It's not "that he had practised enough and was thus prepared" that ensures "he could do it whatever happens". It is the "knowing" that could allow him to believe he could. And when he believes he could, he can.
His analysis was correct that the cause of his implosion was nervousness (and shame and guilt). Note the insufficient training itself is not the direct cause. To prevent such nervousness in a way that is congruent with his beliefs, he had to put in the work of physical practice and training. With the lesson learned and if he keeps to it, such implosion will not happen again. From a mental perspective, he could have adjusted his mind over the situation, using every happening to stay positive instead of building negative thoughts. He could have also done a lot of mental practice of his skating when physically limited. There have been experiments conducted that show mental practice is almost, if not equally, as effective as physical practice.
I wonder if another skater who relies on 'knowing one has done enough' to gain confidence is Mao. Her crazy hard work is well known, and I read her new coach, Nobuo Sato, told her to change her practice regime to be more paced and focused, rather than just spending long hours on ice.
But is it really the case for those two skaters? I am sure there are many others, all over the world, who feel the same. Not only knowing their own technical / physical / mental shortcomings, but also lacking in confidence because of that awareness to start with, drives people to train hard to over come their inferiority complex, and harvest confidence and self-belief through knowing how hard they worked - it seems all natural and logical to me.
One of the reasons why I am fascinated by figure skating (and come to love and root for headcases) is that it is a sport where a competitor's psychological journey is somewhat visible in their performance. You can read their mind and soul in their performance as if it was an open book, and follow their personal journey through their career. Also as I stated elsewhere before, I have a feeling that such (somehow painful) sensitivity can give a skater an ability to produce a performance full of nuances and emotionally engaging details and power. Mind you, having emotionally invested in headcases, my beloved Daisuke, Tomas, Jeremy, Alissa, Carolina, etc, my life must have been shortened by at least three years by now.
I rolled my eye at Morozov's interview, especially at his basically calling the Japanese men ugly. What were the reactions to his comments in Japan? Maybe it didn't get any press because it was done in Russia?
I am not sure whether that particular interview was publicised in Japan, but he did give an interview to Japanese press after 09 GPF, really attacking Daisuke and Mao's teams, saying they did not know what they were doing. I guess, when reading this, most Japanese fans just shrugged their shoulders and went 'here we go, that's Morozov again...' Well, I did anyway.
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