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Yuzuru reanalyzed current condition, thinking about what he could do to control the situation at hand. In other words, instead of "the problem occurred, and what should I do", it was an image like "I meet some difficulties that need to overcome, and I face some challenges that need to exert my abilities". I'm the same about this point. When dealing with something, I’d like to use the word "challenge" rather than "problem" because it makes you feel positive and be able to do one thing in a bullish mood.

Normally, I always say to everyone, "Team Brian's friends don't have PROBLEM". What we have is CHALLENGE. Yuzuru's challenge is recovery, paying all effort to cure his feet. Because he understood this subject, rather than remaining in Japan and taking a rest, he returned to Toronto first, thinking of doing as much as possible for the Olympics.

According to Yuzuru's report, the situation was "It will take about six weeks to return to practice. Only the ankle is partially injured, and there is no problem with the knee. To not increase further burden on my feet, now I'm using a STICK while walking". For this reason, first I decided to discuss the schedule with Yuzuru again, so I visited the apartment where he lived. In my office, there were lots of mail items sent from Yuzuru's fans. The fans who worried about his injuries sent many letters and gifts to him. The floor of my office was full of them, so I visited him as a way to give him these items.

When I was waiting for him at apartment's lobby, Yuzuru appeared by turning from the corner of the elevator. I was extremely shocked at that time. I never thought what he used was CRUTCH. Because what he wrote in the e-mail was "stick", so I thought it was only a degree of needing some necessary support. At that time, Yuzuru's ankle was fixed, and he could not walk on his own strength, so he came with being on the crutches.

Seeing his appearance, I couldn't help saying "OMG, what's going on! Isn't it a serious injury?" Yuzuru sat in the chair in the lobby and looked calmer than I expected, then talking about the next thing. He talked about how bad his ankle condition is, until what time he was not able to practice on the ice. He also said he would try his best to do some preparation like image training and muscle exercise.

However, I noticed this Yuzuru wasn't same as the Yuzuru who had always been strong. It seemed like he was being afraid of something or felt uneasy. Carrying the mission of winning at the Olympics, at the same time he had to change all his plans due to the injury. Even for people like Yuzuru, it was commonplace to become more sensitive/neurotic than usual.

Therefore, I said the following to him.

"You practiced a lot this summer and did open practice on media day in August. At that time, Yuzuru was already prepared for the Olympics, wasn't it? You had been accumulating practices from July to early August, and you were ready by only using six weeks, right? Because you completed your preparation so early, we were all a little worried about it. In other words, with only six weeks, Yuzuru can complete all the preparations. Performing with music and accomplishing all quads, you just need six weeks to reach this state.”

Actually, during the open practice in August, I saw the situation and took some notes in my mind. "It's quite early to reach this condition. Yuzuru is able to arouse the state to this level in just six weeks. Conversely, because of the ability to reach the peak in only six weeks, if you did high-intensity practice for two months before the Olympics, there would be a possibility of missing your peak state in official competitions. Therefore, facing the Olympics, starting the final adjustment in January will be enough."

Hence, I continued saying to Yuzuru.

"Participate in the show during spring, take a break, then rework programs, and move forward at full speed in the next six weeks. It was your original plan, right? In that open practice (media day), your performance was terrific. So, it's still in November now, and there're three months away from the Olympics. Even if step on the ice in January, there're still six weeks left. Judging from Yuzuru's physical condition, after returning to the rink and training on the ice, it will take about five to six weeks or perhaps five weeks at most to complete the preparation. So you will be in time for the Olympics.”

Yuzuru listened to me quietly. It seemed the word "six weeks" was engraved on his mind. So I continued.

"It's really nice you have done lots of hard training this summer because those practices are all deposited in the bank now. You have already completed all necessary training and immediately packaged and deposited them into the bank.”

At that time, I felt Yuzuru seemed to smile a little. So I asked Yuzuru again, "What is your goal?" Then he responded immediately, "Win at the Olympics". I said: "Got it. If it's your dream, the possibility of achieving it is very high." I added: "I don't know if you will break the record, and I don't know if it will become the highest score in the world, but you can win."

Yuzuru looked at me with serious eyes. I also seriously looked at him and said those words.

"So let's focus only on winning and find out what we have to do in order to win. If so, we may not need 4Lutz. No, there will be no 4Lutz. Depending on the recovery of your feet, perhaps you are able to jump it, but you can win even if no 4Lutz included. You have skating technique accumulated over the past six years, as well as outstanding jumps and choreography. So you can win. Don't need 4Lutz if your pride permitted. In this way, you can aim at your goal."

Then Yuzuru said, "I successfully jumped once." So I said, "Aw, indeed you made it once. You have succeeded. OK. Checkmark. Let's delete 4Lutz from your To Do List!"

Yuzuru looked relatively relieved a lot. I'm not sure whether this feeling came from the confidence of "Perhaps I can win", or the sense of relief from “It's still possible to win”. I guess his actual mood should be very complicated, but I told him the two keywords "six weeks to be in time" and "No 4Lutz". That was all I could do at that time, or it was enough for me to do these two things.

Visualize images of jumps and spins in mind

Two weeks after the conversation, I visited Yuzuru's apartment with Tracy. To our surprise, Yuzuru has already begun to do as much as possible toward the Olympic Games. He also became back to that confident and motivated Yuzuru as usual.

In Yuzuru's words, it was "visualization". In other words, he did a lot of practice like doing image training while watching the videos. Watch past videos many times and put those images in the body. Yuzuru has done lots of this training for a long time, and it was a very effective practice that in order not to forget the feeling of jumps. While receiving treatment, he also developed some land training plans for the part outside the injury and completed them.

One thing I must tell everyone here is that the treatment, rehabilitation, and strategic plans for the Olympics were all made by Yuzuru himself rather than us. Yuzuru developed these plans independently based on the advice of doctors and physiotherapists. He was able to overcome the difficulties and walked through that extremely hard road to the Olympics. It was not our credit. After the injury, Yuzuru tried his best to set foot on the Olympics stage. He independently made various plans and actually implemented them. By constant conversations with himself, Yuzuru became stronger both mentally and physically.

Looking at Yuzuru being strong again, we also became optimistic and discussed plans for the Olympics. Yuzuru said that no matter how fast, the day of returning to practice on the ice should be in December. Until then, he would not appear in the cricket club and wanted to concentrate on the care and training that was decided by himself. Because the treatment had been left to doctors and physiotherapists, certainly I said "OK" for Yuzuru's plan.

When asked about the injury degree, he said it was all concentrated on the right ankle area. It was the salvation that at least there was no pain in his knee. If knees were injured, he could not make it in time for the Olympics.

November and December passed without Yuzuru appearing in the club. However, he kept in touch with me during that period. What's the condition of the foot injury, what kind of training is he doing, and what did doctors say. Without the time for his favorite games, without having a leisure time for daze and relaxing, he truly did the 24-hour image training. From bystander's view, it seemed he was only standing or sitting there, but Yuzuru was constantly visualizing images of jumps and spins in his mind. He had been doing image training to make his body not forget those feelings.