Mirai Nagasu Interview

I'm 18 and am in college right now away from home. It's perfectly fine. However, if Mirai were to move out on her own, that would be a far different story than being surrounded by students her age, as in a college campus. But who knows? Didn't Evan stay with Frank for a while?

burntBREAD said:

I'm 18 and am in college right now away from home. It's perfectly fine. However, if Mirai were to move out on her own, that would be a far different story than being surrounded by students her age, as in a college campus. But who knows? Didn't Evan stay with Frank for a while?

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Er, I think it would be a good thing if she is not surrounded by students her age on the loose! She would be surrounded by young dedicated skaters like herself and have coaches around to watch over her. The environment would be already familiar to her, except she would save the considerable commuting time but she would have to take care of her own meals if she's not staying with a family. I'm sure her mom would still take care of much of her living since she wouldn't be far away.

So there really is a skaters' dorm at Lake A?? I can't tell from their website.

^ If you go the the Ice Castle web site and click on "Summer Camp," there is some information about the "camp house" that skaters can stay at for week-long sessions.

For some reason I had the idea that in the past they had some individual cabins that staters' families could rent, but I am not sure if that is right.

burntBREAD said:

I'm 18 and am in college right now away from home. It's perfectly fine. However, if Mirai were to move out on her own, that would be a far different story than being surrounded by students her age, as in a college campus. But who knows? Didn't Evan stay with Frank for a while?

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It's a little easier for a male student to stay with a male teacher than it is for a female student with a male teacher... from an appearance standpoint anyway.

The feminist in me is writhing in protest, but I am infinitely more comfortable with 18 year Adam Rippon moving cross country to work with Nikolai Morozov and Brian Orser than I would with any 18 year old girl doing anything similar.

I know SkateFiguring has some inspiring sob story about making it big under worse circumstances, but "if SkateFiguring sucked it up, then it's a good idea for Mirai put herself into a similar situation!" is a poor argument .

blue dog said:

Although, if she really wanted a taste of independence, she could do what others have suggested and move to Japan to train. Imagine her with Mr. Sato, or Mr. Nagakubo?

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Yes! I said that! Mirai does not seem to want it bad enough to focus. She has the talent to choose now to live near her coach and train like the Olympian we saw, or be embraced in Japan. She'd find sponsors. She lacks the maturity to leave her parents at 18 and that does not scream champion. Plushenko left at 10 to go hundreds of miles away. The world champions will go anywhere to be with whoever is considered the best coach or someone they feel can get them to the podiums. I love Mirai's skating, but I think the russian babies, the Japanese women and maybe some new American wunderkind will leave her in the dust. I finally made up my mind and I think we saw olympic mirai at her peak in Vancouver. That said, she will be a stunning show skater if SOI survives.

She is not working like she did and this article clearly shows it. I will always cherish her Vancouver performances and still watch them. The top 4 were all so unique.

brightphoton said:

I know SkateFiguring has some inspiring sob story about making it big under worse circumstances, but "if SkateFiguring sucked it up, then it's a good idea for Mirai put herself into a similar situation!" is a poor argument .

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Mine is not a sob story even if I didn't tell most of it. Mirai moving 3 hours' drive away to be at a place and with people she's already familiar with is nothing radical and comparable. It's something many 18 years old have been doing. (I went away for college prep in the same country before I was 17 and it was fun.) In her case, her mom can visit a few times a week and she can come home for every weekend and still save a lot of wasteful hours than what they are doing now. It's a good transition to independence and adulthood. Not that it's the only right thing for the family to do or that I'm advocating it. Just that it's not as big a deal as made out by some.

Maybe Mirai is a child still at 18 due to her sheltered life as a skater and her cultural background, but 18 is an adult for many folks. She and her family decide her life, but I'd like to see her go for it and she is not, rather she is losing ground. I thought her weight gain was due to becoming a woman but the article shows she is not training at the level she was in 2010, and that is a shame as she is our most talented skater in the US. Mirai could be a world champion if she made the right training choices and focused exclusively. Sometimes fans want it more than the skaters, I guess.

Spun Silver said:

Isn't it obvious? She's 18! That's too young to live by herself (in most people's opinion).

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i agree. that is what i was trying to say. what i was trying to say is that living with your parents at 18 is probably right for most people and not a sign you are an immature 18 year old.

SkateFiguring said:

I left home at 18 to come to the other side of the world to pursue an education, with just $100 in my pocket. I knew nobody in a strange culture and a language I could hardly speak. It was tough and I worked both on campus and outside, including overnight shifts. But I survived and graduated with double majors in 3 years. I believe a well raised 18 year old can strive on her own not far from home and parents under the guidence of caring adults in a structured life with purpose.

eta. Aren't many 18 year old attending college away from home? These days, keeping in touch is so easy and free, which helps a lot for being away physically.

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going to college is not the same as living in your own apartment in a random city where you know no one. living in a dorm is very much a transitional thing. if you were ready at 18 great but i would not have been and don't think anyone should be judged for that, is all i'm saying.

SkateFiguring said:

I left home at 18 to come to the other side of the world to pursue an education, with just $100 in my pocket. I knew nobody in a strange culture and a language I could hardly speak. It was tough and I worked both on campus and outside, including overnight shifts. But I survived and graduated with double majors in 3 years. I believe a well raised 18 year old can strive on her own not far from home and parents under the guidence of caring adults in a structured life with purpose.

eta. Aren't many 18 year old attending college away from home? These days, keeping in touch is so easy and free, which helps a lot for being away physically.

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SF, I know you only from the forum, but even with that cursory knowledge, I'd never use you as a measuring stick for anyone else, even a champion skater. You're clearly an unusual person, with strong motivation, not to mention smarts to spare. You're fluent in at least three languages that I know of, and you work in a demanding job. And you say you completed a double major in three years....I know that Mirai must be an exceptional person, but I bet you beat her out in terms of drive and self-discipline. I'm just saying. I mean this in the nicest possible way, you realize. You just can't sell this particular argument as a rationale for Mirai.

(My mother was the daughter of an immigrant family, and she left home at just turned 16 to go off to college. The three older sisters were smart, but they attended a local college at home to save money. She won a scholarship and was seen off on the train. But she spoke the language, and times were more innocent then, I think. I don't assume that because she could do something like that, any old person could do it. Even her younger sister couldn't. That one, equally smart, went down to a distant college and was back home the next month. Got a law degree eventually, but couldn't hack it in her late teens. Not everyone can.)

I think an adult relative would have to go with Mirai, and i don't know whether the Nagasu family has an older sibling, cousin, or aunt to spare. When Michelle lived at Ice Castle, she was with her sister, and IIRC her father commuted a legendary distance by car every night to stay with the girls.

I never meant for my experience to be a standard. As a matter of fact, my financial career started with getting parents to take advantage of Canada's Registered Education Savings Plan so parents wouldn't have to worry about their children maybe going through a fraction of what I did, which my parents never had any idea about.

However, it is common for teenagers to live on their own with various degrees of independence. Some consequences are tragic and some very successful. I've since realized one's character as the foundation makes the difference. I was very fortunate to have good parents and was well raised though they never prepared me for I elected to do.

What has been proposed for Mirai is nothing really drastic as I expounded in a previous post. I just didn't expect my little self revelation to get such attention and mistaken as a measure for anybody else.

skateluvr said:

Yes! I said that! Mirai does not seem to want it bad enough to focus. She has the talent to choose now to live near her coach and train like the Olympian we saw, or be embraced in Japan. She'd find sponsors. She lacks the maturity to leave her parents at 18 and that does not scream champion. Plushenko left at 10 to go hundreds of miles away. The world champions will go anywhere to be with whoever is considered the best coach or someone they feel can get them to the podiums. I love Mirai's skating, but I think the russian babies, the Japanese women and maybe some new American wunderkind will leave her in the dust. I finally made up my mind and I think we saw olympic mirai at her peak in Vancouver. That said, she will be a stunning show skater if SOI survives.

She is not working like she did and this article clearly shows it.
I will always cherish her Vancouver performances and still watch them. The top 4 were all so unique.

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Um, how do you get that from this interview? It talks about her struggles with injury last season and her renewed focus this season.

“I think that compared to last year, I have more confidence in my programs because I’ve actually been training pain-free this summer,” she said. “This season, I will be better prepared because I actually have the time for sufficient training, and as a result, I believe that my performances will be much better.”

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There is a lot too judgmentality here about a situation that we know quite little about. That's all I'll say.

It would be expensive for her parents to pay for an apartment for Mirai...utility bills, rent etc on top of the coaching and ice time she is paying now. Frank is now working out of the new rink in the desert near Palm Springs, so I don't know what Mirai and her family are doing now. I think that commute is even farther than Lake Arrowhead. I think I heard that Mirai was only working with Frank 2 (?) days a week there and was training the rest of the time in El Segundo where Frank used to work. This less than ideal situation may be why she is not skating as well as she could be...Mirai seemed to get on much better when she was working soley with Mr. Carroll instead of having many different coaches voices telling her different things.

Also, Mirai is 18. She should be driving herself. Once she stops relaxing in the back seat she might value all that time spent a little more.