Our Team
Who we are, and why we do this.
Dalena Juárez
Owner & Director
NCCP Level 2 & Certified Active Start
Years coaching: 18
Specialty: Performance, developmental, and pre-competitive streams
Career Highlight: Opening Ritmo Gymnastics in May, 2016
Favourite thing about RG: Seeing athletes and coaches grow into beautiful, strong, unique, and independent women.
Favourite quote: “What if I fall? Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?” -Erin Hanson
Danielle Veikle
Head Coach
NCCP Level 3
Years coaching: 17
Specialty: Provincial and National level competitive stream
Career Highlight: Completing her NCCP Level 3 Certification
Favourite thing about RG: Getting to know the athletes and their uniqueness, watching them master new skills and celebrating their accomplishments.
Favourite quote: “Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside of you greater than any obstacle.”- Christian D. Larson
Angelina Messina
Coach
NCCP Level 2
Years coaching: 3
Specialty: Provincial level competitive stream
Career Highlight: Finishing 4th overall at the 2016 Western Championships and receiving the Gymnastics Saskatchewan Athlete of the Year award for the 2015-2016 season.
Favourite thing about RG: How grace and beauty meet sport, and seeing the joy on an athletes face when you have helped them achieve a skill or a goal they have been working on.
Favourite quote: “The definition of success is doing something you love.”
Desirae Giesbrecht
Coach
Gymnastics Foundations & Active Start – Certified
Years coaching: 5
Specialty: Recreational, pre-competitive, and provincial level competitive
Career Highlight: Transitioning from athlete to coach and getting to coach alongside her former coaches.
Favourite thing about RG: Its grace and beauty that is unlike any other sport.
Favourite quote: “The only way to be the best at something is to be the best you can be.”
Katrina Phippard
Coach/Ballet Expert
Years teaching: 7
Specialty: Ballet instruction
Favourite thing about RG: The way it integrates individual responsibility with teamwork.
Favourite quote: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.” -Aristotle
Kara Wright
Coach
NCCP Level 2
Years coaching: 13
Specialty: Provincial competitive stream
Career Highlight: Attending 3 Canadian and World Gymnaestradas as an athlete, completing Level 2 certification recently and having athletes qualify to Westerns in her first year of coaching.
Favourite thing about RG: Watching the girls grow personally and artistically, and seeing them master skills by the end of the season they thought they could never do at the beginning.
Favourite quote: “You will never regret reaching your goal, you will only regret giving up and not trying harder”.
Janae Klassen
Coach-in-training
Gymnastics Foundations – Trained
Specialty: Pre-Comp/Competitive
Favourite thing about RG: Its diversity and ability to incorporate both strength and flexibility.
Favourite quote: “A champion is defined not by their wins but by how they can recover when they fall.” -Serena Williams
Kaitlyn Schick
Coach
NCCP Level 1
Years coaching: 12
Specialty: Recreational, performance, developmental streams.
Career Highlight: Watching her athletes become coaches themselves and grow into strong and graceful women.
Favourite thing about RG: The community and relationships that are built, making it more than sport, but a way of growing to become the best athlete, coach, mentor, friend, and person you can be.
Favourite Quote: “Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.”
Tania Schultz
Admin Assistant
Years in RG: 10
Specialty: Volunteering her time for all Ritmo athletes and coaches.
Favourite thing about RG: Being a sport not just valued on exercise and flexibility, but also artistry. It is truly the most beautiful sport.
Favourite Quote: “The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire: the size of your dream: and how you handle disappointment along the way.” – Robert Kiyosaki