YUZU DAYS - Interview on P&G ((April 2016)

YUZU DAYS (1st April 2016)

P&G interview done some time ago but published on 1st April: 

What figure skating taught me: ~about life.
 
–The enjoyment of skating, the joy of expression, the cheers of many people….. figure skating is a sport that gives a lot of joy.  At the same time, it also holds difficulties like the hardships of training, the severity of competitions, injuries, etc.  Yuzuru Hanyu has certainly experienced both the joys and the harshness of figure skating.  He tells us about the important things he learned.

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Figure skating is not an interpersonal competition like baseball, soccer or tennis; it all depends on yourself. Of course, there are rare occasions when you win because your competitors are not in good condition, but whether you can make good jumps and do clean performances are your own issues. Precisely because you are competing with yourself, you cannot lose. Techniques, powers of expression and concentration can be raised through practice and coaching advice, but whether you can show that ability at the critical moment is most important. How much concentration and motivation is kept, how much of the pressure is turned into power…. in the end, the one who wins is the person who is strong at controlling himself mentally.

Before a competition, there will be nervousness and anxiety. But that is just proof of your seriousness. If you were not thinking that you want to do really well, you would not be nervous nor anxious. Even negative feelings, if you can think about why you are feeling that way, you can turn them into a plus. Thinking this way, the things that I experienced through figure skating, not one of them was in vain. Of course, it is not only things that that I am proud of, but when I go through various experiences and know various emotions, I may be able to turn them into expression. Anger and frustration/regret may lead to powerful jumps. And so, without running away from negative emotions, I want to value each and every one of my experiences.

In order to control the psychological/mental aspect, it is important to keep the body in the best condition. For the pace and amount of training, I myself think and adjust it daily, but everything else around me is mostly done by my mother. She notices minor changes in my physical condition and thinks of well-balanced meals and makes them for me; I am thankful. In Canada, talking to my mother is also a psychological plus for me. Mother worries about me and tells me many things, and sometimes I argue with her. It is common parent-child interaction, but being in a foreign country, just speaking in my native language makes me feel at peace and energised. My mother’s presence is a support for me physically and psychologically.

To me, figure skating is…..
 
~…..not everything, but it’s very important

In the past, I have felt that skating is my life. But after going through the earthquake and various experiences, I have come to think that life is life, skating is skating; they are not equal. It is worrying that ‘once skating is gone, I will have nothing’, and so maybe I consciously detach myself from it. But certainly, skating is the axis around which the human being, Yuzuru Hanyu, is formed, and it is without a doubt an important part of life.

~Experiencing life through figure skating

Skating has taught me positive things like the importance of hard work and the strength of not giving up, and also made me aware of negative areas like my own weaknesses and over-confidence. I learned a lot from there and it has influenced my ways of thinking, my regular words and actions, and my life in society. But it is not that everything is correct…. what and how you absorb is your own choice. My relationship with figure skating– more than learning from it, the closest feeling is “through skating, I experienced many things of life”.

Besides skating, what sports would you do?
 
“I want to try Kyudo some day.”
 
Besides skating, the sport I want to do is Japanese archery (Kyudo). Because I am the type that’s good at concentrating for a short period of time, I have been thinking since some time ago that I want to try Kyudo. I feel a sense of closeness to it because I am born in December, a Sagittarius, and my name Yuzuru (t/n. bowstring) also has a connection. I am interested also because it is a sport that’s done with stillness, very different from skating. At one time, I also had an interest in tennis, but it is a sport that’s done outdoors even in the hot summer, not very suitable for me who is the indoor-type, so I gave up (the idea) very quickly. [laughs]

-translated by Angelic Yuzuru, source: myrepi.com (P&G)