Daisuke Takahashi | Page 13 | Golden Skate

Daisuke Takahashi

Morning Glory

On the Ice
Joined
Dec 16, 2008
A peson in Daisuke's fan forum added English subtitles to this short but super wonderful documentary about the resumption of his quad. Congratulations for getting back, Daisuke!! (And special thanks to the video maker.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEYVAxwWRdg

It was a tough road to overcome. I remember, I prepared myself to see the worst scenario back in the November 2008. But he came back! Now he is even stronger than he used to be. You are so brave, Daisuke. :clap:

Thanks for the clip! I adore Dai more and more.

Until last season, I could not understand why Dai stuck the quads, espesially in the seasons when DG got double penalty. I also thought he should give up the quads in the competitions when he could win without them. I was wrong. His continuous tries bore fruit. Goooo Dai-chan!
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Moderator's note. This thread has been "managed" (as we say ;) ) to keep things on topic. (In case we forget, the topic is "Yay, Dai!" :) )
 

demarinis5

Gold for the Winter Prince!
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 23, 2004
***

Welll, actually the same user started to put subtitles on Friends documentary about Dai. It was issued before major events, still it's interesting to watch.
Part1:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=axXuovQrZ6I
Part 2:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=piWGjars99A

And Luchianov wrote a beautiful article about Dai on fskating where he compared him with Japanese calligraphy :).
http://fskating.com/2012/05/daisuke-takahashi-the-way-of-art.html

Thanks. Lovely article by Luchianov!
 

skfan

Final Flight
Joined
Jul 29, 2009
Here are vids from PIW Toyohashi, locally broadcasted on Tokai TV last night.

-Dai's Mambo (commentary by Junko Yaginuma):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGGuJo9bg14

-Dai's new EX to Sweat (remarks: the original TV commentary has been removed):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOUpFJEYsyo

:cool::cool::cool:


i like everything no commentary, so i'm really thankful for your share, deedee. for those who prefer commentary, YukiNieve on FSU shared the link for 'sweat' with commentary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO1sGITVVvM


i must say it lives up to... expectations. ^_~
 

let`s talk

Match Penalty
Joined
Sep 10, 2009
Here are vids from PIW Toyohashi, locally broadcasted on Tokai TV last night.

-Dai's Mambo (commentary by Junko Yaginuma):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGGuJo9bg14

-Dai's new EX to Sweat (remarks: the original TV commentary has been removed):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOUpFJEYsyo

:cool::cool::cool:

Thanks, deedee1.

But Dai looks not just tired. He looks exhausted in Toyohashi. Slow, many mistakes, few combos, few smiles. It wasn't like that in Shin-Yokohama when I saw it live. A bunch of fundrasing shows for his old rink and Asahi ads' might have done their work.

Dai, take a holiday! You have the full right for that like any of us. ;)
 

Butterscotch17

On the Ice
Joined
Apr 26, 2012
Thank you for the link for 'Sweat'! I love it! I have been wanting him to do something wild for a while. I love his classy, emotional programs like Blues for Klook and The Crisis, but I was wanting something fun from him, and this is it, so thank you, Dai!

I don't know Japanese - what did the commentators think of it? I know I liked it! :) :love:

But Dai looks not just tired. He looks exhausted in Toyohashi. Slow, many mistakes, few combos, few smiles. It wasn't like that in Shin-Yokohama when I saw it live. A bunch of fundrasing shows for his old rink and Asahi ads' might have done their work.

Dai, take a holiday! You have the full right for that like any of us. ;)

I agree! I hope he doesn't exhaust himself too much. Daisuke, go on vacation, and get some freaking rest!
 

deedee1

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 14, 2007
But Dai looks not just tired. He looks exhausted in Toyohashi. Slow, many mistakes, few combos, few smiles. It wasn't like that in Shin-Yokohama when I saw it live. A bunch of fundrasing shows for his old rink and Asahi ads' might have done their work.

I was in a hurry, so searched for the vids and dropped here quickly yesterday.
Thanks for letting me know. I have watched it again this morning. Yes, he IS exhausted...

I do not like his look, let's talk. It reminds me 4 years ago. He left Nikolai that spring, we all worried. Then Dai showed up with his striking 'eye' (original version) and surprised us. Lots of ice shows, charitable activities for his old rinks (both Kurashiki and Osaka). He was reported making 2 new LP with Pasquale, having great time in Detroit, etc. All good news during the summer and fans looked forward to the new season. But the reality was he was already burnt out and felt even depressed, then...Sorry for bringing this up. I stop now.

Yes, he NEEDS to slow it down.
 

deedee1

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 14, 2007
In Dai's other thread for choerographers/music suggestions, some names of the all time 'Greats', such as John Curry, Toller Cranston and Torvill & Dean were mentioned along with the video clips of their wonderful performances, which of course impressed me a great deal.

As I wrote in that thread, among the above great skaters, Toller Cranston particularly influenced Mrs. Utako Nagamitsu, Dai's long-time coach, for her direction as a professional coach.

Let me do some translation on Mrs. Utako Nagamitsu. This article is rather old; published in the spring of 2010 after Daisuke won the historic Olympic medal and very first world title by a Japanese male skater ever, but I thought it was very interesting and fascinating to get to know Utako sensei as a once competitive skater, a coach and as a person for me.

---------------------------------------
Sources: Nikkei shimbun
Dates: May 24-26, 2010
Writer: Masako Hara
---------------------------------------

<1> Prologue

I believe Mrs. Nagamitsu is a rare, unique, and precious coah among the current top coaches in Japan. One of her preference when training her skaters has always been 'the ability to dance', in spite of the fact that she herself was a single skater and the majority of current students under her wing are also single skaters.
And that probably was the reason why Daisuke, at age 13 with only two triples; toe loop and Salchow, caught her attention one day, and she decided to take him as her skater.

Daisuke was born and brought up in Kurashiki, Okayama pref., the southern part of Japan with sunny and warmer weather, so that winter sports are less popular (kids love and would much prefer baseball and soccer).
He started figure skating at age 8, when the big sport facilities with an ice rink opened in his neighborhood, and evetually attracted to this sport, though the local skating club did not have any professional coaches.

Even before meeting Utako sensei, he himself also loved to dance on and off the ice, without any deep knowledge or appropriate instrucitons from professional dancers. He preferred Ice Dance the best among the four disciplines. During the Winter Olympic Games at Nagano in 1998, young Dai with only four years of skating career, showed up at his local rink one afternoon, demonstrated the patterns of Compulsory Dance which he watched on TV and memorized from the night before, and surprised everyone at the rink. He even said he fell in love with all the ice dance medalists; Grishuk/Platov, Krylova/Ovsyannikov and Anissina/Peizerat.

In this regard, a lot of people believe it was not a pure accident, but rather a fate that Utako sensei ran into young Daisuke (or vice versa) one summer, at an ice rink in Sendai which was not the home for either of them.

Utako Nagamitsu *info thru Wiki, thus not 100% reliable/credible

-born: March, 1951, Hyogo pref.
-as s competitive skater: Started figure skating at age 9. Ladies single national junior champion 1966-67 season. Retired after 1971-72 season, and turned to a professional coach/choreographer.
-as a professional coach: Worlds in 1992 was her first appearance as a coach, taking Mari Asanuma.
-current home rink: Ice Skating Club, Kansei University, Osaka pref.

--------------------------------
(cont'd)
 
Last edited:
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
As always, thanks for your efforts, Deedee1! I'm not exaggerating when I say that there's no way I'd have access to this information without your bringing it to us. I love that Daisuke was able to memorize the Compulsory Dance and then demonstrate it the next day. Clearly this guy values the things about skating that I most value, except that he's able to do them, while I can just watch and get gooseflesh.
 
Last edited:

deedee1

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 14, 2007
Thanks a lot for encouraging me with your kind words, as always Olympia!

---------------------------------------
RE: About Mrs. Utako Nagamitsu, a figure skating coach
Sources: Nikkei shimbun
Dates: May 24-26, 2010
Writer: Masako Hara
---------------------------------------
Remarks:
-<1> is a sort of explanatory note by deedee. The actual article starts from here.
-English words/expressions may be added/replaced in order to make more sense and/or for easier reading in English. Also, allow me, as usual, for grammatical mistakes if any.
---------------------------------------

<2>

"I would appreciate if you'd rather not write this yet...in any of your articles, okay?"

One day last August (in 2009), Utako Nagamitsu made it clear to me (the writer of Nikkei) beforehand, then started talking. In her usual soft tone of voice with Kansai accent.

"If every piece is to settle down to its right place at Vancouver, I believe without doubt that my boy is the one who will win OGM. It's just my hunch, but he at least will get on the podium there under any circumstances."

'My boy', she said back then, was Daisuke Takahashi of course, who won the bronze medal at the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver this February. But Takahashi as of last August was the skater who had just made his appearances in the ice shows for the first time in a year after the knee injury, and still was on his long way making a comeback to comeptitive skating. To my eyes, however, Nagamitsu had no doubt that her boy would win at least a medal, no matter what.

"She believes whatever she believes. She is a woman but I would say she is a much tougher guy than I am, of high caliber and more the Godfather like!", says Takahashi.

Believing leads you to great force. There were voices in Vancouver: "If Takahashi does not go for that risky quad (and focuses more on going clean), he has much better chance for OGM..." But Nagamitsu simply turned it down. "I have never ever thought of telling Dai to avoid a quad. He is the kind of skater tending to make a mistake when he goes conservative, say, watering down his technical contents. 'Which skater are you talking about? It's Daisuke Takahashi!', I wanted to tell them, you know", she says.
"I am probably one of the most optimistic people in the world. I believed in him and have always told everyone around me, 'Daisuke is no average skater. So talented, that I can not even tell you how much talented he is.' And he finally did!"

It was 11 years ago when Nagamitsu and Takahashi met each other. One day that summer, a boy walked into the ice rink in Sendai, where Team Nagamitsu was having summer training camp from Osaka.
"He must be one of your boys, right?" Someone asked. She replied back, "No, he isn't." That was young Daisuke. He came to Sendai all by himself from Okayama, his native city, for choreography of his new free program. The music piece was Warsaw Concerto. 'Such a difficult piece of classical music to interpret and skate to for an thirteen year old boy...' Nagamitsu thought to herself. His choreographer, however, left the rink for Tokyo for some urgent business to attend, and she pinch-hitted to do the rest of his choreo. When she started working with him, the young boy surprised her. "He moved around softly and so delicately skating to this piece, as if every note of the music was coming from the inside of his body..."

------------------------
(cont'd)
 
Last edited:

demarinis5

Gold for the Winter Prince!
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 23, 2004
Thank you for the translation deedee1. I am so glad that you joined this forum, you are a breath of fresh air! :bow:
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Thanks, Deedee! What a wonderful treasurehouse of information this article is.

The Warsaw Concerto, eh? A perfect piece for him. I wonder how he came across it. It's a wonderfully tempestuous, romantic piece--it was actually created for a movie. It's hardly played nowadays, but they used to broadcast a recording of it on the radio. Is it more popular in Japan, I wonder. I just looked it up, and the producers of the movie apparently wanted a symphonic piano work that was in the tradition of Rachmaninoff. I think the composer, Richard Addinsell, was British.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg0QEpXYmUw

See, this shows that you can find pieces to skate to that are full-blooded and accessible but don't have audience members saying, "Oh, that again."
 
Last edited:
Top