"He says he can win the championship again" – an interview with two-time Winter Olympic champion Yusuke Yusuke's enlightenment coach Yamada Makoto

Sapporo, Japan, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- Title: "He says he can win the championship again" - An interview with two-time Winter Olympic champion Yusuke Yusuke's enlightenment coach Yamada Makoto

Xinhua News Agency reporters Wang Zijiang Yang Ting Yang Guang

In 1998, Yusei Yusei met the first coach in his life, Makoto Yamada, who was only 4 years old and did not know that this female coach who had recently graduated from college had opened a door to the road to superstardom for him in the following four years.

23 years later, Yusheng has become famous all over the world, he is the first figure skating men's singles Olympic champion from Asia, and the world's "Yusheng fans" are looking forward to his three consecutive championships at the Beijing Winter Olympics. The 48-year-old Makoto Yamada is still working as a skating coach as he was then, and there are still children the same size as Habu among the students. However, she has returned from Sendai in Habu's hometown to her hometown of Sapporo.

Yamada was interviewed by a Xinhua reporter at the Tsukikan Gymnasium in Sapporo, the hockey hall of the 1972 Winter Olympics and where Yamada attended classes. Probably because of the frequent dealings with children, the years did not leave many marks on her face: beauty, intellectuality, enthusiasm. In a hurry of 23 years, I recalled the scene of Yusheng's first ice, as if it was just yesterday.

Children who only exist in comics

"At the beginning, I taught Yusheng's sister, who usually went to class, and Yusheng also followed her to the edge of the ice rink and kept running around. He started learning to skate at the age of 4 and I was very impressed that the first time he stepped on the ice rink, he slid to the center in one breath, and then fell down with a 'bang' and hit his head on the ice. I was startled, but thankfully he was wearing a helmet, and he didn't cry, got up and continued to slide. ”

Later, whenever he thought about what happened to Habu's first class, Yamada always thought that this child was indeed different, born with skating materials.

"Usually when children start class, I let them practice walking outside the ice rink, and then go to the ice rink when they are stable, just like toddlers to toddlers, but Yusheng does not have this stage at all. Most children are afraid of falling down and dare not do any difficult movements, he will not, especially brave, completely without fear. I think he probably kept watching his sister slip and thought he must be able to do it. ”

In addition to being brave, Yamada also slowly discovered that Habu has a "talent" and an expressed "desire" that ordinary children do not have.

"For example, jumping, rotating movements increase every half a week, even children with very good motor nerves, it takes two or three months to learn, and the average student takes half a year to master." But he would be there in a day, and I was amazed, it was like a scene in a comic. Isn't that incredible only happening in comics? ”

"For the artistic performance on the field, he likes to express it in his own way, not so much into the world and story of music, but rather immersed in his own understanding and performance of that music." Sometimes I remind him that the expression of the song is not like this, you are too exaggerated. It can be said that his exaggeration at that time was almost three times that of now. A strong desire for personal expression has always been his characteristic and one of his strengths on the field today. ”

At that time, Yamada Makoto, shortly after graduating from Nippon Sports University, was very strict with Yusei. Sometimes the little boy was lazy and didn't want to practice, and his attention was not very concentrated, so Coach Yamada pretended to be angry and said to him: "If you don't want to practice, go home!" So he went back crying. In fact, in the years when I taught him, he practiced more with his sister, and there was no feeling that he had to figure skate, and there was no pressure. ”

Yamada asks the children to make a habit of keeping a diary, and after each training, they write down in the diary what happened in class, including problems with movements, joys and sadness encountered in skating. Some children would take the initiative to show her the diary, but Yusheng never did. However, many years later, In an interview with Japanese media, Habu said that Coach Yamada's habit of letting him write a diary helped him a lot.

Bravery makes him "vulnerable"

Four years later, Yamada had to leave Sendai and return to his hometown in Hokkaido because of family affairs. Before the separation, she entrusted Habu to her mentor, the well-known Japanese coach Tsukisaki Ichiro, who was known for his strictness, and many students could not stand his severity and gave up skating halfway. Out of the nature of a woman, Yamada deliberately said to Coach Tokuku, "This kid is really talented, don't be too strict with him." ”

After the separation, when Yamada took her students to participate in national competitions, she occasionally met Yusuke Yusuke, who competed together, and watched him win the championship from the national junior championship to the adult competition, and then she could only see the growing boys on TV. However, in the years when he taught Yusheng's sisters and brothers, Yamada and Yusheng's mother became friends who talked about everything and maintained close contact for many years.

Yamada last met Yusei in July 2019, around the first anniversary of the Hokkaido earthquake, when he came to Yamada's skating class to show the children the movements and had a conversation with his brothers and sisters. The children were particularly excited and asked him a lot of questions. Coach Yamada is concerned about whether he has been injured recently, and whether he usually plays games or not.

"The feeling I felt at that meeting was that he had really become an adult, and his speech and demeanor were in line with the honor of an Olympic champion, and his speech was very weighty. For example, when children asked him why he kept skating after winning two Olympic gold medals, he said he thought he could win the championship again. I was very touched to know that there was no media on the scene, and he still wanted to continue to challenge and pursue. ”

Yusei also complained to the enlightenment coach about his troubles as a star, because he would be photographed as soon as he went out, and Yamada was relieved that he said, "This is everyone's attention to you, one day they don't chase you, won't they be a little lonely?" ”

The day before the interview, Yusuke Yusuke had just announced that he had injured his right ankle and would miss the NHK Cup, the fourth leg of the figure skating Grand Prix series, which was seen as the first match of the Beijing Winter Olympics season, which Yushengli had won three consecutive titles. Yusheng was diagnosed with a "ligament injury to his right foot," an injury that raised concerns that it could affect his participation in the Beijing Winter Olympics, which opened three months later.

Yamada said that because Yusei was brave and bold in his heart and dared to make moves, he was injured more since he was a child, "which is a point that he stands out from other children." Accustomed to his injuries, Yamada also hoped that Habu would not be in a hurry, even though she had already bought a ticket to go to Tokyo to watch the game.

"Injuries will definitely recover, don't worry, next month's All Japan Championships may be in better shape." In fact, players at this level are training and competing with injuries, or are forced to miss the game due to injuries, so I believe in him very much. ”

I hope he will be a coach in the future

Yusei has not competed since the World Figure Skating Team Championships in April, and he lost to three-time World Champion Chen Wei in the short program and free skating competition of that event. According to the original plan, Yusei Yushin will challenge the four-and-a-half-week jump at the NHK Cup, and he once said in an interview with Japanese media that completing the "four-and-a-half weeks" is his biggest dream now.

Yamada believed that Habu could complete four and a half weeks, although she felt that There was no need for Habu to do such a difficult move, because "his expressiveness and Axel jump are already the first in the world".

"Now the four and a half is his goal and motivation source, he is the kind of personality that will jump no matter who says it, and his constant pursuit will also give the children courage and encouragement, which is a role model."

When we met two years ago, Yusei asked Coach Yamada how to coach others and said that he wanted to be a coach after retiring, but Yamada did not answer, but joked: "I still want to ask you how do you dance for four and a half weeks?" ”

However, Yamada told reporters that from the heart, she does hope that Yusei can become a coach in the future, use her own experience to cultivate children, and also appear more in front of the public eye and the media to promote figure skating. Although in more than 20 years of coaching career, she has deeply felt the hardships of raising children.

"The ratio of bitterness to pleasure, I think suffering is 90%. But once you succeed, you will be really excited and fulfilled, much happier than when you were a player. ”

She said that Habu was born in an ordinary Japanese family, and along the way, in addition to his talent, there are many lucky factors that have made him, and it just so happens that at every step of life, he has encountered good conditions. In fact, the conditions for figure skating training in many parts of Japan are not good, and the ice rinks for skating classes are not fixed, and they often travel between various ice rinks in order to attend classes, and sometimes even need to run to the airport near the airport more than 40 kilometers away from the city center. Because of the lack of professional figure skating venues, in addition to classes, she also has to look for corporate sponsorship everywhere.

"I heard that China is now vigorously promoting winter sports, and if there is a suitable opportunity, I am willing to teach in China."

Source: Xinhua Net