Coach Rafael Arutyunyan on Mao Asada

[gsk8]

Rafael Arutyunyan explains split in 2008 with Mao Asada in interview with Golden Skate.

 

[lyndichee]

The way Rafael described the way Mao called him made me really sad. I'm not sure why but I can imagine a desperate teenager who was probably feeling at her lowest, calling someone she looked up and hoping he could maybe come to Japan to help bring some stability to her training. It must have been a scary time in her life.

I'm glad that to hear they are good friends now. Maybe it's the communication barrier but I didn't really like that Rafael said that he's fired her 2 months before Worlds and he could have had 2 World Champions. I would have prioritized the thought of her mother's illness instead.

 

[brightphoton]

The way Rafael described the way Mao called him made me really sad. I'm not sure why but I can imagine a desperate teenager who was probably feeling at her lowest, calling someone she looked up and hoping he could maybe come to Japan to help bring some stability to her training. It must have been a scary time in her life.

I'm glad that to hear they are good friends now. Maybe it's the communication barrier but I didn't really like that Rafael said that he's fired her 2 months before Worlds and he could have had 2 World Champions. I would have prioritized the thought of her mother's illness instead.

It's just his way of expressing regret about the situation.

 

[sarama]

The way Rafael described the way Mao called him made me really sad. I'm not sure why but I can imagine a desperate teenager who was probably feeling at her lowest, calling someone she looked up and hoping he could maybe come to Japan to help bring some stability to her training. It must have been a scary time in her life.

I'm glad that to hear they are good friends now. Maybe it's the communication barrier but I didn't really like that Rafael said that he's fired her 2 months before Worlds and he could have had 2 World Champions. I would have prioritized the thought of her mother's illness instead.

I think he was simply blaming himself for being a very "dark or white" person at the time. He didn't go to her because he thought she was acting like a spoiled super-star teenager, and then he ended up not being formally the World champion coach... so he was just being a tad bitter about how karma got to him in the end

 

[gsk8]

He mentioned that he was "young" at the time and alluded to the fact that he made a mistake. I think what he was just trying to get across that he made one. However, on the same token, not everything is always as it seems, hence the "dark/white" comment, which was meant to be "not everything is always as it seems and/or is always in black and white....there is always a gray area." Remember, English is not his first language

While he missed the creds of having Asada win 2008 worlds, he was also sorry about her mother's passing and how everything went down. Apparently he wasn't aware of how seriously ill she was or how badly Asada needed him at that time.

 

[Interspectator]

:sad14:
Thank you for this interview clip. Nice to get a back-story.

 

[iamchrislao]

Gosh Thank you for this! I have always wondered what happened back then!

 

[Barb]

I think he was simply blaming himself for being a very "dark or white" person at the time. He didn't go to her because he thought she was acting like a spoiled super-star teenager, and then he ended up not being formally the World champion coach... so he was just being a tad bitter about how karma got to him in the end

At that time I thought the same . I think Mao should have said him, or at least tell him that she was living a very serious situation. But I guess she had her reasons, she is even closer to Tatiana Tarasova than Rafael and Mao did not tell her either.

 

[sarama]

At that time I thought the same . I think Mao should have said him, or at least tell him that she was living a very serious situation. But I guess she had her reasons, she is even closer to Tatiana Tarasova than Rafael and Mao did not tell her either.

Sometimes when you face such difficult situations, you don't want anyone to know, just because so you can put a brave face on and pretend everything is fine. It's not the best way to handle things but I get why Mao acted like that, and I also get why Raf got fed up with her. In the end what happened was nobody's fault

 

[hurrah]

Mao was, is, super, super-private and super, super-protective of her mother and her relationship with her mother.

I think that I have heard Mao talk publicly about her mother ONCE, and it was a comment she probably had to make under the circumstance because her mother had just died and she was expected to say something. She had just competed in her first competition after her mother's death, and I think she was asked what she wanted to say to her mother (in heaven) because she had done so well, and she said something like 'I don't think I have to tell her anything because she is always with me'. And even that comment, I felt, was said almost unwillingly as if she didn't want to say anything at all.

That's just the way she is. So beautifully headstrong and private in many respects.

 

[TheCzar]

Though I agree that something should have been said about the illness, many people forget that culturally, Asians (I am one) tend to keep a lot of family issues under a ton of mattresses. I imagine it's even more so for the Japanese, because we just don't air family concerns and what not like they do in the west. Headstrong is a word that always comes up, but what the west do not understand is that we do not have the tabloid-mentality in the East. I mean not really. Everything is so available public that being private becomes perceived as stubborn or reclusive.

Illness, money, etc are all never to leave the four walls of the home. With Mao Asada, even in 2008 she was already MAO ASADA of JAPAN- her star rising and rising- privacy was even more precious. And there is also pride. Some people, culturally, are just a lot more reconciled with keeping their pride if it means sacrificing something important. In her case, Mao and their family kept their integrity with accepting Raf's decision, and in turn kept the mother's illness a secret. Some people may disagree, but I'd imagine that she would have hated any form of special treatment because of this issue. I respect for more, after all these years, for never having roped in her whole family into her athletic career. You don't hear a lot about her parents, or even Mai for that matter or their relationships because at the end of the day- coach or federation, or the public, it really is nobody's business.

In the end, all is resolved. We discover Rafael's remorse and Mao Asada's grace and gratitude, even though she was indeed fired.

 

[da96103]

Mao Asada's 8-year-old Mystery Solved

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/...mao-mystery-finally-solved-eight-years-later/

From the Japan Times

Mao mystery finally solved eight years later
BY JACK GALLAGHER
MAY 10, 2016

In January 2008 Mao Asada suddenly split from coach Rafael Arutunian after 16 months of working together. It was a move made without warning or explanation, and left a great many in the skating community scratching their heads over the reason behind the decision.

The Armenian had taught Mao and sister Mai at their training base in Lake Arrowhead, California, since the summer of 2006. Working with Arutunian, Mao had earned the silver medal at the 2007 worlds in Tokyo, narrowly missing out on the gold to compatriot Miki Ando.

Mao would go on to win the 2008 world title in Goteborg, Sweden, a couple of months after leaving Arutunian, but she would do it without a coach.

Only recently was the real reason for the parting made public by Arutunian, who revealed it during a video interview posted on YouTube with Golden Skate’s Ted Flett on the sidelines at the world championships in Boston in late March.

“The story was very sad,” Arutunian told Flett. “After the (Japan) nationals she called me and said, ‘I cannot come to California.’ We had plans. And she said to me, ‘Can you come to Japan?’ and I said no.”

“We had a plan. She was supposed to come on Jan. 14. I had (to work with) Jeffrey Buttle. I was working with Jeffrey Buttle in Lake Arrowhead with her the whole time.

“She said, ‘Rafael I can’t come right now. Can you send Nadia (Kanaeva — Arutunian’s assistant coach) to Japan? I said, ‘OK. I will send Nadia Kanaeva to Japan for you.’

“Nadia Kanaeva went there for two weeks and stayed there. Then she (Mao) calls me back again and says, ‘I cannot come again. Can you come now?’ I said, ‘I can’t. I have Jeffrey Buttle. And she said, ‘Oh, I can take care of Jeffrey Buttle.’ ”

Arutunian told Golden Skate at this point he became suspicious of the motives for the unusual request from Mao’s camp.

“I started to think they were playing me,” Arutunian stated to Flett. “They didn’t say the reason. They don’t come and I said, ‘You know what. If you are not following our agreement and our plans, I don’t want to do it anymore.

“I was a little bit stupid, seriously. I was a little bit younger at that time. Not much, but still younger. And I fired her. I fired her,” he recalled.

Arutunian claimed that one of the reasons he did not attend the worlds that year was that he was worried Mao would pressure him to coach her despite the breakup.

“If I go, I fired Mao. She will come to me and put me with her team because she didn’t announce anything. She will come to me and say, ‘Go, stay with me.’ I didn’t go …”

Arutunian told Buttle that he should go to the worlds with his regular coach at the time (Lee Barkell). So Arutunian could only sit back and watch as both Mao and Buttle won world titles.

“They both were world champions,” Arutunian said. “I don’t think that had happened ever in skating history — (coaching) two world champions in the same year — and I was teaching both.”

At this point in the interview, Arutunian indicated that Mao’s late mother Kyoko was already requiring medical treatment (presumably for the liver disease that took her life in December 2011 at age 48) and said “they had to stay in Japan because of insurance.”

“And you know what happened to Mama. They hid the story. They didn’t tell me why was the reason she (Mao) didn’t come,” Arutunian commented.

Arutunian said he later felt great regret at what had transpired.

“I felt very bad about it. If they had told me the story, sure I would go,” he said. “If they would tell me that was the reason, sure I would have taken Jeffrey. I would go there.

“The story is very sad because Mama died. They had problems. They had to stay in Japan and I fired her (Mao) two months before worlds and I could have had two world champions in one year,” Arutunian lamented.

“… I love Mao. I love her with all my heart and I feel very sorry about that moment, but she came to me after the (2010) Olympics and she said, ‘Rafael, what you did for me I will never forget.’ And we are good friends.”

The story Arutunian detailed certainly highlights how culture likely played a part in the schism between he and Mao. Apparently Mao’s camp did not want to reveal her mother’s illness at the time, so Mao and Mai just never went back to California, leaving Arutunian wondering what the deal was.

You would normally think that a close adviser like a coach could be trusted to keep that kind of sensitive information confidential. But apparently Mao’s camp did not want to chance it with a foreign instructor.

One can only wonder if Arutunian had been Japanese whether the storyline would have been any different.

 

[gsk8]

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

https://youtu.be/kkLLwgvT1jE

 

[da96103]

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

https://youtu.be/kkLLwgvT1jE

I did not know golden skate has a youtube channel. Nice and thanks.

 

[Krunchii]

Lol! Tsk tsk Jack Gallagher has always been one of the worst journalists I've read in figure skating, he basically did a transcript of Ted's interview. I looked at the comments and it seems like he credited TSL at first for the interview instead of GoldenSkate:dumb:

 

[chloepoco]

Regardless of who first put the interview out, I find the whole situation a bit sad. I remember when this was happening--the speculation of several posters here who condemned Mao of acting with entitlement, as a spoiled brat, etc.

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?

 

[honghe]

I think part of it could also be that it was a really painful thing to go through and there were times that you just weren't able to or didn't want to talk about it, because even talking about it could be painful. And as someone who's gone through similar situations, I know that if you start telling people around you about your parent's health problems, the natural response you'd get is people being concerned and start saying they're sorry to hear that, or start to ask you about how she's doing now. But there could be times that you don't want to be pitied, or are emotionally just not capable of answering these questions.

 

[edwinaskater1943]

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


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ruffledgrouse]

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.

 

[sarama]

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 agree so much with what you said: everybody should be allowed to handle their grief and difficult situations on their own terms. It has to be their choice how much share with others and how much keep private, it shouldn't be dictated by ''social requirements''