Table of Contents - IBJ Book Publishing

Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Coaching in the 1930s and 1940s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
An association of professionals, the American Skaters Guild, is formed in 1938.
Ice shows tour the world.
Chapter 2: Coaching in the 1950s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
The Professional Skaters Guild of America is organized. Ice dance develops
step by step.
Chapter 3: Coaching in the 1960s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
The 1961 U.S. World Team dies in a plane crash. The PSGA begins offering
annual conferences. The Ice Skating Institute of America is launched.
Chapter 4: Coaching in the 1970s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Skating groups forge stronger relationships. The PSGA develops an instructor
rating system. Classes keep coaches busy.
Chapter 5: Coaching in the 1980s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
The PSGA moves to Minnesota and expands. Pairs perform romantic and risky
pas de deux. Synchronized skating goes international.
Chapter 6: Coaching in the 1990s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Figures are taken out of figure skating. An assault on a skater shines a spotlight
on figure skating. Adult skating comes of age.
Chapter 7: Coaching in the 2000s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
The PSA dedicates new headquarters. Judging scandal leads to new scoring
system. Scientists advance the sport. The new century brings new credentials.
Chapter
1
1930s and 1940s
Eugene Turner
won three
medals at 1941
Nationals.
Cecilia Colledge, 1937
World champion.
Lake Placid’s 1932 rink was the first indoor
arena used for the Winter Olympics.
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
First
touring
cast of Ice
Follies.
1936 – British Ice Teachers Association
forms in London.
1937 – Sonja Henie tours U.S.
1938 – Thirteen coaches organize
American Skaters Guild in Lake
Placid; Willy Boeckl is president.
1939 – Willie Frick elected ASG
president.
1940 – Willy Boeckl serves another year
as ASG president.
1941 – Nathan Walley named president
of 72-member ASG.
1942 – American Skaters Guild is inactive
during World War II.
1949 – Group meeting in Colorado
Springs creates plan to reactivate
the guild.
1949 – Zamboni company in California
puts first resurfacing machine on
the ice.
Gus Lussi
demonstrated
figures in 1943.
Model A Zamboni, an early
ice-resurfacing machine.
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
Chapter
1
An Association of Professionals
I
n August 1938, dur ing the annual Lake
amateurs to turn professional for the purpose of
our own, and in enabling them to contact clubs
Placid summer season, 13 prominent figure
skating in haphazard skating shows which failed
desiring professionals,” USFSA President Joseph
skating instructors gathered for a meeting. This
and left them stranded as professionals without
K. Savage wrote in a letter published in Skating.
international group, mostly residents of the
experience in teaching.”
“We must remember that the law of supply and
United States and Canada, decided they needed
to institute standards for teaching the sport and
promote the interests of professional instructors.
They called themselves the American Skaters Guild.
COACHING IN THE 1930s and 1940s
2
The coaches elected as their president Willy
Boeckl, the former world champion from Austria,
who taught most of the year in New York City.
In an ar ticle in Skating magazine, Boeckl listed
the guild’s goals: “The mutual protection of the
instructors and of the clubs employing them,
The guild members agreed on an initiation fee
and annual dues of $5. They appointed temporary
officers, including Willie Frick and Walter Arian as
vice presidents.
The U.S. Figure Skating Association welcomed
the ASG. “Our own Association has always
endeavored to cooperate and will continue to
cooperate with the professionals in helping them
solve their problems, which are closely related to
demand controls both wages and employment …
While the professionals’ association cannot make
new jobs, it can see that such jobs as are open
are satisfactorily and competently filled and raise
the present standard of teaching by tests and
the dissemination of proper information, and the
amateurs will profit accordingly.”
Theresa (Tee) Weld Blanchard motivated the
top coaches to form the guild, said U.S. Figure
Skating historian Benjamin T. Wright. In the 1930s,
the establishment of friendly cooperation with
Blanchard edited Skating magazine and acted
the clubs and the United States Figure Skating
as the voice of the USFSA from Boston. “There
Association, the formulation of methods of
was no other place to turn to. She was the
ascer taining the competency of figure skating
person who found jobs for many of the coaches,
instructors by giving them tests, based not merely
particularly the foreign coaches who came during
on the standard of the instructor’s own skating but
the 1920s and 1930s. So she recommended that
on their actual teaching ability, and the awarding to
they form an organization which could provide
instructors of competency certificates.”
that support. It was her initiative that got the top
coaches, in the East particularly, to join together,”
Boeckl also wrote that some promoters of the
he said.
new ice shows were not treating skaters fairly:
“Action should be taken to put an end to the
practice of professional show promoters inducing
During the ASG’s early years, Blanchard
Editor Theresa Weld Blanchard worked in a Boston office.
continued to help match instructors and clubs. In
Summer Skating Mecca
In a Skating article inviting
skaters to Lake Placid for the 1938
summer season, arena manager
H.L. Garren described the New
York resort’s amenities, beautiful
mountain scenery and sunsets,
and extensive skating and social
programs:
The Lake Placid arena attracted summer skaters.
1939, she reported to the USFSA Governing Council that
the professionals committee had more than 500 names on
file.
days of World War II, while I was in college,” when Skating
operated from an apar tment near the Skating Club of
Boston, Wright recalled. His first job was to organize some
files, which were stored in a bathtub. “I found a form Tee used
for résumes, filled out in handwriting. I remember seeing the
résumes of Pierre Brunet and his wife, Andree Joly, and Karl
Schafer, a World and Olympic champion who came over.”
At the August 1939 meeting of the ASG in Lake Placid,
the professionals elected as president Willie Frick, a
German teaching at The Skating Club of Boston since 1920.
They approved resolutions on themes they would discuss
repeatedly over the years. “It was resolved that the closest
possible cooperation with the USFSA should be a major
aim,” Boeckl wrote in a Skating article. Also, “A motion was
passed to conduct strict tests for all new skaters entering
“A staff of professionals will be
available at all times… The staff
will consist of Walter Arian, Willy
Boeckl, Joseph Carroll, William
Chase, Willie Frick, Cathleen Frick,
and Gustave Lussi. Lessons will be
on a half-hour basis and instruction
rates will range from $3.50 to $5.00
per half-hour.
“Interspersed with serious
skating will be the Ice Mardi Gras
on July 2 which is open to all skaters
in costume. … Then there are the
Friday night parties, by The Skating
“It is truly a common meeting
ground, the melting pot of skating,
where thoughts and ideas pertaining
to the betterment and advancement
of figure skating may be exchanged —
where you meet old and new friends
— the skater’s paradise.
“Patch skating which was
inaugurated at Lake Placid two
summers ago has proven very
popular and beneficial to skaters.
… The demand for season patches
has been so great that a schedule of
four season patch sessions per day
has been scheduled. The increased
interest shown this year (in dancing)
has resulted in a session of dancing
being included in each evening’s
schedule of skating. During the last
week of the dance period music
will be provided by an orchestra in
afternoon and evening. The Dance
Conference and Dance Judges School
proved so successful last year that it
is being repeated again this summer.
Dance Competitions will again be
included in the four dances, viz.:
waltz, fourteenstep, foxtrot and
tango, under USFSA rules.”
3
The Joy of Coaching
“I went to work for Tee as an unpaid assistant in the early
“There will be the same wellrounded daily schedule of skating
that makes Lake Placid the ideal
skating center. The daily program
will include patch, figure, dance and
public sessions. … In the morning,
afternoon and evening figure skating
sessions only figure skates will
be allowed on the ice. Only those
desiring to dance will be allowed on
the ice during the dance sessions.
Club of Lake Placid, where everyone
forgets their dignity and has a real
good time. The Annual Mid-Summer
Operetta will be held on August
4, 5, and 6.
the field of instruction.” The group also resolved
Blanchard and Boeckl, honorary presidents; and
that “all professional instructors must conduct
Howard Nicholson, vice president. Others on the
themselves with circumspection, so that they
list of officers and committee chairs were Elizabeth
will be a credit to the club with which they are
Chase, Janson, Gustave Lussi, Willie Frick, Joseph
associated.”
Carroll and Maribel Vinson Owen.
The first instructors’ tests were given in
The American Skaters Guild held a special
December 1939 at Iceland Rink in New York City
meeting during the 1942 U.S. Championships in
to Roland Janson, a former national junior pair
Chicago in February 1942. With Chairman Walley
champion, and Werner Groebli, “Mr. Frick” of the
presiding, the ASG voted unanimously to invest half
famous comedy duo Frick and Frack. They took the
of the guild’s funds in defense bonds
silver tests, designed to “ascertain whether new
COACHING IN THE 1930s and 1940s
4
figure skating instructors and those without known
Members of the ASG did not meet again until
ability are competent to teach,” wrote Savage in
after World War II. Then, in early 1946, instructors
a Skating article. Those who passed the silver test
in the East Bay area of northern California and
would be recommended as instructors of school
others in Southern California voted to form the
figures and free skating up through the junior
competitive level.
“Some of the judges would execute (and I
mean ‘execute’) school figures, intentionally making
some mistakes in tracing position, footwork, arms,
shoulder or head movements,” Savage added.
“The candidates were then required to point
out the faults and explain how to correct them,
and were asked various questions … to test their
knowledge and ability to instruct in a competent,
Walter Arian served as an officer of the
American Skaters Guild.
had an interesting and instructive session.
Guild of Pacific Coast Instructors. They sent a
letter detailing a structure for a national guild
to a group meeting in Chicago to discuss the
“These tests were an excellent innovation and
revival of the ASG. The Chicago meeting resulted
should result in better instructors and be beneficial
in a reorganization plan. They decided to form a
to the Guild members, the USFSA, the clubs and
nominating committee, hold meetings at Lake
pupils, by setting a definite standard and helping to
Placid in August and at sectional competitions
eliminate any uncertainty as to the ability of new
in the winter, and invite all instructors to join.
or little known instructors.”
Professionals were directed to contact Eugene
understandable manner. The candidates were also
In 1940, Boeckl again took the helm of the ASG,
Turner in Hollywood, Calif., for information. Finally
required to … illustrate various jumps and spins
which was growing rapidly. Blanchard was named
in 1949, some original members of the ASG met
and to criticize and correct faults exhibited by the
honorary president, and Arian was vice president
at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs and elected
judges intentionally or unintentionally in performing
for Canada and Nathan Walley was vice president
a committee to draft a constitution and bylaws,
these. Both candidates were successful in passing
for the U.S. By the 1941 meeting, the guild had 72
including a proposal to change the name to the
the test and all concerned, including the judges,
members. In 1941, Walley was named president;
Professional Skaters Guild of America.
Willy Boeckl
a LogiCaL and exaCt SyStem
By Willy Boeckl
Stats: 1893 – 1975.
Titles: World champion 1925 – 28;
Olympic silver medalist 1924, 1928;
six-time European champion; fourtime Austrian champion.
ASG President: 1938 and 1940.
Halls of Fame: PSA 2013, World 1977.
Coached: At Skating Club of New
York and Lake Placid. After retiring,
became a judge.
Cutting Edge: Invented Boeckl jump,
similar to inside Axel.
Quote: “Axel Paulsen is a continuous
forward three and loop jump, and
requires athletic ability and courage.
It is seldom executed properly, most
skaters being content to ‘fake’ the
jump by leaping more or less from
the toe of the skating foot and
doing the first half of the turn on
the ice, or else they land forward
inside and turn quickly on the ice to
back outside. Strive to do a correct
Paulsen and avoid both the three
turn or the toe turn.”
as much and as fast as you can, to learn to turn quickly, to
stop at will and to skate backward with ease and sureness;
in other words learn to control your body while skating.
These accidental curves and turns soon become more
directed and the pupil is ready for instruction in the art of
figure skating. The reason why people get discouraged and
abandon figure skating is because they make no effort to
grasp the fundamentals, the four edges. They try to learn
changes, turns, jumps and meanwhile they are struggling
with the edges upon which all balance is based.
From the introduction and preface of Willy Boeckl’s book Willy
Boeckl on Figure Skating (Moore Press, 1937).
5
The Joy of Coaching
First Coach: His mother.
Although I had a fair measure of success as an amateur
contender for figure skating laurels, and have taught figure
skating for over nine years, it was not until recently that I
felt equipped to set down the knowledge and experience
acquired in my skating career. These theories have been
tried in actual practice with my pupils over a long period
and have been embodied in a logical and exact system in
the following pages.
I wanted to get away from the accidental method of
those amateurs or professionals whose only rule is that
they found it easy to do a certain figure a certain way,
notwithstanding the fact that they skated similar figures
of identical principles in an entirely different manner or
position. I determined to put off writing my book until
I had carefully noted the elements of a natural, simple
method which followed physical laws as closely as
possible, that is to say, a system which permits the body
to travel along the line of least resistance. This, and only
this, can make skating easy, and permits the maintenance
of even pace, which is the problem for novice and expert
alike.
The ardent defenders of the old school of skating
eights … seemed unaware of the fact that the movement
of travel of a body can be influenced by an outside force,
which modifies the initial path of movement. In the
description of every figure, I will outline and illustrate the
method of bringing those forces into play which cause the
skate to travel along the proper path, with the body in an
easy and graceful position.
Into this book I have put all I learned as an amateur,
a professional teacher and now and again perhaps the
engineer crept into it as well.
My advice on straight or plain skating is to race around
PROfiles
Willy Boeckl created the Boeckl jump. He leaped from a
forward inside edge, turned one and a half times in the air
and landed on the same foot.
PROfiles
Willie Frick
deepLy Bent KneeS and neat Feet
By Christie Allan-Piper
Stats: 1896 – 1964. Born in Germany.
Married partner and fellow coach
Cathleen Pope.
ASG President: 1939.
Halls of Fame: PSA 2013, World 1981.
COACHING IN THE 1930s and 1940s
6
Tests: In one day in 1933, passed all
of the figure tests of the National
Skating Association of Great Britain.
Coached: At The Skating Club of
Boston 1920-60; champions included
Theresa Weld Blanchard, Gretchen
Merrill, Joan Tozzer and Bernard Fox,
George Hill, Maribel Vinson, Roger
Turner, Tenley Albright.
Willie Frick was approaching retirement when he
skated to the boards to meet his new student. Glancing at
my skates, he frowned. “The first thing you need is a pair
of decent skates,” he said, eying my proudly purchased,
new, $12 skates.
A diminutive, formal gentleman, he wore a banker’s suit
and tie and taught by leading us around circles or dance
patterns on unerring edges. He sat firmly over his skate,
back erect, free leg pointed, feet touching with every step.
He always stepped rising from a deep knee. “Neat feet,”
he said.
Almost at once, I sensed in him a sadness that a
reckless focus on jumps was coming at the expense of
skating form and function. He’d taught generations of
champions: Suzanne Davis, Joan Tozzer, Maribel Vinson
Owen and Tenley Albright.
We stopped to watch whenever Tenley stepped on
the ice. His face glowed and his shoulders straightened
proudly as she paused to greet her old teacher. She
exemplified all he believed skating should be, combining
form, musicality, invention and outward and inner grace.
Another of his students, Maribel Vinson Owen, coached
nearby. She taught his principles with abandon and gusto.
“Hip in, weight over the skate,” she shouted, pounding
her own hip with her fist. Though her boisterous teaching
style contrasted with quiet Mr. Frick’s, she was his most
significant heir, demanding the same straight back, deep
knee, pointed toe, neat feet and spor tsmanship. Like
Mr. Frick, she insisted on principled conduct. She usually
bellowed, her voice chronically hoarse, but she never
spoke ill of competitors.
Christie Allan-Piper coaches in
Massachusetts.
Cutting Edge: Encouraged summer
training and took Boston skaters to
England in the 1930s.
Claims to Fame: Known as “Boy
Wonder of Berlin” for exhibitions in
Europe; performed “candle dance,”
skating patterns around lit candles
on the ice.
Willie Frick performed his
candle dance in many ice
shows.
The Skating Scene: 1938
•
W
hen the American Skaters Guild formed in 1938,
Summer skating in North America
skating instructors and teachers called themselves
was in its infancy. The first summer
professionals or pros. The U.S. Figure Skating Association’s
session at Lake Placid was in 1932
Professionals Committee had a list of 500 names.
in the arena built for the Winter
Olympics. Schumacher and a few
Here are some other facts about the skating scene in 1938:
other cities in Canada offered
• The USFSA was founded in 1921 with seven charter clubs:
summer sessions. In the 1940s, some
Beaver Dam Winter Sports Club (Mill Neck, N.Y.), The
California rinks would stay open all
Skating Club of Boston, Chicago Figure Skating Club, New
York Skating Club, Philadelphia Skating Club and Humane
Skating Club (which soon became Figure Skating Club of
Minneapolis). By 1938, USFSA had grown to 25 clubs and
Skating magazine had 3,000 subscribers.
•
Some skating clubs provided a vibrant
social schedule for members with
social dance sessions accompanied by
live orchestras, exhibitions, carnivals, and
junior clubs with group lessons. The USFSA sanctioned
• Many clubs offered sessions only outdoors.The Philadelphia
34 club carnivals in 1938. Some of the big clubs
Skating Club and Humane Society was the first privately
presented their carnivals to full houses in major arenas.
owned skating club to build its own indoor rink, which
• The USFSA adopted the eight figure and freestyle test
opened in January 1938. The Skating Club of Boston soon
followed suit.
structure in 1925, but high-level tests were rare and
only 10 skaters had passed the gold test. A dance
“According to a recent poll of USFSA members by the editors of Skating, the great majority of them are
more interested in dancing than in the other types of skating. Our few competitors who are interested in
advanced school figures, free skating and pairs belong to the younger generation.”
— USFSA President Joseph K. Savage
7
The Joy of Coaching
Society, Sno Birds of Lake Placid (N.Y.), and Twin City Figure
summer.
PROfiles
eugene turner
SonJa henie a FUn partner
By Eugene Turner
Stats: 1920 – 2010.
Halls of Fame: PSA 2012, U.S. 1983.
Coached by: Himself and his mother,
a skating judge, in Los Angeles.
COACHING IN THE 1930s and 1940s
20
Titles: U.S. champion 1940, 1941; U.S.
pairs champion with Donna Atwood
1941; dance silver medalist with
Elizabeth Kennedy in 1941. Only
skater to medal in three disciplines in
one U.S. Championships.
Show Biz: Partnered Sonja Henie in
Hollywood Ice Revue. Appeared in
movies with Henie and Belita JepsonTurner. Doubled in movies for Cary
Grant and Patrick Knowles.
Coached or Choreographed: Tenley
Albright, Richard Dwyer, Cathy
Machado, Karol and Peter Kennedy,
Tim Brown and Allen Schramm.
Worked mainly in California until age
80.
Family: Seven children, three
daughters skated seriously. Mary Jo
competed. Terry and Lisa skated in
ice shows. Lisa coached 15 years.
direct. They even learned the choreography faster than the
skaters. The term skaters is used loosely here. Today the Ice
Follies has gold medalists in its kick-line. Back then few knew
even what a first test was. They weren’t bad, but the quality of
skating in Sonja’s shows left something to be desired, even in
those years. It mattered little. Sonja was the star; all else was to
be a backdrop.
She seemed to have a different partner every year. It
became my turn in 1941. I’d turned professional that year to
teach but upon being asked I gladly accepted because I thought
it would be an interesting experience. She seemed to have
an honest respect for good skating, she knew her limitations
and she never in any way resented help or correcting. I liked
her, she was fun to work with and she never gave me any
problems.
We were talking about glamour and Sonja Henie. But the
glamour wasn’t only on the ice. The audience for Sonja’s debut
was star-studded with all the great names of that era: Gable,
Shearer, Crawford,Tracy, Hepburn, a very young Jimmy Stewart,
in fact everyone but Garbo, appearing partly through curiosity,
partly through fear of incurring Hearst’s wrath and Marion
Davies’ pique. The old Polar Palace had never seen anything
like it before or since.
I’d go along with the hordes to see her movies. People went
in droves… When you realize that this was an ice skater, with
an accent you could cut with a knife, and in movies with plots
that hurt, then you knew she had something pretty special.
The second phase of
Sonja’s professional life came
when she joined forces with a
Chicago businessman, Arthur
Wirtz, to produce a touring
show. The success of the Ice
Follies probably gave Wirtz
the idea. Wirtz owned several
arenas in the Midwest.
To Hollywood skaters this
opportunity appeared golden:
It meant a shor t trip, like a
paid vacation, and right back
onto a Hollywood movie lot
for the next picture. But it
didn’t quite work out that way.
Studio dancers were as eager
to go as skaters and the studio
dancers were not only picking
up the skating easily but were
better trained and easier to Eugene Turner taught at Iceland in Berkeley, Calif., circa 1960.