Coach Rafael Arutyunyan on Mao Asada

[seabm7]

Wasn't Mao ASADA being coached by Tarasova around this time ?


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Deleted, since incorrect information.

 

[miki88]

Tarasova had lots of family obligations (i.e., illnesses) at that time, so she recommended Rafael Arutyunyan to Asada. After Asada departed ways with Arutyunyan, Tarasova became a consultant for her.

Never heard about TAT recommending Raf to Mao. I read that TAT started working with Mao first as a choreographer in 2007 after seeing her perform in Russia in the GPF in 2006. Raf was already working with Mao at the time.

 

[seabm7]

Never heard about TAT recommending Raf to Mao. I read that TAT started working with Mao first as a choreographer in 2007 after seeing her perform in Russia in the GPF in 2006. Raf was already working with Mao at the time.

I see. I just did a quick search on the internet. As you mentioned, I could not find an article which states TAT recommending Raf to Mao. It seems that I mixed up what happened around 2006-7 and remembered the facts in the wrong order.

 

[SoundtracksOnIce]

I guarantee that Mao and her family were not motivated by stubbornness or xenophobia or anything other than what would help them get through the next week/day/hour. The day the hearse came for my mom we had all these neighbors showing up shocked that we didn't tell them she was sick and that we weren't holding a wake/funeral for her (just a small dinner with friends when we collected her ashes). I just wanted to look at them and say "I promise we were not thinking of you at all when we made these decisions." And you know what? I'm glad we did even if it got us some side-eye looks.

I went to support my friend at her father's wake and it was brutal. He was a prominent member of the community, so they did the traditional wake (if you're not familiar with a wake, that's when the body is displayed in the casket and the family stands next to it and receives condolences). She, along with her mother and two high school age sisters, were standing there for FIVE SOLID HOURS shaking hands with every Tom, Dick, and Harry who wanted to 'show their support' for the family. Her boyfriend and I had to go on a food run for them and they couldn't even eat it because the line was still out the door and into the parking lot (they did send the littlest sister to go eat). They were already sleep deprived and emotionally exhausted from the final three weeks of hospice care (he had to be watched 24/7 because he was delusional and kept panicking/ripping out his IV/running out of the house/attacking people near him/etc). Yet here they were, running this damned gauntlet, giving comfort to people who hadn't spoken to their father in years... because it was what was expected.

So I have no problems with the Asada's silence almost a decade ago. No one has to understand the decisions they made during that time- it's not our business how anyone else grieves.

Edit: Wow, that came out way more bitter than I expected. Apparently I still have ~feelings~ about this.

I'll never the first funeral where I was in the "immediate family" that had to be sequestered in the back and then all walk down the aisle together as everyone is staring at you and trying to see how well/not well you're coping. I felt like an animal in a zoo. Never again. The next time (and I guarantee any future time) I slipped in early and took a seat with a Christian book and read quietly.

 

[deedee1]

Also, I'm not sure I agree with Jack Gallagher that the reason for the secrecy was because of the "foreign instructor". Maybe it was, but then again, perhaps Mao and her family are just private people who preferred to keep this private and to themselves?

That'll be my guess, too. IIRC Mao didn't even tell BOTH coach Satos (both Kumiko and Nobuo) AND JSF how serious her mother's health condition was back then. When she had to withdraw from GPF and to urgently fly back from Quebec City for her mother in Dec 2011, Nobuo Sato told the media at the airport that he had known her mother was ill but didn't know she actually was seriously ill... :sad4: It's understandable Mao didn't at all want anyone to know about it. She was (and still is) a super-star in her country. Even worse is in any country bad media people just loves spreading gossips, and good media people loves creating beautiful stories which sometimes are too beautiful and too much moving stories, after all.

....and the whole story was based on the interview that Golden Skate put out...word for word...:disapp:

https://youtu.be/kkLLwgvT1jE

I feel for you, indeed. Isn't Jack Gallagher a columnist who often drops stories on figure skaters esp. Japanese skaters in Japan Times, and also re-drops them to GS Forum from time to time? It means that Mr Gallagher takes Golden Skate as one of the most reliable sources related to figure skating for sure.
I would rather take only the half of whole stories by Mr JG ever since I did read the seires of his articles on Nikolai-Dai-Nobu's 'love-you-or-hate-you-triangle' which was dropped in JT years ago, tbh. :sarcasm:

Had she stayed with Rafael a little longer and could have fixed some of her jump techniques, what had been the chance for Mao to win the Oly Gold medal in Vancouver, and/or in Sochi, I wonder.