I may sound irrational,but I'm just really scared for Yuzu.He said the injury wasn't as bad as last year,but last year he needed months to recover and even then he still hasn't got his 3lz back until recently.And I'm starting to worry in general about the ankle.How long can it resist?How much pain can it get?Will he have to regain his jumps all over again?Not to mention, the 4A seems to be horrible if not landed well...I'm such an anxious mess. Excuse me for this, I'm sure you got a million asks
I am worried about him too, a lot. “Worry” has been a rather unfortunately constant theme in my life thus far as a fan of Yuzuru Hanyu’s, but alas, it doesn’t seem to get any easier to deal with no matter how much time has passed.
That said, if the time spent following Yuzu has managed to do anything for my state of mind at all, it is in the fact that I have learned to trust him to do what is best, for himself, for his career, and for the sport(*). I have seen him maturing from an excitable, devil-may-care teenager into a composed, self-possessed young man who is capable of facing his obstacles, evaluating them, and then overcoming them with poise and grace, all the while not losing sight of his quest for success and his pursuit of excellence. I came pretty damn close to unlearning all of that prior to PyeongChang, but then Yuzu brought the lesson home to me again, loud and crystal clear, with what he accomplished on the Olympic ice. I’d say with that, Yuzu had finally, finally, managed to permanently educate me on the virtue of trusting him.
So here I am, and yes, I’m worrying, and I’m obsessively checking for news even though I know not much will be forthcoming, and I’m prone to freaking out when my check doesn’t turn up anything useful, but I firmly believe that Yuzu and his team are doing the right things. If he chooses to take some time off to recover, that’s great. If he chooses to skate (including practicing the quad Axel), it’d be because he is fully convinced that he can do so without causing any harm, and not because he’s under any pressure to, internally or externally. In any case, no matter what happens, my hope is for Yuzu to be able to approach, and eventually, one day, bid his goodbye to competitive skating on his own terms, with no regret and with the knowledge that he has not let a single ounce of his potential go to waste. He deserves it, more than anything :)
(*) Yes, I said ”for the sport” while fully aware that it would make not a few people want to tear me apart for my Fanyu-brand delusion of grandeur (feel free to do so, by the way, because I stand by my words that when a skater reaches the level that Yuzu does, their sphere of influence is bound to extend much further than just their immediate surroundings).
