"When I entered the East Egg venue, I thought, 'What a small person I am.'" Hanyu's Tokyo Dome solo ice performance "GIFT" ended magnificently, and among the huge success and praise on the screen, what I was most concerned about was what he said in an interview after the ice performance.
small and great; Vulnerable, brave; Lonely and lively.
If you think about it, these words can already summarize this grand ice show that has not disappeared. These words can almost sum up Hanyu's "two-faced" life.
Small and great
In the big panorama released by official pictures and news videos, we can most truly feel the "smallness" of the East Egg and Hanyu. Some television stations are set up in images in the grandstands, and even use arrows to indicate Hanyu's presence. It was indeed a very small person, in the huge venue of East Egg, among thousands of people.
But between the music and the flickering lights, the small man, who met on the street every day, would only think that he was a "plainly dressed, quiet and beautiful big boy" disappeared. The scorching fire phoenix was born on the ice, bringing a god-given performance, inside and outside the audience, and even inside and outside the screen, the magical aura brought by Hanyu Yuzuru was like an enchantment, separating reality from dreams, mortal dust from the heavenly realm.
So in that moment, you think, oh, this is really something that only Hanyu can do. So extraordinary, so incredible, so beyond imagination yet reasonable. The man who seems particularly small, but can accomplish all kinds of feats that can be called great.
All the success of the exclamation afterwards is actually difficult to predict in advance. Especially for an unprecedented ice show like "GIFT". Not all expectations are expected beforehand, and of course there are voices of worry and even singing -
"Is it possible that the East Egg is so huge, and Hanyu is so small, just watching one person's ice performance? Will the audience's perception be satisfied? ”
"With so much uncertainty during a figure skating performance, can he make sure that every show is perfect, that every jump and every spin is error-free?"
"More than one show, more than 2 hours of ice performance that takes several shows to support, can he really do it with his physical strength alone? In the end, will not exhaust the performance effect and be reduced? ”
In this way, it is more likely to extend other problems involving on-site photoelectric effects, on-site order and so on.
However, it is precisely because of these worries and singing in advance that you will realize how incredible and great the great success of this performance is.
"It's really hard work, and it's hard work for one person to create such a long figure skating entertainment performance compared to performing in East Egg. For the first time, I tried to do a solo skating show on my own, and I really doubted that I could last two and a half hours. However, this performance, which can only be performed in a venue such as the Dome, is a comprehensive entertainment performance that gathers famous members such as MIKIKO, Rhizomatiks and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, and I can truly experience that I did it. ”
Truly great people never praise their greatness, but face their weakness. Just as when he said "I'm weak" after completing the two consecutive Winter Olympics titles in Pyeongchang, after finally completing such a great "GIFT", Hanyu Yuzuru is still facing his "weakness", and he frankly shows everyone the worries and doubts he once had.
Acknowledging one's "weakness" means overcoming this "weakness". Behind making the impossible possible are countless late-night one-man exercises; As the chief conductor and chief producer, he carefully designs and controls every link on the scene; Is it even for the opening minutes, but to spend a lot of money to make a new Kausten (ps. Fire Phoenix that Kausten flashed to you and me?). It's gorgeous, too, right! of sincerity...
When the show finally entered the encore session, he temporarily put on the gorgeous edge, changed into a fluffy GIFT jacket, soft and cute like harmless animals and small animals, sweetly introduced the live band and performance team, what it was like at that moment, who would have thought that this person was writing such a great piece of history at the same time:
the first-ever Tokyo Dome figure skating performance; For the first time in history, a performance team gathered top members such as Mr. MIKIKO, Rhizomatiks and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. the most watched ice show in figure skating history (which can even include competitions); The longest single performance in the history of figure skating, purely at the technical level of figure skating, this ice show includes six exercises, a total of 13 performances, 13 shows have completed a total of 21 jumps of more than 3 weeks, 14 spins, 14 footwork, and the personal ice performance time is 41 minutes and 10 seconds...
Vulnerability and bravery
With the last "prologue" ice performance of Gini, many people thought that he would reproduce a "competition scene" on this grand ice performance, but probably no one thought that he was challenging the "Introduction and Rondo Caprice" at the Beijing Winter Olympics a year ago.
Full race configuration, perfect Clean. At the moment when the 4S fell perfectly on the ice in the opening scene, how many people instantly traveled to Beijing a year ago? The sea of tears was enough to fill that pothole in Beijing's ice.
"It's a fatalistic S-jump." In the interview after the ice show, Hanyu responded to the reporters' shock with a smile. "This is a program that I couldn't finish at the Beijing Winter Olympics, and I've always been worried about it. That show in my heart contains the story of 'Grabbing the Dream'. In the story of GIFT, 'dreams' is also a very important theme. Based on this meaning, first of all, I wanted to express the capture of dreams in the first half of the scene, which is the primary reason why I chose "Introduction and Rondo Caprice". However, on the basis of doing a stage design reminiscent of the Beijing Winter Olympics, I performed "Guiding the Spin" precisely because I failed to grasp my dream at that time. What I want to express is that the dream that I couldn't grasp then, now I have captured. ”
It's good to make up for regrets and regain your dreams, but if you think about it a little, you will know that under the gaze of such an occasion, such a venue, and so many audiences, in a performance, complete a difficult official competition program, there is! Many! Difficult! The uncertainty of figure skating, the on-site environment, the uncertainty of personal status, plus having performed four shows with high intensity before, challenging a main competition show that cannot be made wrong in that state... He actually dared.
But think about it, isn't such a "daring" thing exactly what Hanyu would do?
Hanyu's figure skating life has never been smooth along the way. There is no season that has not climbed a mountain with your fingernails. Whether it is fighting for the body recovering from the flu when you are young, fighting for the full quota for the Japanese delegation, or "jumping" with a bandage and bleeding! The famous "Phantom of Blood", the full-day participation with severe pain in the residual umbilical ureter, and the injury to Pyeongchang, the 2018COR with injury... Then to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics to the death to challenge the 4A decision, Hanyu's bravery, with a mortal like me is impossible to empathize. So that you often look at his face while wondering, what kind of giant lives in this coquettish child who says that "my heart is so fragile like tender tofu"?
But he is so brave, but he is so fragile. In GIFT, Hanyu confesses his loneliness, fear, and fear with a frankness he has never had before. Stress, confusion, darkness, despair of not being rewarded... The fragility of wanting to give up and escape countless times is revealed to the world along with Hanyu's twin confessions and analyses. Isn't this kind of courage to dare to self-analyze and dare to expose the fragile "mask" of one's life?
Vulnerability and bravery, in him, contradictory and harmonious. In Hanyu's program and his philosophy, you will understand that his "vulnerability" is the crystal heart that insists on maintaining self-purification and self-love in a chaotic world, and the kindness of "already pitying the grass and wood", it is these softness and fragility that come from the heart, covering him with the hardest armor, allowing him to move forward bravely and fearlessly.
Tend to walk in the eternal journey of life, run in ups and downs, nirvana in setbacks, sorrow wraps around the whole body, and pain spreads everywhere. We are tired, but we can't stop; We suffer, but we cannot avoid it. Hanyu, who faced suffering and vulnerability, was so brave in the face of vulnerability and kept running.
Lonely and lively
"Figure skating is a solitary sport, a sport that is always catching up with itself." I always remember what Hanyu said. But lonely, he still held such a grand performance, in fact, more than this performance. After the public transfer on July 19, 2022, Hanyu has been burning the ice surface of the offseason and the season non-stop.
Inside and outside the Tokyo Dome on February 26, 2023, the phrase "so many people" is enough to sum it up. People from all over the world flock like a festival to receive this gift from Hanyu.
And then everyone received it. As with every past and more than ever, we will always be healed by Hanyu's figure skating and moved by the world he weaves. But it is often overlooked what kind of life the dreamer, Hanyu Yuzuru himself, lived.
"He practiced day and night for the success of today's performance, for which I would like to express my highest praise and respect.
On the one-night limited East Egg Ice Rink, a person skates the physical and mental strength of the entire performance. The performance that I put in with all my strength shook my heart, and I couldn't help but burst into tears while playing the piano. The music director of this GIFT, the well-known musician Satoshi Takebe, almost choked up during the final speech stage of the ice performance, and said this sentence, which Hanyu complained that "there is no on the script".
Outside the ice, Hanyu is an "invisible" person. Even in such a busy schedule after the transfer, he will only appear in the relevant schedule. Except for skating, things related to skating, he doesn't seem to pursue anything other than that. Even this time the East Egg Ice Show, on the night the performance was completed, Hanyu rushed back to his hometown of Sendai overnight. Come to think of it, the ice rink in Sendai's hometown where no one is in the middle of the night is his fairy tale paradise, where he weaves his dreams and realizes them.
In a 2018 interview, Mr. Matsuoka said, "I think you are the loneliest person in the world. At that time, Hanyu said, "My own simple and frank feelings can be expressed through skating." But apparently now, his emotions can be expressed more than just by skating.
After GIFT, everyone was shocked by the long list of participants. As the chief planner and conductor, Hanyu Yuzuru gathered almost the top performance team in Japan at present, and the stage used the top acousto-optoelectronic technology and obtained the authorization of Master Hisaishi, who is known as "the most difficult copyright in the industry", to perform "Hope and Bequest" and "One summer's day"... This amazing list makes people sigh at Hanyu's "connections".
But think about where "connections" come from? Is it not a cooperation that can only be achieved by cherishing each other, sharing ideas, and combining heroes with heroes?
Loneliness is not loneliness, it is solitude to abide by one's heart, bustle is not a noisy cup, it is the spark of art and spiritual connection. With the supreme pursuit of art and dreams, he was the loneliest, connecting and healing countless people in the most lively way.
On that day, Hanyu returned wearing a black GIFT hoodie. Cover up the costume and return to simplicity. When he said goodbye, he had tears in his eyes and said in a choked voice, "I hope that today's day, for everyone's life, even if it is only today, I pray that it can remain in everyone's memory." Even if it is only a little, I pray that today will become a day that everyone can use as a place to return to in the painful years. ”
Then he smiled and asked everyone to "quiet down a little," then took off the headset and shouted "Thank you" in a familiar way to the 35,000 people in the stadium and the thousands off the screen. ”
At that moment, all that came to my mind was the indiscriminate title of the song - Hanyu Yuzuru, the Lone Brave.
ps. The last digression, purely my personal opinion
This is an ice show with a threshold. (It's not that passers-by can't understand or how high the meaning is if you can understand it) but you will find that he does not follow the cliché or conform to the more popular perception (such as those platter ice shows) to engage in those lively, fancy, popular gimmicks, nor too many popular elements, nor hype any explosive topics. He just told a complete story that belonged to him, to him and to his figure skating. In this story, there are mountains and rivers, plants, sun, moon, stars, and rivers, there are tangled struggles, and hope gifts. This ice show is not a story strung together a show, but a show strung together a story.
So, if you know him well, know enough about these shows and the stories behind them, know enough about everything he has given for this ice, and every sea of fire he has stepped on, you will be deeply immersed in it, follow his story, his emotions resonate at the same frequency, from slow to deep, to complete release.
And for an ice show of this scale, for him who is watched and scrutinized by the eyes of the whole world, how "risky" this choice is, how brave and how "willful" he is.
When I think about it, I think Hanyu is really a big hero!
Because of this GIFT, every road we take when we are confused in the future can be a way home, and every place we go is the home of our hearts.