Jeremy Abbott was a total slob when he lived at home, clothes strewn all over his bedroom back in Colorado.

"It was a disaster," the reigning U.S. figure skating champion said. "But since I've been on my own, I've been making sure to keep my apartment immaculate. It's very clean, and I'm very surprised at myself.

"I didn't think I could do that."

It's exactly the sort of self-discovery and personal responsibility Abbott sought when he left his coach of a decade and moved across the country less than a year before the Olympics. The judges aren't going to award any style points based on the cleanliness of his bedroom, but little signs like this assure him he made the right choice _ and that he's on track to compete for a medal at February's Vancouver Games.

The next major test is this week's Grand Prix final in Tokyo, where Abbott is the defending champ.

Abbott won his first U.S. title in January under Tom Zakrajsek, with whom he had trained at the Colorado Springs World Arena in his home state since 1999. A few months later, he decided to switch to former world champ Yuka Sato at the Detroit Skating Club in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

"I felt really deep down that I needed a change," Abbott said while visiting New York in August. "It was time. Now or never. This is the Olympic year, and I wanted to give myself the best opportunity. And I feel this is my best opportunity."

He felt he needed to be more independent, more in control. On and off the ice.

Abbott was 23 years old and had never lived by himself. His mother, Allison Scott, laughs as she talks about the big move.

"I love my son, but there is a time at which it's good to get out," she said.

"I'll be the first to admit it," she added. "When you have a kid living at home and they're that focused, as a parent sometimes you do too much."

Sure, her son could have gotten his own apartment in Colorado Springs. But he truly needed to be on his own.

"To make a change in a certain environment when everything's so the same _ I think it's really hard," said Abbott, who turned 24 in June. "I've tried that before, tried to make the change, and you just fall back into old habits when you don't have something or somewhere or someone to keep you on that other path."

Before the move, Abbott and Zakrajsek agree, he often was looking outside himself for motivation. The coach believes Abbott could have achieved all his goals if he stayed in Colorado. But as Zakrajsek told his wife, "it's like having a child go off to college _ they have to go spread their wings and become their own person."