Q: How did you reach that point though, now you're more emotionally,
spiritually healthy,
can you talk about getting to that point?

A: Its....it's complicated... there's a lot of factors involved...I
mean, it's a process
from 98 to 02, and through the 03 season. Um, 98, I just didn't feel
over top of myself, I
had that injury, I pushed through it, I still had the drive, and I
used every ounce of my
drive left, and then I had nothing left. I tried to come back in 99,
bring things back, I
got a little bit healthier, but still the leg was lagging. 2000, I
didn't have the injury
anymore, but psychologically my body wasn't firing the way it used
to. I got a silver medal
that year at Worlds, maybe at 70% of my capability. Then the next
year, it was a total
bomb. I couldn't compete at all, because of the injuries that kept
lagging me, and they
weren't injuries from overwork, they were constant injuries from
small accidents here and
there...weird things were happening. A lot of turmoil was going on.
02, I pushed through,
because that was why I stayed in, to go for it. That was the only
thing keeping me
going...I got through it, but still not emotional, still not
connected. And then last year,
taking a full year away from it, away from my coach Ushi, away from
everybody, just to
skate, and then also doing some things for myself, just some car
stuff, seeing my friends,
just getting away from the whole thing...and eventually it started
coming back on it's own.
It you let go, it'll come back, but you don't know when or how.

Q: Is there a sense of unfinished business here?

A: Yeah, well everyone keeps asking me about the "Gold Medal" - I
mean, its....if that, if
it was only that, I would have went for it more in 02. Because thats
what...I had two
silvers, the gold, you know, should have been there, I should have
went for it...it's not
that, it's gotta come from within. If it's not from within, forget
about it. And I've
shown that to myself, it's coming from within, it's why I'm trying to
reach my potential.
If I reach that, yeah, it's possible, and I can definitely achieve
that, I have no doubt in
my mind, it's just a matter of training, staying focused, and, uh,
the hard work is the
easy part for me. I just, I always push. It's a matter of finding
deep down, that drive,
to keep it going, and I don't have to push hard, because it's there.

Q: How about the quad lutz? Do you think you're going to stick with
it?

A: I'm definitely going to be working on it. I already talked with my
coach Linda about
it, you know, about saving a spot for it in the program. I don't know
when it's going to
come out, because we're just starting to get some of the stuff back,
the axel, all of the
other triples are there, easy, no problem, and the axel's coming
back, the quad toe, the
quad sal we're gonna work on, the lutz, we're gonna work on
everything, because that's how
I'm feeling right now, I wanna work on everything, and get everything
going. Also, working
with Randy Gardner on the long program, and working with Tracey
Robertson, we're gonna be
working on the short program, so I have 2 choreographers working on 2
different programs,
to give sort of a different feel. I'm not "reinventing" Elvis Stojko,
but I'm going to
bring out some more stuff that's been sort of dormant there for a
little while and we're
going to try to elaborate a little bit more on it.