This essay analyzes the patterns behind Rika Kihira’s successful and unsuccessful triple Axels, arguing that her mistakes stem from unnecessary pauses and unnatural tension before takeoff.
It maintains that program construction that allows her to dominate the ice, natural timing into the jump, and coaching that does not damage her innate gifts are the essential conditions for making her the overwhelming absolute queen on the road to the Beijing Olympics.
At the same time, it emphasizes the responsibility of the Japan Skating Federation, the importance of choosing the right coach and choreographer, and the urgent warning that the tragedy of Mao Asada must never be repeated.

2019-03-23
Japan Skating Federation, seventy wasted postwar years….

The chapter I posted under the title,
Her body sinks more deeply, and the angle of the left takeoff leg becomes steeper….
This is exactly the same as when Mao Asada fails.
posted as NEW! on 2019-03-22 at 23:00:55, has entered the official hashtag ranking at No. 13 for Mao Asada.
In figure skating, the one who controls the rink becomes the champion.
The reason Arakawa won the gold medal in Turin was that, at that time, it was she who controlled the rink.
The reason Tara Lipinski won the gold medal in Nagano….
Defeating Michelle Kwan, who at that time was the best in the world at controlling the rink….
Was that on that occasion, from beginning to end, she kept springing like a rubber ball, and with a performance carried by speed that clearly surpassed Kwan, she controlled the rink and won the gold medal.
Rika Kihira’s coaching team….
Must realize that among all figure skaters up to now, she possesses the finest athletic instincts and the most beautifully proportioned body….
And that as an athlete, her beauty is the greatest in history, and they must coach her in a way that always allows her to control the rink.
They must know that Rika Kihira is the greatest figure skater in history….
Mere Spartan severity is utterly out of the question….
Even during practice….
They should film her successful and unsuccessful jumps with a smartphone and have her practice while showing them to her.
In this, they should learn from Yamagata, now the fastest and strongest man in the men’s 100 meters, who continues to train all alone using only a smartphone as his tool….
Though, incidentally, if anyone surpasses Yamagata, I think it will be Abdul Hakim Sani Brown.
What does Kihira possess….
Once, I happened to encounter Miki Ando at very close range in the concourse of Shin-Osaka Station….
And I felt an aura from her that I could never have imagined from only watching her skate on television.
Part of that may have been the strength that appeared because she had borne a child and become a mother.
But her gaze was no ordinary thing.
The comment with which she described Rika Kihira, who appeared on the senior scene and kept winning one international event after another, was exactly the same as mine….
“She was born in every possible way to do figure skating….
Her body type, her athletic sense….”
Miki Ando probably knew that her own body type was, so to speak, a little too curvaceous….
That femininity had the upper hand….
By contrast, Kihira’s body type not only overflows with the finest femininity, but also has the perfect form and shape as an athlete….
She had seen through that fact.
That is why Ando had perceived that Kihira is the absolute queen.
That was also reflected in Patrick Chan’s comment after watching her at the Grand Prix event in Canada….
That her skating was supremely beautiful….
And that he had become captivated by it.
At one time, Japanese professional baseball players were said to train so hard that they exhausted their energy before games.
But to return to the subject.
There is a fixed pattern when Kihira fails her triple Axel.
There are certain characteristics when Kihira’s triple Axel succeeds.
The time it takes before entering the triple Axel is shorter than that of several other triple Axel jumpers….
In other words, without thinking unnecessary thoughts, she takes off and jumps as if naturally flowing within the stream of the program.
When she fails, there is especially a fixed pattern….
The time before entering the takeoff becomes longer….
In other words, there is a problem in the flow of the program.
When there is even a slight extra pause before entering the triple Axel, she almost always fails.
Her body sinks more deeply, and the angle of the left takeoff leg becomes steeper….
This is exactly the same as when Mao Asada fails….
If there is an extra pause only for the sake of jumping the triple Axel, then no matter how great the genius, tension arises.
Therefore, I think there are two methods for Kihira to succeed with the triple Axel in the short program….
Instead of a solo triple Axel, a plus-triple double combination should be made into a plus-triple triple combination.
In other words, the program flow should become a double or triple combination flow, not one centered on the triple Axel alone.
If that is done, there will be no extra flow or pause caused by over-consciousness of the triple Axel alone, and no needless tension….
Kihira is an innately gifted skater endowed with the finest spring-like body, so there is absolutely no need for her to tense up before jumping.
To sink needlessly and make the angle of the left leg steeper….
In other words….
It kills the rare spring that is her natural talent….
In a short program like the present one, she will make mistakes again and again….
The degree of completion becomes low.
From the start of the music until the triple Axel, not creating a strange pause, and making it a two-jump or three-jump sequence instead of a solo Axel….
That is the necessary condition for making Kihira the overwhelming absolute queen through the Beijing Olympics.
Even if acrobat-like girls jump quads, they cannot surpass the beauty of Kihira’s triple Axel.
Even if acrobat-like girls use their sickly thin body types to jump quads, that will absolutely never become Yuzuru Hanyu’s quad.
The only one whose beauty can match Kihira’s triple Axel is Yuzuru Hanyu.
That is how absolute a queen Kihira is.
I know it, Miki Ando knows it, Patrick Chan knows it, the Russian people involved know it, and even that foreign coach who got her autograph knows it.
The only one who does not know it is that choreographer, Dixon.
I think he truly is the very extreme of incompetence.
Because before Kihira enters the triple Axel, he persistently demands that she put on a fake smile, saying foolish things like Kihira can absolutely do it….
A fake smile is something any second-rate or third-rate skater can do, not only Kihira.
That man understands nothing.
He completely fails to understand why Rika Kihira shocked the world.
He is not worthy of coaching Rika Kihira….
The skaters he has coached have probably mostly been second-rate and third-rate athletes.
For the sake of Japan and the world, and in order to answer the expectations that all fans who love figure skating place upon Kihira, the skating federation should dismiss that coach.
What the world wants to see is at last the highest beauty in the world, that perfection.
No one wants to watch the second-rate and third-rate trick of fake smiling.
It is Dixon’s coaching that interrupts the flow of the program and creates the unnecessary pause that leads to failure….
We absolutely must avoid the folly of spoiling the greatest talent the world had awaited through this man’s self-satisfied and foolish instruction.
To find a coach who truly knows that she is the greatest talent in history and holds the deepest respect for her, and to keep her, while she remains active, as the world’s overwhelming absolute queen, captivating sports lovers throughout the world every year….
Choosing such a coach is the urgent task imposed upon the Japan Skating Federation.
A program with no unnecessary pause before the jumps including the triple Axel, music selection that matches Kihira’s charm, and a construction that continues to dominate the rink while flowing onward….
The greatest performance, one that captivates every spectator in the world.
That can be achieved every year….
They must select a choreographer and program designer capable of delivering the finest time to fans around the world and answer the expectations and dreams of the world….
The people of the Japan Skating Federation must understand that achieving this is a gift from God….
That Japan is a country where “the turntable of civilization” is turning, and that as represented since long ago by Murasaki Shikibu and Sei Shonagon, Japan is a country where women have been valued most highly in the world, and that Kihira is the finest gift God has given to Japan and to the world as a flower of such a nation….
To answer that gift is their duty.
When she succeeds in the triple Axel, she truly jumps it casually and lightly….
That is why it is all the more wonderful, and why with overwhelming beauty it captivated figure-skating fans throughout the world.
For Kihira never to fail again….
It will be Rika Kihira who wins the gold medal at the coming Beijing Olympics….
Because she has not only been blessed with natural talent….
But also perfectly understands that this is her mission….
And even chose a correspondence high school….
That is to say, she has removed herself from every worldly distraction….
And possesses the absolute strength of understanding that to walk the path of the absolute queen of figure skating is her life itself….
A straight, unwavering strength that ordinary people can never understand….
Because she possesses the spirit common to the super-elite athletes in every sport.
As for the coach in charge of Kihira’s choreography, for example, why not make it that famous coach who said, “I’m also your fan, please give me your autograph….”
Because he should know the reason for the splendor of Kihira’s skating….
The source of its indescribable beauty….
And because he would surely never engage in the foolish instruction of persistently demanding a fake smile before the triple Axel….
At the start of the short program.
On the contrary, he would instruct her so that everything flows naturally….
Without any tension at all….
Thinking only of skating within that perfect beauty, the gift from God….
Thinking only of that….
Thinking only of letting Kihira’s greatness dominate the rink.
Because he declared himself her fan, he is a man who has lived within the world of figure skating.
To let her dominate the rink would be nothing less than the completion of the charm and dream he has felt in figure skating.
Japan Skating Federation, seventy wasted postwar years….
Even in the world of figure skating, you have foolishly continued to allow the attacks of anti-Japan countries.
As Japanese, members of a true great power that must continue leading the world alongside the United States for the next 170 years, you have the responsibility from here on to lead the world of figure skating.
And you must also understand that this….
Is the quickest road….
To world peace and stability.
You too must never again commit the foolish act of continuing to be made fools of by China and South Korea.
If anything like the tragedy of Mao Asada is repeated, you should know that all that awaits you is the torment of King Enma in hell.
You must continue at all times to beware of the schemes of the people of China and South Korea.