He truly wished to improve himself and one day he did 8 times run through of FP until he got a perfect performance! Anyway, his efforts didn’t betray him under such a hard condition (aside from a discussion of over training!)
He is truly such a hard worker and I think it gives him a lot of self-confidence. There's nothing worse than to feel not fully prepared in such a high pressure situation. Of course this applies to many areas in life and I've heard several skaters say this as well.
Provably, im thinking of myself to see shoma. Living in another country which has totally different culture is still hard for me and Ive tried to behave positively, but sometimes I feel depressed so much and to be hard on myself. To see his shoma’s struggle and braveness, I get a lot of energy.
I hope you will be able to adjust to your new environment soon. I'm always impressed with people, who have the guts to leave their home country behind and start over in an environment completely different from the one they grew up in. A good friend of mine moved from Germany to Mexico after he met his now-wife during an internship. Of course it took him some time to get used to the culture, become fluent in Spanish and get over the homesickness, but now he seems so happy and fulfilled in his new life! From this thread I don't know much about your situation and if you moved to Czech Republic for good or for a limited timespan, but I really hope that you will get much better too or maybe even feel completely at home one day.
I try to explain more about Matuoka-san, Nobu and the three talk later. Around 8:10, Matsuoka-san says he couldn’t hear shoma’s voice before if they talked at such a distance.lol.
Shoma has gotten so much better with interviews. I remember in his first appearance on Kenji's Room he was almost too shy to say anything at all and I think Kenji commented on the low volume of his voice as well. Or during that "boy's talk" with Nobu and Yuzu - these two did almost all of the talking, while Shoma was quietly listening (maybe wishing he wasn't there?) But look at him now: he's keeping eye-contact and seems comfortable and self-confident.
And I found another loveliness of Daisuke! (Around 6:00)
his analysis of Nationals. The fight between yuzu and shoma. He says if both has the perfect performances, yuzu will top over shoma. About jumps, yuzu’s jumps are better. Height, width, flow after landing… Shoma is power type jumper and he has height, but a bit lack the flow. But shoma has a chance to win. He says shoma has high skating skills and even if in latter half, he can keep his stamina and can capture audience’s hearts. It’s the fiscal point if shoma can make the audience on his side.
Thanks a bunch for this! I'm always happy to read translations of Dai's analyses and interviews!
Thx for your show report, sounds like it was a lot of fun! Even if I have seen Stéphane live, I'm always interested to hear people's impression of him. I've never seen Plushy myself, so I'm really unsure about him, because judging from TV his skating is not really my cup of tea, but everyone keeps saying that his charisma is so strong live that you can even feel it in the nosebleed-section. I saw Florent at Art on Ice in 2015 and will be seeing him again next year. He has that innate showmanship, that just draws you in, doesn't he? (And on a completely shallow note, another plus is that like many french male skaters he doesn't believe in illusion mesh and his costumes are often pretty revealing.

) As you said, when you see him in shows his many qualities from steps, spins and jumps to presentation ability shine. It's such a shame that he was rarely able to put it all together when it counted though. I guess he peaked in 2011 when he won Euros. After 2013 he kind of fell into a slump, but probably had the skate of his life at Euros this year, which unfortunately was his swan song. (I'm still sad he didn't make the podium.) I wasn't aware he's such a fan of Shoma, but can totally see why he would be.
Did you meet other japanese fans at "Kings on Ice"? I remember you were asking about the high number of japanese skating enthusiasts in Switzerland: Yes, many of them were Dai fans, who flew all the way, because it's apparently easier for them to get tickets for swiss shows than for the ones in Japan. That's what I call dedication - I don't even wanna imagine how much money these trips must cost them. Many of them even attended the after-show parties at Art on Ice and the entrance fee to those exceeded the priciest show-ticket category quite a bit. Switzerland is insanely expensive in general - gotta work extra hard until February to cover all the additional costs.
