OMG.. It’s already almost time for US Nationals figure skating events.
Every season, ( since 2007) It’s hard to focus anything else and my mind is full about men’s event with nerves and I’m anxious, besides excitement.
Especially this is Olympics season, and the result of the Nationals influences to get the spot for the USA Olympics team.
However , it’s always “ mindset ” comes to my mind first before the competitions.
I’ve heard that Japanese skater Miki Ando was thinking about the Olympics while she was competing at Japanese Nationals, and lost podium.
She was already locked as an Olympics Japanese team member since she won Gold at two GPS events and won Silver at GPF this season.
And now she sounds very nervous from pressure, and her memory of the last Olympics made her even more nervous.
And I started thinking, this kind of feeling may be happening to all the other athletes, especially, Johnny Weir from USA, Brian Joubert from France, Carolina Kostner from Italy, besides Miki Ando from Japan.
There might be more skaters with this kind of pressure, but for those athletes who had received large amount of bitter criticisms from their own countries when they could not get on the Olympics podium last time, the pressure may be more.
Brian Joubert mentioned at Worlds Championship in 2006, he could not even go back to France after the Olympics because everyone was difficult with him, his team, and his family. He was 20 at that time.
Johnny Weir even received dead threats and an alarming number of criticisms, plus hate mails at age of 21.
Miki Ando also had receive so many hate mails and tough criticisms and was even removed from the main team Japan after that for a while. She was only 18 at that time.
Caroline Kostner competed in her own country , and she also seems to have received many tough criticisms.
I really think these particular athletes are very tough and strong, even though they experienced those hurtful criticisms, they are still competing at top level until now.
But those bitter Olympics experience may be hard to remove from their minds and the more Olympics get closer, those memories might be coming in
their mind.
I really hope people will be more supportive to athletes who are competing not only for themselves, but also for their countries , no matter the results.
Understanding athletes situation may be more difficult than blaming and criticizing athletes ?
But I think it shows the immatureness of people, self-centered minds, who prefer to criticize than try to understand the situation of the athletes.
All the athletes have been training hard, challenging to get to their dream, and we are just watching, some are just playing games about who will win.
It’s always disappointed to read comments from people, they seem to think all the athletes are just robots, with no heart.
Now I stopped reading those comments from people which I found no value to read, plus it‘s better to spend my time for something that is fun and
makes me happy.
I love this quote,
“ Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in his moccasins.” --American Indian Proverb
I really believe mind influences everything.
Even very talented athletes who are physically well trained can lose their confidence and mind-balance easily in just a second.
Besides that, skaters need to make quick decisions depending on the situation, so for example, jumps plan can be changed once they are on ice at competitions.
How to get successful mindset ?
I have written similar post in the past with the title “ Michael Phelps - secret of success “.
And also Figure skating competition is like a mind game
Yeah, it’s not easy, I have been struggling with it as well.
Well-focus for only one thing at a time, it’s not only confidence, but focusing on too many different things can cause someone to lose the strong emotion needed to achieve their goal.
So for the Nationals, I hope Johnny will focus only himself for this event, and hope he avoids to think about Olympics and any other things.
Consistency, focus and channeling emotion in a powerful way , those may be the key to have successful mind set.