Hi everyone!
This is a translation of a newly published magazine, Sportiva's article. I'm sorry for my poor English. (as always
)
I'm still excited after I went to the show.
I need to cool myself down… Perhaps I should not visit here for a few days!!
Sportiva No.87 Oct. 2009Daisuke Takahashi Road to Vancouver, Step by Step vol.2written by Hirono Aoshima
Is this the skater who couldn't participate in competitions for a whole year? He joined the camp in Fukuoka a week after Detroit camp. Daisuke Takahashi who is accelerating himself earnestly for coming season, jumps all triple jumps including the most difficult one, 3A and steps beautifully. There is no hint of the absence in his movements.
“Was my free program good? But today it was far from 100% performance. Maybe 30%. There are quite a few embarrassing scene in this program. A clown presents a flower to someone and picks it up from the ground. I have to do such things, so I feel embarrassed. Well, I think I would be free from such feeling in a competition. I'm embarrassed now because the program haven' t been absorbed enough into myself. The program is finished. But from now I have to make it my own by skating it again and again. I have to absorb each choreograph into my body. It would take time, I think.
And at the same time I keep practicing jumps patiently in order to adjust my sense. As the result of my physical reconstruction and expanding range of motion through rehab, the timing has changed little by little and at first I couldn't capture the sense at all. There is no problem if I simply jump. But jumping in the program is pretty difficult. It's totally different from jumping in silence. To jump while dancing. To jump to the music. I especially try to synchronize my jump with a note of the music beautifully. I need to work more. I was rather hysteric today, wasn't I? (Laugh) ”
Saying so evenly, he played the same part of the music repeatedly and sometime he fell and hit his body onto the ice. He continued to do such practice everyday tirelessly. He came to the rink at 9am and practiced until noon. In the afternoon he did ground training before having a rest. Again he did on-ice practice from the early evening. He also had meeting in the night. The accommodation facility was located on the top of a mountain where there were no surroundings. What he could do after that was just sleeping. He worked and worked silently to build up his body in such a stoic camp.
“The ground training is also important. I do man-to-man ground training with my trainer for about an hour everyday. Only recently I can do some hard staff. Intense movements are added to rehab exercise which I used to do. But I sometimes resist because I'm a selfish person. (Laugh)
What I care about is not to bring my body back to previous one. When I start to skate, it easily become a body specialized for skating. My efforts to change my body will be for nothing if I become the same body before again. So the conditioning and care after skating is important. 2-3 months are left until the season starts. I should not feel rushed… but perhaps I might want to participate in competitions here and there. After all I like competitions! Because I'm a person who hate to lose. (Laugh) The motivation is different from those for shows. The tension is severe but fun too. No fun without that. The tension when I stand there and the liberating feeling when everything is over ,are special.”
He laughed saying “I'm not so determined.” But what he showed at the last moment is a burning desire for a real fight. Everything, such as repeating intense practice of skating and jump, is in order to stand the place again. Takahashi goes through a great deal of training.
