MIMI WACHOLDER
Mimi Wacholder (with partner Colin Sullivan) competed in Senior Dance at Nationals for five years, and represented the US at several international competitions.
"I was thrilled to compete internationally and represent the USA," remembers Mimi. "It made me feel truly patriotic, wearing a USA jacket in Zakopane, Poland, feeling like I had truly arrived at a level of greatness in my field. But at the same time, I was traveling through a countryside that was cold, poor and depressed. After the competition, I went to tour the concentration camps of Auschwitz. I often questioned the meaning of my quest."
Mimi retired when professional skaters were allowed to reinstate, explaining that this, "eliminated our chances of making the Olympics and I didn't have another 6 years to keep making the sacrifices for a possibility of making the next Olympics. I wanted to see what else I could be when I grew up, before I was all grown up and only knew skating."
"Ultimately, in my professional career, I ended up touring with Dorothy Hamill in the "Ice Capades," sharing lipstick colors and mascara tips in the dressing room. Skating, training, traveling and performing offered many gifts and lessons, including lifelong friends. The sport as a career was at once a vehicle of emotional release and creative self-expression, and an institution where I had to look, present and behave in a certain manner before judges and critics. It is a complex dynamic, this sport that requires you to be an athlete, artist and a pageant contestant. My current life is quite a stretch from sequins and mascara. It is about serenity. As a skater, I felt special, important-- like I was a star and even sometimes "better than." People would say: " That is so amazing you skate, I always wanted to know how to skate." Sometimes as a skater, although I felt a sense of superiority and self-importance outside, it was gravely lacking inside. I would feel emptiness and a longing for a career of substance and deeper meaning."
"Each day today is about the importance inside. I live in Lake Placid where my lifestyle is very simple and quiet. I teach yoga, write articles, have a marketing business and do some choreography. In addition, I am married to a wonderful man, Ben, who has taught me much about making each day count, and together we have an amazing son, Kai, who has taught me about making each second count. Skating taught me a lot about myself, but not skating has been the more challenging choice and taught me even more."
"I was thrilled to compete internationally and represent the USA," remembers Mimi. "It made me feel truly patriotic, wearing a USA jacket in Zakopane, Poland, feeling like I had truly arrived at a level of greatness in my field. But at the same time, I was traveling through a countryside that was cold, poor and depressed. After the competition, I went to tour the concentration camps of Auschwitz. I often questioned the meaning of my quest."
Mimi retired when professional skaters were allowed to reinstate, explaining that this, "eliminated our chances of making the Olympics and I didn't have another 6 years to keep making the sacrifices for a possibility of making the next Olympics. I wanted to see what else I could be when I grew up, before I was all grown up and only knew skating."
"Ultimately, in my professional career, I ended up touring with Dorothy Hamill in the "Ice Capades," sharing lipstick colors and mascara tips in the dressing room. Skating, training, traveling and performing offered many gifts and lessons, including lifelong friends. The sport as a career was at once a vehicle of emotional release and creative self-expression, and an institution where I had to look, present and behave in a certain manner before judges and critics. It is a complex dynamic, this sport that requires you to be an athlete, artist and a pageant contestant. My current life is quite a stretch from sequins and mascara. It is about serenity. As a skater, I felt special, important-- like I was a star and even sometimes "better than." People would say: " That is so amazing you skate, I always wanted to know how to skate." Sometimes as a skater, although I felt a sense of superiority and self-importance outside, it was gravely lacking inside. I would feel emptiness and a longing for a career of substance and deeper meaning."
"Each day today is about the importance inside. I live in Lake Placid where my lifestyle is very simple and quiet. I teach yoga, write articles, have a marketing business and do some choreography. In addition, I am married to a wonderful man, Ben, who has taught me much about making each day count, and together we have an amazing son, Kai, who has taught me about making each second count. Skating taught me a lot about myself, but not skating has been the more challenging choice and taught me even more."
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