Coach Brad Kleffman
My Story
I grew up in Naperville, a southwest suburb of Chicago. It’s the same hometown as Olympic champion Evan Lysacek. After his win at the Olympics I decided I wanted to try to make it to Nationals, and beyond. In 8th grade, I moved to Colorado Springs to train for single skating. After almost 5 years, I moved to Bloomfield Hills, Detroit, to train for ice dance. Both training centers provided exceptionally valuable experiences.
Once I decided to stop skating competitively, I returned back to Naperville and started coaching at the first rink I trained at. It was an amazing opportunity to be able to help skaters begin their skating journey, right where it had all began for me. But, I had a yearning to move back out West. Through some thought and speculation, I made it my goal to return to Colorado. I moved back to the Denver area to study at University of Colorado Denver and to coach at the Ice Centre in Westminster. After graduating college and working with students in Westminster for 6 years, I’m starting to take on primary students and will be running a summer program.
The Debbie “Story”
Debbie Stoery was my childhood coach in Chicago. She retaught me all of my single jumps and taught me my doubles. Not only was she a great technician, but she also had great ideas on how to improve my skating abilities off the ice. I would attend tap dance classes to improve my balance, coordination, and core control. Weight shifting is essential in both tap dance and figure skating. Another creative idea that Debbie had was pool jump. In the class, we would stand in waist high water and perform jumps and
rotations. It created a higher level of resistance than what we would feel while rotating on the ice, strengthening our rotating ability. Debbie showed me that there are a multitude of ways to improve your skating off the ice. The jump rope club, mental edge, and jumpstart off-ice training were all developed with Debbie’s creativity in mind.
Trained at the World Arena and Detroit Skating Club training centers
Jr. National medalist & National Competitor
Trained and competed at an elite level in both Freestyle and Ice Dance
Coached by Kristy Krall, Janet Champion, Angelica Krylova, Masimo Scali, and Liz Swallow