WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
FAMILY FIRST
U.S., WORLD MEDALIST STAYS INVOLVED WITH SKATING WHILE TENDING THE HOME FIRES
by LOIS ELFMAN Holly Cook Tanner’s oldest daughter is get-
ting married this summer, but neither mother nor daughter is stressing. When Cook, 1990 U.S. and World bronze medalist, married husband Jason Tanner in 1992, she wore a rented wedding dress and she assumes her daughter will do the same. “We’re pretty casual,” said Cook Tanner, who
is trying to get in some extra time at the gym to be in good shape, but doesn’t get in workouts as often as she’d like. In addition to being a mother of four, Cook
Tanner, 46, is also a skating coach. She works with skaters of all levels — from learn-to-skate to competitors — and has taken students to the U.S. Championships. “I like watching their growth,” she said. “I can
give good advice to the parents and to the skater because I’ve been there; I understand their emo- tions, what they’re going through physically. I like being able to pass on the information I’ve learned from skating to other people and hopefully they’ll use it.”
Cook Tanner, who teaches at South Da-
vis Recreation Center in Bountiful, Utah, takes pride in continuing to learn about the sport. She’s
8 AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2016
a sectional technical specialist and hopes to get a national appointment. It’s essential, she said, that coaches keep up with the sport, and knowing the international judging system inside and out is a must. She welcomes learning new things about the sport that she incorporates into her teaching. She travels to four to six competitions a year,
mostly near her Centerville, Utah, home. Her sense of satisfaction in watching kids learn the sport has remained constant, but her perspective has changed over time. “When you’re younger, you have that com-
“I’M A BIG BELIEVER IN HAVING GREAT FAMILY MEMORIES AND EXPERIENCES.”
petitive drive. You get really excited for competi- tions, but as I’ve gotten older, competitions prob- ably make me a lot more tired,” Cook Tanner said with a laugh. “I love more figuring out things like, ‘Tis jump isn’t working. What can we do to make it work? We’ve got to fix it.’ Ten diving in with their trust, doing it and accomplishing it.” Known for her compulsory figures, Cook Tanner focuses on the importance of moves in the
field with her students. She tries to teach them the purpose of counters, rockers and brackets and where their body positions are. “We work on stroking,” she said. “Breaking
down the positioning and trying to train those muscles.” A fan of many of today’s competitors, Cook
Tanner marvels at what the top skaters can do. She loves Ashley Wagner’s feistiness, Gracie Gold’s complete package and Jason Brown’s humbleness and dynamic personality. “Even when I call at regionals, you pick out
skaters and think, ‘Oh wow, that was a great little skate,’ and you watch them grow as they grow up. It’s been fun to do that,” she said. Choreography isn’t really her thing, but she
often picks out the music and works closely with the choreographer on jump and spin placement. Cook Tanner enjoys team teaching and collabora- tion, which she thinks is essential in today’s skating world. She helps her skaters connect with the sto- ries of their programs. Of course, as a program gets some mileage, it evolves. “A program at the beginning is always dif-
ferent compared to the one at the end,” she said. “Being able to adjust and adapt to different things.” While she retired from competitive skating
before making an Olympic team, Cook Tanner got to see Olympic competition up close at the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City. She skated in the opening ceremony and was an ice monitor at the skating competition. “It was exciting to have it here and it did
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