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Summit is going virtual! PSA is committed to the health and safety of its members and registrants. With the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic, PSA has made the decision to transition the 2020 Summit to a virtual event. This will allow speakers and registrants to participate via an online webinar format from the safety of their home. This decision was not made lightly but is the best course of action at this time given the information we have and the unprecedented circumstances we are facing from the COVID-19 virus. Further details regarding the modified schedule and web access information are available on our website at
www.skatepsa.com/summit All of us at PSA thank you for your support and understanding. Navigating the rapidly changing COVID-19 situation has been a challenge, and we feel the change to a virtual event will help keep us all safe and healthy.
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MAY/JUNE 2020
When You Wake Up and Realize You Are a Figure Skating Coach
I
By Kent McDill
t is wise, it is said, to occasionally take stock of where you are in life, how you are living your life, and where you are going in life. For Rodrigo Menendez, it is almost a daily ritual, and one that leaves him smiling and stunned at his good fortune. “I never thought this career would be possible,” said Menendez, a 42-year-old skating coach from Mexico City. “I am super thankful.” Menendez is a skating coach who splits his time between the Parade Ice Garden in Minneapolis (as well as other skating surfaces in the city) and Mexico City and Monterrey, Mexico, where he returns frequently to provide skating instruction of a sort that is not always available everywhere in that country. His life story is an inspirational one, and it starts as a young boy in Mexico City. “I remember my mom watching figure skaters in the Olympics,” said Menendez, 42. “I used to roller skate around our home, or at my Dad’s office. But then we started going to an ice rink on Saturday or Sunday when I was about 8 years old, and I thought ‘this is what I want to do”’. So, Menendez skated, competing well enough to compete for Mexico in regional competitions, then skating for 10 years with Disney On Ice. Then, when his parents split up, he and his mom moved to North Dakota, and he began working as a skating coach. It was in North Dakota that he found out that he could get accredited and rated as a figure skating coach, something that did not seem to be a possibility in Mexico. “A friend told me about the rating, and that you could use them to build a career,” Menendez said. “I did not know that was possible.” So, in 2013, Menendez did his research and found that he could attend a PSA conference in Palm Springs and could apply for a rating exam. “I didn’t study,” he said. “I thought I knew everything. What could they ask me that I did not know? Then I got into this conference room and I have three master-rated coaches in front of me. They started asking me all of these questions and I was like ‘Oh my God! I’m not going to pass.’ But I did find out what it was all about.
