Yuma Kagiyama: “As a child, I watched Carolina’s performance of ‘Ave Maria’ from the Sochi Olympics season many times and learned from it. It’s what figure skating is all about.”
Tranlsation of Yuma Kagiyama’s comments about working with Carolina Kostner.
original source: number.bunshun.jp dd. 2d December 2023 by Yoshie Noguchi
Here’s a translation of Yuma Kagiyama’s comments about work with Carolina Kostner posten in the interview on Sports Graphic Number Web.
“Carolina-san shows really admirable, exemplary skating. I love her performance of ‘Ave Maria’ from the Sochi Olympics season. It’s what figure skating is all about. As a child, I watched it many times and learned from it.”
“I want to have my own personality. When people think of Yuma Kagiyama, I want them to say, ‘This is it.’ While many acknowledge my skating skills, I often wonder if it’s truly so. For instance, Carolina Kostner turns her skating into a performance effortlessly, and the program ends in a blink. My skating doesn’t quite qualify as having a distinct personality yet. If skating is my strength, then I want to extend that further. I wanted to turn that strength into something distinctive, into what you can call a personality,” Kagiyama expressed.
“I’ve learned intricate details of understanding the music and the meanings behind choreographic movements from Carolina-san. By giving meaning to each movement, a story emerges. For the short program, there’re themes ‘shaking off pain’ and ‘turning pain into my strength,'” Kagiyama explained.
Yuma also shared that before the start of his free program, Carolina adviced him, “‘Aim for the wonderful, not the perfect.’ It resonated deeply within me that being considered ‘wonderful’ is essential.”
As for the free skate, Kagiyama mentioned, “Imagining the rainy scene, I carefully moved my fingertips and was conscious of each movement of my gaze. Since learning from Carolina-san, I’ve started to be conscious of not only jumps but also expression, and it’s been good that there has been no ‘anxiety’ in the actual performance.”
Related topics: Carolina Kostner, Yuma Kagiyama
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