Oct. 28, 2019 Yuzuru Hanyu Sponichi Interview 😎

[WinForPooh]

But it totally is a relevant question though, we should never put our words in his mouth,

 

However I think this does quite literally mean rotating on the ice.

[shanshani]

2 minutes ago, WinForPooh said:

 

Absolutely, he kinda said something along the lines of he was wondering if he was doing things wrong but the scores he got reassured him or something very roughly like that, that is good.

yeah, now that I think about it, that's the right reading. it gets a little lost in the translation provided

[Bilge]

Here is another translation (by multiple people's collaboration). I think its clearer

 

 

 

[Salior]

1 hour ago, shanshani said:

For some reason when I click the link it says the page doesn't exist, but I still found the tweet. I'm going to try to render it in more idiomatic English because I found the translation a little hard to understand and want to be clear whether I'm understanding it correctly. Just going to do the parts about jump tech. I'm doing some guesswork here as to what the translation means, so don't take this as authoritative or anything. It's also not at all going to be a close translation of Yuzu's words.

 

So:

 

Interviewer: How much of the "things that only I have" that you mentioned before the competition have you shown?

 

Yuzu: I thought to myself that those were what I could rely on in competition but I still felt that I had to gradually pursue harder jumps. I've been practicing with the thought that those jumps are necessary. The axel, and the lutz too. This competition was one where I felt that I didn't have to upgrade my difficulty, that I could rely on my old weapons, which was good. Increased difficulty has an impact on the health of all skaters. Of course, the 4Lz is very difficult, but it's possible that everyone may be able to jump it, if they want to. It also depends on the type of skater. In my case, no matter how hard I practice, I can't pre-rotate it. It wasn't taught that way when I was young. Gradually, the 4Lz might stop being a lutz jump. But at the same time, each skater is different and has their own way of jumping. But I think the current situation is that the scores are tilted towards more difficult jumps, and the balance with PCS has been thrown off. On the other hand, I think that this time I showed that I could perform the music even with my jumps, which is good. Especially the last 4Teu3F. I did a difficult jump combo while matching the music well. I think my weapon is that I can express the music even with difficult jumps, but I think it could be appreciated more. I'm sorry I talked too much *laughs*

 

Interviewer: so would you like to create another form of competition?

 

Yuzu: It's not like that. I've been wondering if the approach I'm taking is truly right or wrong. Whether getting to a standstill position and prerotating might be the right way to jump. Another example is, I've always had a lot of doubts that jumps done from difficult steps are given credit for that. Since the start of this season, I placed high importance on that. I thought, I've been skating a long time, and that was my weapon. It was good it was appreciated this time, which helps reassure me. I believe I must keep doing such things in the future when I add the Lutz or the Axel.

the main thing is what "rotating down below" means. I can't really think of anything it could mean but prerotation

 

 

thanks so much for the translation, it's so much better than the tweet lol.

 

Being trilingual, I can understand wanting to "keep to the language", but while it might still subconsciously make sense to a person who knows the language, it's almost impossible to interpret it if you don't, because the entire language structure is so different. Really appreciate your translations there, the Reddit haters gonna hate and wallow in their echo chamber. 

 

"But their jump is huge and they don't pre-rotate!" (they actually do) "oh but 180˚ pre-rotation is okay!" (that's not how Lutz work gdi) (the thread below explains it)

 

 

Funny to see people trying to justify everything by jumping through mental hoops to find a reason to support what they want to believe, they just can't accept that their hero isn't perfect. Glad to see Yuzu confirming that skaters like Chibura who's been sharing these info all along aren't "sprouting nonsense just to hate on the girls' success" 

[monchan]

Sum up main points of his interview:

Yup, the boy just won SC so not afraid of anything anymore . He said "TAKE IT ISU"  

[yuzuangel]

15 minutes ago, Bilge said:

Here is another translation (by multiple people's collaboration). I think its clearer

 

 

 

Wow the shade

[Katt]

I read the whole interview and really appreciate that he speak up. Given how careful and quite he is about judging, there's must be some talk/debate between him and his team before he give this interview. I agreed with all things he said. Its sad that he has a moment of doubt as if everything he does is wrong so I hope SC give him some confidence boost. I said it before most skaters, especially Yuzuru aware of how the judging goes. They can read/study protocol, slow down the jump, count steps better than FS fans. That's why inflation, selective calls were bad. It make the quality of the fields go down, the one with correct technique were punished. Not everyone can overcome the self doubt and believe in the path they choose like Yuzuru. 

 

I asked a japanese fan and she said alot people surprised by this interview. Its quite abnormal for an active skater, especially in Japan to talk about judging issue like this. 

 

I hope no one use Yuzuru's words to go against any skaters. I'm pretty sure he never want that. Also we might not know exactly what he means because something might lost from his words to the article editing then the translation. Again this is a serious issue in FS, not just him or some skaters. 

[shanshani]

15 minutes ago, Bilge said:

Here is another translation (by multiple people's collaboration). I think its clearer

 

 

 

oh wow, ok that includes some things I did not catch

[shanshani]

So somethings that stand out now that we have a better translation:

 

1. Yuzu is worried about the trend towards increased technical difficulty's impact on everyone's health.

2. He tried to prove that you can do well with a slightly lower difficulty layout if you include performance, and so reduce the trend towards maximum difficulty. (But I mean let's be real Yuzu, your layout was still pretty hard.)

3. He does feel reassured by the SCI scores

4. He's, well, not entirely firm, but certainly leaning towards the opinion that excessively PR lutzes aren't really lutzes, more than it initially seemed

5. Same doubts about judges evaluating steps in and out of jumps as before

[memae]

I think he's in a pretty good place to be speaking up now. Like, he's been at the top of the sport for years and years now and he is still improving while remaining at the top of the sport. He has a huge fan base that includes other active skaters and coaches at the elite level as well as commentators who are veterans of the sport. ISU can get ticked off with him if they want and judges can grumble and get biased against him - but then a situation like ACI might happen again and be met with uproar and skeptism from the skating community, and that really doesn't make ISU look good. Yuzuru has been so gracious in how he is raising these issues too - it comes across as a hope for improvement, for the sake of the sport and its athletes in general rather than an angry stab at ISU and the judges. It'll be interesting to see how they respond. It's kind of like your mum mentioning she's lost $5 that you both know very well that you took from her wallet, but she's just bringing it up without pointing fingers to give you the chance to fix it without getting into more trouble. 

[Salior]

Just found a Chinese version here 

    

 

I think I can share some thoughts about it. If the translation is accurate, 

 

Even from long ago, mine was not that kind of jump. 

could be translated as "Since young / Since I started skating, I've never been the type of skater that could land these kind of jumps." 

 

            What was described as "rotating down below"

 

could mean "No matter how hard I practice, I can't rotate my blades on the ice while jumping" or more literally, "I can't rotate down there while jumping" 

[shanshani]

1 minute ago, memae said:

I think he's in a pretty good place to be speaking up now. Like, he's been at the top of the sport for years and years now and he is still improving while remaining at the top of the sport. He has a huge fan base that includes other active skaters and coaches at the elite level as well as commentators who are veterans of the sport. ISU can get ticked off with him if they want and judges can grumble and get biased against him - but then a situation like ACI might happen again and be met with uproar and skeptism from the skating community, and that really doesn't make ISU look good. Yuzuru has been so gracious in how he is raising these issues too - it comes across as a hope for improvement, for the sake of the sport and its athletes in general rather than an angry stab at ISU and the judges. It'll be interesting to see how they respond. It's kind of like your mum mentioning she's lost $5 that you both know very well that you took from her wallet, but she's just bringing it up without pointing fingers to give you the chance to fix it without getting into more trouble. 

I think you're right

 

This is so validating, tbh. Yuzu is one of us. He shares our opinions. (Also, take that to people who are like "I skate and PR is just how you're taught to do the lutz, all of this is made-up fan stuff just to tear down skaters you don't like"--are you really going to declare Yuzuru Hanyu's opinions as made up fan stuff?)

[shanshani]

1 minute ago, Salior said:

Just found a Chinese version here 

    

 

I think I can share some thoughts about it. If the translation is accurate, 

 

Even from long ago, mine was not that kind of jump. 

could be translated as "Since young / Since I started skating, I've never been the type of skater that could land these kind of jumps." 

 

            What was described as "rotating down below"

 

could mean "No matter how hard I practice, I can't rotate my blades on the ice before jumping"

we found a better translation here. they seem to agree he's talking about prerotation

 

 

[yuzuangel]

8 minutes ago, Salior said:

Just found a Chinese version here 

    

 

I think I can share some thoughts about it. If the translation is accurate, 

 

Even from long ago, mine was not that kind of jump. 

could be translated as "Since young / Since I started skating, I've never been the type of skater that could land these kind of jumps." 

 

            What was described as "rotating down below"

 

could mean "No matter how hard I practice, I can't rotate my blades on the ice before jumping" 

Maybe "rotating down below" = "rotating down on the ice" versus "rotating up in the air"?

[Salior]

7 minutes ago, yuzuangel said:

Maybe "rotating down below" = "rotating down on the ice" versus "rotating up in the air"?

 

yes precisely. The Chinese phrase used is "在下面边转边跳“ which literally means "jumping while rotating down there"