slug":"ashley-wagner-contemplates-delicious-ambiguity-and-transition-to-post-competition-life-in-new-podcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/2019\/05\/28\/ashley-wagner-contemplates-delicious-ambiguity-and-transition-to-post-competition-life-in-new-podcast\/","title":{"rendered":"Ashley Wagner contemplates ‘Delicious Ambiguity’ and transition to post-competition life in new podcast"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Maura Sullivan Hill,\u00a0Team FSO staff writer
\nHeader photo by Robin Ritoss<\/span><\/p>\n

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CHICAGO –Ashley Wagner doesn\u2019t know what she\u2019s doing.<\/span><\/p>\n

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She\u2019s busy\u2014coaching at seminars and the Skating Club of Boston<\/a>, performing in Stars on<\/em> Ice<\/em><\/a> and other shows, commentating skating events for the Olympic Channel<\/a>, documenting life on her new website<\/a> and her Instagram account<\/a>\u2014but she doesn\u2019t have a plan like she did when she was training for the Olympics.<\/span><\/p>\n

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It\u2019s an unfamiliar spot for the three-time U.S. Champion, 2014 Olympic Team Bronze Medalist, and 2016 World Silver Medalist, but she says it is still an \u201cexciting\u201d time.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cI love writing, and documenting the transition from being a professional athlete into being whatever I\u2019m going to be\u2014people don\u2019t talk about that enough and it\u2019s a really scary, uncomfortable transition,\u201d Wagner said during a pre-show interview before the Chicago performance of Stars on Ice<\/em> in May. \u201cI feel like in the past, for athletes, it\u2019s kind of a shameful thing to talk about, but everyone goes through it. The more I talked to retired athletes about what it was like, the better I felt.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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So she\u2019s launching a podcast exploring that concept, inspired by a quote from actress and comedian Gilda Radner, who said these types of transitions are full of \u201cdelicious ambiguity.\u201d Wagner plans to launch the podcast this summer, after wrapping up the 2019 Stars on Ice tour.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m going to be interviewing different athletes, women in business\u2014any walk of life, really\u2014and talking to them about this moment of not knowing and how they pushed through it,\u201d Wagner said. \u201cThat\u2019s my whole concept behind \u2018delicious ambiguity.\u2019 You don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on, but you have to enjoy it and kind of find your way anyways.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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She\u2019s looking forward to interviewing others, after spending so many years on the opposite side of the process.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cI always tried to be my most authentic and genuine self in interviews, and so it kind of is a game for me, talking to people and making them feel comfortable enough to let their guard down and just have a conversation,\u201d she said. \u201cGetting to that point with someone you\u2019re interviewing is difficult, but I\u2019ve really enjoyed that process.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Wagner\u2019s own \u201cdelicious ambiguity\u201d involved a move to Boston in the fall of 2018 on a bit of a whim, after deciding to sit out the post-Olympic season. <\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cI literally picked a place on the map and moved. I knew I wanted to be in a big city, because I knew I\u2019d probably be coaching a bit,\u201d said Wagner, who had lived and trained in the Los Angeles area since 2011. \u201cBoston has always been really good to me\u2014I made it onto the Olympic team there, my World medal was there, so, for me, it just had good vibes all around. One of my best friends, Marissa Castelli [two-time U.S. Pairs Champion and fellow 2014 Olympic Team Bronze Medalist], lives in Providence, close enough so that I knew at least one person there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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It\u2019s been so far, so good for her new life in Boston. <\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cIt is nice to be able to go out and get wine on a Wednesday night with my girlfriends,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m loving being able to participate in real life now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Wagner coaches at the Skating Club of Boston and has also been on the road, leading skating seminars. She recently returned from a seminar in Scotland and has plans for more seminars this summer, both in the U.S. and Finland.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cCoaching makes me appreciate my coaches so much. I don\u2019t main coach any of my students, and I think that\u2019s nice because I can kind of go in, sprinkle my magic and chaos and then leave and it\u2019s perfect,\u201d she said. \u201cI like the seminars because I get to teach them what I\u2019m really passionate about, and I usually end up working on performing with them. I\u2019ll teach them choreography and how to have personality. And then I feel like I\u2019m doing a little bit to save the second mark in figure skating and make personalities. I think commentating has also made me realize that I want to be entertained as well as see quads.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Part of Wagner\u2019s seminars involves teaching the skaters choreography to some of her most well-known programs from her competitive days, and she says her \u201cMoulin Rouge\u201d long program and \u201cSweet Dreams (Are Made of This)\u201d short program are favorites among the skaters she has worked with so far.<\/span><\/p>\n

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For the moment, Wagner says she does not miss competing, and she announced to NBC Sports that she will skip the 2019-2020 Grand Prix season<\/a>. She says her commentary work with the Olympic Channel has turned her into a skating fan and made her appreciate her former competitors in new ways.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cI never watched skating as I was competing, so [as a commentator] I\u2019ve become a skating fan. I love watching skating and seeing how different all of the athletes are,\u201d she said. \u201cObviously, as a competitor, I knew that, but seeing it and watching programs develop as the season goes on, that\u2019s been really cool for me to watch and appreciate, because I know the work that goes on behind the scenes. I\u2019ve turned into a skating fan, and I never thought that would happen to me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Commentary also comes with its challenges, especially balancing knowledgeable skating fans with more casual viewers.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cIt is so much harder than I thought it would be, because you want to just talk over everything, and then you also have to educate an audience and also not dumb yourself down for an audience,\u201d Wagner said. \u201cI feel like you have to wear so many different hats at the same time, and make an opinion immediately. It\u2019s fast, it\u2019s intense, and I like it a lot. I felt the same way right before I was about to start commentating an event [as] right before they were about to open up the door to get on the ice [for a competition]. It\u2019s the same kind of nerves, so I like that.\u201d\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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Nerves don\u2019t come in to play as much with show skating, where she says, \u201cI get to have my moment and I love that.\u201d She skated to \u201cGroove Is In the Heart\u201d by Deee-Lite and \u201cDog Days Are Over\u201d by Florence and the Machine on this year\u2019s Stars on Ice<\/em> tour.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201c\u2018Groove Is In the Heart\u2019 had been on one of my playlists forever, and I\u2019d wanted to skate to it for the longest time. It\u2019s super funky. For me, I feel like I\u2019m a skater that shows bring in to whip my ponytail and make the audience clap, and so I knew that I was going to be able to do that with that piece of music,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd \u2018Dog Days Are Over,\u2019 usually you have a fast and a slow program, but I felt like I could do something that was still upbeat, but a little bit more contemporary.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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The \u201890s group number has been a fan favorite and often-documented on social media during this year\u2019s tour, and Wagner loves it just as much as a performer.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cThe \u201890s number is probably my favorite number of all time, of all the Stars numbers I\u2019ve ever done,\u201d she said. \u201cHonestly, the fact that we get to go out and do that every night, it\u2019s a blast.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Now that the tour has wrapped up, she\u2019s focused on launching the podcast and heads to Finland in July for another seminar. Keep up with her on Instagram<\/a> and Twitter<\/a> @AshWagner2010.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ashley Wagner doesn\u2019t know what she\u2019s doing. She\u2019s busy\u2014coaching at seminars and the Skating Club of Boston, performing in Stars on Ice and other shows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[290],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15622"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15684,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15622\/revisions\/15684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}