"Stupid, Lazy, Pig!" I thought that was my name when I was six years old. That's what my coach called me every day at the Soviet Union Figure Skating Academy, and before long, I was kicked out.

If it wasn't for my mother's commitment to keep taking me to the rink, you wouldn't be reading these words today.

One day, a new coach approached her. "I would love to teach your talented, beautiful girl."

For the first time in my life, I was seen, trained, and treated like a champion. She held a different vision of me, and I rose into it.

One day, I stood at the top of the podium.

I realized it was not true that I lacked the potential the other girls had. The truth was much bigger: we all carry potential within us. From that moment on, helping people realize that potential, in themselves and in their performance, became my mission.

I knew I wanted to become the kind of coach who could see beyond limitation and call greatness forward. I believed that with the right method, the right training, and the right vision, people could rise far beyond what others expected of them.

That belief led me to the University of Delaware, where I earned a B.S. in Physical Education with a concentration in Figure Skating Science under the direction of Ron Ludington. From there, I worked relentlessly to develop the technical, physical, and developmental skills required to coach at the highest levels of the sport. I continued refining my craft with world-class mentors including Pam Gregory, Alexey Mishin, Doug Leigh, Dr. Caroline Silby, Kerry Leitch, and more.

In 2006, I coached Olympic silver medalist Sasha Cohen, alongside Mr. John Nicks.

For years, I believed that confidence followed competence. So I trained my students relentlessly in technique, form, and habit. I believed that with the right preparation, the right discipline, and the right routines, athletes would rise to the moment.

And often, they did.

My students were among the strongest in the world at their levels. But the Olympics exposed something I could not ignore.

In less than thirty seconds, Sasha fell, and the dream of Olympic gold was gone. We went home devastated, searching for a way to recover. Instead, I found myself confronting a deeper truth: technique, discipline, and habits could take an athlete far, but they could not protect who showed up under pressure.

The arrival of Johnny Weir seeking my expertise in choreography opened my mind and heart to something "other-worldly".

Watching my beautifully trained students, with their perfect mechanics of execution, skate beside Johnny’s water-like flow left me thirsty for the energy moving through him. People called it natural talent. I didn’t believe that was the whole truth.

I believed that everyone has access to that kind of aliveness, expression, and flow, if they can find the right key to unlock it.

From that moment on, I was no longer searching only for better technique. I was searching for the source beneath it.

The answers, I intuitively knew, would not be found in skating alone.

I began a deep search to understand the 'zone', the aliveness I saw in certain athletes, and the deeper source of what people call natural talent.

This pursuit led me far beyond the world of sport. I immersed myself in Sports Psychology, Yoga, Tai Chi, Aikido, NLP, Hypnosis, and ultimately earned a Master of Arts in Spiritual Psychology.

I studied anything that might help me understand what allows a person to move from effort into true expression.

What I was really after was the key to unlocking the deeper self behind performance.

I wrote a book. Choreography of Awakening. I was invited to present at the Professional Skaters Association Conference. My work was being seen — inside the skating world and beyond it.

From the outside, it looked like I had arrived.

I had language. I had a book. I had a stage.

I still didn't have the method.

I could speak about awakening potential. I could inspire it. I could help people glimpse it. But I couldn't yet hand them something they could use — day after day, under pressure, on the ice and off it.

That was the missing piece.

For years, I thought I was searching for better performance. What I was really searching for was the state of natural flow—the zone, the presence, the Plushenko “King of Ice” energy—where greatness moves like water.

The real question wasn’t how to access that state, but: what breaks it? 

I discovered that flow cannot be stabilized by technique or mental skills alone. It requires wholeness in the self. If an athlete is organized around proving their worth, pressure will inevitably break their state.

The missing link was a systematic, practical way to help athletes embody their wholeness and perform from it.

I never found that method anywhere I looked. My deep study of Tai Chi, Spiritual Psychology, NLP, and all the other disciplines had been the necessary preparation. That knowledge had cleared the mental landscape, readying me to see the final piece. The answer wasn't found—it was revealed. In a moment of absolute clarity, the entire methodology I had been seeking simply came to me: i’MAGiNT LiFE.

The search became creation.