Roland Michtchenko
Broadway Ballroom professional coach and managing principal
Roland Michtchenko brings more than twenty years
of teaching and competing experience to Broadway Ballroom. The
managing principal of the studio, he was
three times the Canadian Representative to the World Professional
Latin and Showdance Championships. He and Ekaterina were Finalists
of the World Professional Showdance Championships in Miami in 2001,
and won the Canadian Professional Latin Championship in 2006, prior
to retiring so that they could devote all their attention to coaching
dancers.
Roland and Ekaterina are directors and coaches
of the largest youth dancesport group on the west coast of Canada,
which has already produced Canadian Junior Latin Champions and the
third-highest ranked couple in the Canadian Closed Youth Latin
Championships.
Roland and Ekaterina are also hold adjudicator
licenses (A+,B+) with the Canadian Dancesport Federation (CDF) and
have judged competitions
in and outside Canada.
Roland has a passion for helping young dancers
achieve their dreams. He believes there are many parallels between
competitive DanceSport and the world of sports in general, where
a coach plays a key role in bringing someone to world class status.
The couple's program includes whole development of the person, not
just dancing. This includes physical and flexibility training as
well as sports psychology, performance development and technical
skill training.
"This is true of many fields, even outside the realm
of sports," explains
Roland. "If
you're going to become a doctor, you need to study in a variety of
areas to develop your knowledge, and apply great discipline in
many parts of your life. Competitive dancing is no different. The
top couples all share the same characteristics: passion, a vision
for success, hard work, practice and discipline."
Roland began dancing in Russia at the age of 14.
He danced intensively until the age of 18 when he enrolled in medical
school. Focusing on school took precedence over competitive dance
for a time, but ballroom dancing was in his blood. He came to Canada
in 1997 and moved to the Vancouver area, initially desiring to create
a career in the medical industry. After Ekaterina joined him a few
months later, they pursued amateur DanceSport competition with a
vengeance. He would begin his day at 6:00 am, commute from Vancouver
to Surrey by public transit, then commute back after work and practice
hard until late in the evening. Because bus service was so limited
at that time, he and Ekaterina would regularly walk across the long
Knight Street Bridge to get to the Grand Ballroom where they would
practice for as much as 7 hours at a time. They won a number of championship
events and were the highest ranked Latin amateur couple in BC when
they turned pro.
After becoming professional, they continued to
compete, becoming finalists in the World Professional Showdance
Championships in 2001. They won the Open Latin Taiwanese Championships,
made the semi-final in the German Open, made the
semi-final in the US Open Latin Professional Championships and ultimately
the Canadian Professional Latin Championship.
Phone: 604-321-9434
E-mail:
