Frozen Teardrop (11 page)

I thought I was only getting what I deserved, since my mother was ultimately just trying every way to make my coach happy after he said she needed to prepare me better. She had thought innocently that hitting me would solve the problem. My mother had given the coach her word to do her part to make me the best for him, and her word was to be kept. This is what the relationship between my mother and me had become. How truly sad.

When I was about fifteen years old my father had to leave Japan to return to his post in Switzerland. Usually the company had us stay in one country not more than three years, but by this time we had already been here for more than ten. This was because my father was bringing so much profit to the company and because not every family with little children could adapt as well as we had to a continent like Asia. They had kept us there as long as possible. Without asking or telling me so as to not hurt me, my parents decided that my mother and I would not follow my father. The family would separate and my mother and I would stay in Tokyo to finish my school and continue skating with my Japanese coach.

I felt the decision was primarily made because of my skating and the winter Olympic Games to be in Nagano, Japan in 1998. They thought staying in Japan would only be to my advantage. At that time I did not know that my father was going back to Switzerland. They just mentioned to me that he would be traveling more and more to Europe and I would see less of him. They did not want me to panic or worry about anything other than my skating. Their world revolved around my skating and me.

My father traveling more to Europe did not seem to me a big deal because by then I was used to my father not being around. No one realized that the little I could have seen of my father had we all stayed together would have made a difference in what was yet to happen to me. Even for my mother, if she had known that my father was at least present and that she could talk to him, it would have helped her stay more grounded and supported. For him to be now completely gone and so far away tore the family further apart and crushed my mother and me. Furthermore, living in Japan, which is a male chauvinist nation, two foreign women on their own would not make it very far.

The Olympics was nearing and there were big problems for me to contend with. Switzerland was accepting me less and less since they didn't like the fact that I lived far away, nor did they think Japan was appropriate for me. They didn't like the fact that while I was getting much acclaim for my spins being the best in the world, my jumps were suffering, and skating was a jumping sport.

The Swiss had a unique way of dealing with all of this. They would deliberately put me in second place at nationals almost every year so that I wouldn't be able to go to the European championships. Since the rules were that only one Swiss girl who placed first could be sent to these championships, they wanted to send another skater of their choice in the hope of having her as a European champion. On the international stage I was always the best Swiss skater at that time, so it was puzzling for people to never see me at the European skating championships. But it always bit the Swiss delegation in the back, since the girls chosen to be sent to the European championships instead of me did not even once qualify in the top twenty-four. So they then would always come back running to me to ask if I would like to go to the world's championships. It was ridiculous, but I went to five World Senior Skating Championships and only one European championship. That's not how it should be done, but the Swiss are a different breed, and to this day I shall never understand what their motives have been in their relationship with me.

Thinking back I really had no one to back me up in any situation. I would have loved to see their faces if my coach or someone had confronted them and said, “Sorry she is not available for the World Figure Skating Championships, either!” But my mother and I were too alone and too scared of every conflict, and we were brainwashed to just be quiet and accepting and hope that justice would be served later on by God, if we were so lucky.

My Japanese coach started to complain to my mother that he felt I had hit a wall and if I couldn't figure out why and how to get over it he didn't know what else he could do for me. He mentioned that I was so different from Japanese people that he couldn't fully understand my body and its rhythm. My mother would tirelessly try to make me get over this wall with the only method she knew, which was beatings and screaming. But I didn't know how to get over it either, since my coach was also not giving me constructive help. Nothing was helping and everyone was probably only making the situation worse. He also had given me for a short time some extra care by helping me with off–ice training. But one day his wife mentioned to us that he was starting to get too tired, that he would need to pace himself, and would not be able to help me anymore. She said he needed to survive to go to the 1998 Olympics and I couldn't tire him out.

So it's safe to say that thanks to me, it is now 2010 and he is still coaching and going to the Olympics. I am truly glad I gave myself up so that I did not tire him out so much! Even all the off-ice coaches that the skaters had suddenly started ignoring me and turning their backs on me. Everyone told me that they were all too tired to coach me. Everything started to crumble. They were all tired of having a foreigner in their space. It was a space reserved for only them and I was an intruder they wanted to get rid of as fast as they could. In the end I do not think it was my Japanese coach's method of teaching but the whole culture around us that broke the team. When my Japanese coach gave in to his wife's wishes, he had no power to stand up for anything he believed in. He was a crumbled man himself.

My coach's daughter had been going to Canada a lot for training, and one summer she suggested we go with her to have some new costumes made for me. Although Canada was as foreign to me as Japan had been in the beginning, it felt great to get off the island and see how others were training and learn about their environment. On our return to Japan my situation with my coach got worse and he became even more distant and cold. At competitions he taught me with such anger for no reason that I was frozen in time and skated terribly. I was in constant fear. He lied to my mother about various things. He didn't want to be seen with my mother and me, especially when I wasn't skating too well and he felt ashamed to be with us. We felt incredibly hurt since my parents had done so much for this coach. We had taken him around the world. I was his first student with whom he could travel and attend competitions in wonderful places. We took him on mini-vacations after the competitions and spoiled him with gifts and my parents spent all their money on him. Every single time after a competition I wrote him a thank-you card with a poem I made for him. We had opened up the world for him and this is how he treated us. He must not be a coach to treat a student in this way. That is not the way of a teacher.

I had to attend a prestigious show for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland at the very beginning of the year of 1996. The same man who had designed my new skating costumes the year before was also there to skate and conveniently he also mentioned that he was a skating coach. He really fell in love with my skating and my personality as his prospective student. Enthralled with the potential he saw within me, he invited me to move to his rink in Toronto, saying he would take care of me and coach me to become a star. A month later I once again saw him at the World Championships in Canada where he was there again to show his own paintings at an art exhibition that was part of the competition. He was truly a man of many arts.

He first invited my mother and me to his estate in the mountains in Mexico and we excitedly accepted the invitation. Our stay in his lavish, charming, extravagant home was enticing and wonderful as we frolicked by his pool, ran through the parks nearby, and had alluring conversations till late in the night. He was educated and intelligent and we never had a dull moment with him. We would awaken every morning to be once again enthralled by his energy, aptitude, and humor. It drew us nearer and nearer to the decision to move to Canada to have him train me. I felt a very close connection to him and felt it was destiny to have him be my new coach.

On returning to Japan my parents and I decided it was time for a drastic change and Canada it would be. We sprang on the possibility of feeling worthy and having someone so willing to help and so confident that he would make me a star. We were not used to that after being at the mercy of others for so long, so it was unfortunately falsely refreshing. Much more leg work of trying out other training facilities and coaches should have been done but “would have” and “could have” are the worst words in the English vocabulary since they bring nothing to the table. Everyone recommended to us that we should leave Japan, and I was looking forward very much to a change and to the new Canadian coach who gave me hope. It was what my parents knew at that time and they were trying to do their best with all that they had. All they wanted was to make me happy. By sixteen I had also finished high school in an accelerated program and I graduated with flying colors.

Our expectations were high for Canada and all that was promised to us, but it ultimately presented us with a devastating challenge and lessons for a lifetime that were learned the hard way. It would not only be a culture shock to us but also the beginning of a downward spiral that went on for a very long time. We would be swimming upstream for years to come.

From the February, 2001 issue of
Paper
magazine
(Photograph by Nigel Barker)

My mother and father, always the fashionistas, in Capri, Italy, 1966
(Photo courtesy of Lucinda Ruh)

My mother and me in Paris,
(Photo courtesy of Lucinda Ruh)

My skating life begins in Paris, France, closing a show in 1982
(Photo courtesy of Lucinda Ruh)