- Joined
- Jun 21, 2003
- Country
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This is a little late as we tweeted earlier this week but thought I would post for any comments/discussion.
Ghislain Briand on Mao Shimada at training camp:
“There are a few things that we have to work on. She’s a good jumper, but Mao has pretty much everything. She has good skating skills, good spins, good landing position, and that's what makes the difference. Jumping is great, you need to jump, but you need everything. If you don’t have good spins and you miss a jump, you have nothing to hold on. When I worked with Yuzuru Hanyu, Hanyu was good in everything. He had great spins, great skating skills, great turns, great footwork, great jumps. Beautiful skater, beautiful body! So if you have all this, the package, you can afford to miss something and still be great. But if you don’t have everything, and you miss something, you’re stuck. So you need to develop everything, and I think there’s still a lot of work to do. But Mao is only one of the kids here. She’s the junior world champion, the thing is, we have to keep her healthy. You know, once you are at the top of the mountain, it’s hard to stay at the top of the mountain. Because you need to come down to climb up again and that’s gonna be a challenge. To make her go back up and then relax, go back up, relax.
Not just Mao, every skater, needs to stay healthy. Because everybody wants to do a triple axel, everybody wants to do a quad, but it's very demanding. And everybody wants to do it at a young age. You need to make sure that everything will be trained at a proper rhythm, so when it's time to perform, then it will happen. Obviously, she’s one of the best ones, but she still needs to keep going and keep going and that's one of the challenges for everybody. Everybody wants to be the best, but we need to stay healthy.”
“When I worked with Yuzuru, the problem with his ankle really diminished a lot of stuff. Before the Pyeongchang Olympics, it was devastating and it was hard to recover from that injury because you need to stay up. If you need to stay up, sometimes you don’t take the time to heal your injury. So this is why I say to Mie, “We need to make sure that Mao and everybody stay healthy.” And once you’re healthy, you keep going and keep going and keep going.”
On what to focus on during training:
“First of all, I want them to be happy on the ice. I think if you're happy, you train better. Because they are very competitive and they want to win every time. Sometimes, they're gonna miss one or two jumps and then they're gonna get disappointed, but it’s training. So you can miss stuff! I’m trying to make them understand that in training, you have to open the door to “Ok, I can miss one or two”. It’s like, if you jump in the pool, you’re gonna get wet. Otherwise, it’s not gonna work. So, when you go into training, what I’m doing with the kids, I’m focusing on what we've been doing for a year. The kids know me, I like body alignment and I just reinforce them in all that. My Japanese girls and boys, they know me. Sometimes, I don’t even need to say anything. I just patch them, patch an arm and I make them confident. You need to feel good, then it’s easier to do it. That’s the only thing I’m working with them.”
When you're going into a triple axel, it’s easy to say “Do it!”, but when you have to face it and do three and a half rotations in the air and land on one foot, it’s a different story. But if you feel good and you think you can do it, that’s what my job is. I have to make them understand the mechanics of the jump, but make them understand that if they do that, they're gonna be successful. I show them videos mostly with Yuzuru because I have all the jumps with Yuzuru. I show them that body alignment is the secret. If you wanna do a quad, there is no shortcut. You do a shortcut, you’re gonna end out with an injury, so you need to face it, then we go through it.”
Ghislain Briand on Mao Shimada at training camp:
“There are a few things that we have to work on. She’s a good jumper, but Mao has pretty much everything. She has good skating skills, good spins, good landing position, and that's what makes the difference. Jumping is great, you need to jump, but you need everything. If you don’t have good spins and you miss a jump, you have nothing to hold on. When I worked with Yuzuru Hanyu, Hanyu was good in everything. He had great spins, great skating skills, great turns, great footwork, great jumps. Beautiful skater, beautiful body! So if you have all this, the package, you can afford to miss something and still be great. But if you don’t have everything, and you miss something, you’re stuck. So you need to develop everything, and I think there’s still a lot of work to do. But Mao is only one of the kids here. She’s the junior world champion, the thing is, we have to keep her healthy. You know, once you are at the top of the mountain, it’s hard to stay at the top of the mountain. Because you need to come down to climb up again and that’s gonna be a challenge. To make her go back up and then relax, go back up, relax.
Not just Mao, every skater, needs to stay healthy. Because everybody wants to do a triple axel, everybody wants to do a quad, but it's very demanding. And everybody wants to do it at a young age. You need to make sure that everything will be trained at a proper rhythm, so when it's time to perform, then it will happen. Obviously, she’s one of the best ones, but she still needs to keep going and keep going and that's one of the challenges for everybody. Everybody wants to be the best, but we need to stay healthy.”
“When I worked with Yuzuru, the problem with his ankle really diminished a lot of stuff. Before the Pyeongchang Olympics, it was devastating and it was hard to recover from that injury because you need to stay up. If you need to stay up, sometimes you don’t take the time to heal your injury. So this is why I say to Mie, “We need to make sure that Mao and everybody stay healthy.” And once you’re healthy, you keep going and keep going and keep going.”
On what to focus on during training:
“First of all, I want them to be happy on the ice. I think if you're happy, you train better. Because they are very competitive and they want to win every time. Sometimes, they're gonna miss one or two jumps and then they're gonna get disappointed, but it’s training. So you can miss stuff! I’m trying to make them understand that in training, you have to open the door to “Ok, I can miss one or two”. It’s like, if you jump in the pool, you’re gonna get wet. Otherwise, it’s not gonna work. So, when you go into training, what I’m doing with the kids, I’m focusing on what we've been doing for a year. The kids know me, I like body alignment and I just reinforce them in all that. My Japanese girls and boys, they know me. Sometimes, I don’t even need to say anything. I just patch them, patch an arm and I make them confident. You need to feel good, then it’s easier to do it. That’s the only thing I’m working with them.”
When you're going into a triple axel, it’s easy to say “Do it!”, but when you have to face it and do three and a half rotations in the air and land on one foot, it’s a different story. But if you feel good and you think you can do it, that’s what my job is. I have to make them understand the mechanics of the jump, but make them understand that if they do that, they're gonna be successful. I show them videos mostly with Yuzuru because I have all the jumps with Yuzuru. I show them that body alignment is the secret. If you wanna do a quad, there is no shortcut. You do a shortcut, you’re gonna end out with an injury, so you need to face it, then we go through it.”
(In case you were looking for the perfect gift for her!)
