A lot of times when you go through a very traumatic situation and it's emotionally difficult to deal with you come back spiritually stronger. It changes you in a way.

All I know is that skating is getting better, the guys are getting better throughout the whole age range.

I had the strength and the finesse there and put it all together.

I won't be skating for the rest of my life, that's for sure.

My mom was a dancer, my dad's a singer and I've always had that kind of music in my life.

After you've done it for so many years, you have to find a new direction. You have to find something in your soul that's going to push you towards - to find your inspiration.

Always looked up to Brian and his skating, I loved his skating and what he had done for the sport. And the triple axel, that was the thing, and I wanted a triple axel.

And then, looking back at my first Olympics, and when the pressure was on, in '94 and '98, and looking back and going, wow. I sensed and felt what Brian had gone through.

But a lot of my training can be done in Aston - a lot of the hard work, so to speak. But a new atmosphere, a new place, and it's good for me because I didn't want to get stuck in one spot, so coming home is good, back and forth, you know, where my roots are.

I could not have done anymore, I had pushed myself to a limit that I had never touched before and that's definitely going to change you - than going out and doing what you do in practice every day.

I don't want to prove to anyone or prove to myself. I'd rather just enjoy and show myself that I am capable of doing it and actually going through the process.

I trained and trained and went up against Kurt, then being a world champion in '94, and after that I did Tommy's tour and then my tour and all this stuff and just trying to deal with it all. And now, I've just kind of backed off a little.

I would have to agree, that I'm probably more intense than Brian or Kurt, competitive because, I was always like this, always being that way, always real competitive.

Just a whole different style, just a whole different way of going about an audience and a way about skating. And they are so brilliant in their own way, which is great, and that's what Brian was saying; is the styles are different, and it's the whole mentality.

Just before I got down here I had a chance to see Agassi play another game and he smoked another player, which was nice to see. Someone who a lot of people thought couldn't come back and now he's winning.

Technically, the last number of years, partially from the injury, it's been difficult to push forward but I felt even before the injury that I still could do more and was sort of at a stalemate.

When you're younger, your inspiration is there. As you get older, it tends to waver. Once you find it - I found it again - that's where you can draw from. That's where you draw your strength from.

You're always learning on different avenues and this is an opportunity for me to start on a fresh plate and start learning some other things that can really help me, that I need, and I want, to progress forward.