Ji He Yu was currently renting low-income housing provided by the government. The environment in comparison to a normal neighbourhood was of very poor quality. Although he had some money now, he didn’t plan on looking for a new place to live.
Ji He Yu’s goals were clear.
Club League, Provincial Team, Winter Games, National Team. As long as he made it to the Provincial Team, he would naturally be able to leave this place and head for broader arenas.
Thinking of this, a rare spark flashed in Ji He Yu’s eyes.
Ji He Yu returned to his rental, turned on the computer, and began searching for recent figure skating competitions.
The closest one happened to be in this area and a month and a half away.
A month and a half?
Ji He Yu closed the webpage and fell into deep thought.
Although ice and snow sports have become quite popular in recent years, they haven’t fully spread. Therefore, the provincial team mainly recruits members through leagues of these private clubs. But whether or not they could find a good seedling depended on luck.
This level of competition originally could not even be called a warm-up for Ji He Yu. But with this body, even if he trained tirelessly, he only had a month and a half left.
With nearly twenty years of experience, musicality, and body posture, he could indeed skate a decent program. However, the problem was that most of the competitors in the elite division had been practising figure skating since childhood, aiming to become professional athletes.
This body was not even strong in basic skills, and may not necessarily be able to surpass those with less experience than his former self, but had consistently practised figure skating!
A month and a half is really tight.
Although a short program lasts only two minutes and forty seconds on the ice, and even a free skate is only about four and a half minutes, the effort behind it is far from simple.
From the selection and choreography of the music to the designing and cutting of the costume, from arranging moves to expressing the theme of the music, each aspect requires careful preparation.
The elite competitors probably already had well-polished programmes, while he needed to start from scratch.
Yes, from scratch. Not only starting from scratch with the program but also with his body functions.
Is a month and a half enough?
Of course, it’s far from enough!
As the once undisputed, Ji He Yu knew exactly how long it took to polish each tear-jerking program on the field (ice rink). From fledgling to maturity and even sublimation, it took a year, two years, or even longer!
But a month and a half is more than enough— For an athlete, it’s all about training, training, and more training!
At the moment, he didn’t have any connections with any professional choreographers or costume designers, but luckily in the past, he had practised countless programs before. So he could barely choose a slightly difficult one and adapt it. In a month and a half, he should be able to come up with something. As for the costume, he planned to draw it from memory and order it from a reliable store online to customise the costume, temporarily solving the immediate issue.
Once these matters were settled, Ji He Yu began to formulate his training plan. Getting on the ice more often and regaining his former feel is naturally important, but basic physical fitness, core strength, and flexibility training cannot be neglected either.
Considering his current situation, Ji He Yu quickly decided on his time allocation. After all, he only needed one or two programs for the selection, and in a short time, he could focus on practising the repertoire thoroughly. With his skills and experience, he could barely make up for the lack of physical fitness.
Therefore, Ji He Yu decided to divide most of his daytime hours with his beloved ice rink. While physical training was scheduled with a ten-kilometre jog after waking up in the morning. His physical condition was not great, so he could only begin with jogging and gradually make his way up. Core strength training was arranged in the evening. He heard that the ice rink where he skated today had a professional equipment room, which momentarily solved the problem.
As for the original body’s already excellent flexibility, Ji He Yu also decided to develop it further — if it could be more flexible, who wouldn’t want to be more flexible?
In his past life, Ji He Yu was one of the few athletes in men’s singles who could perform a beautiful Biellmann spin.2 The industry praised his unparalleled flexibility, but only Ji He Yu knew that it wasn’t a window opened by God, but rather a door he pushed open day and night through persistence.
Though this body was unpolished, Ji He Yu could feel its flexibility potential might surpass his former self. This also meant he could perform an even more beautiful Biellmann, creating elegant droplets at the level of top women’s singles, or even a candlestick!
Before getting on the ice each day, he would do several sets of flexibility exercises, and before bed, he would do more. While stretching, he could relax and watch videos of himself or outstanding opponents’ performances—this was a habit Ji He Yu developed in the past, and one he planned to continue sticking to.
Ji He Yu performed a vertical split on the yoga mat.
A slight tearing and fullness sensation transmitted from the root of his thigh, which was not severe. Ji He Yu knew that this was far from his limit. He gritted his teeth, straightened his slightly upper body, and then slowly straightened the back of his feet.
The upright posture of the upper limbs greatly intensified the tension in his thigh root ligaments, even tightening his waist and abdomen instinctively. The tightened toes pulled on his ankle and calf muscles and ligaments, seemingly tearing his thigh root in opposite directions. Ji He Yu took a deep breath, trying to relax his body quickly and maintain this posture.
If viewed from the side, one could see that the boy’s upper body was straight, forming a graceful and standard T-shape with his spread legs. The clothes on his body were slightly damp with sweat, outlining his thin and slender waist and abdomen.
Pain radiated from his toes to his calves, thighs, and up to his head. Ji He Yu not only didn’t feel tortured but even enjoyed it. This pain reminded him that this was a brand new body and a new beginning.
This body’s flexibility is excellent, and Ji Heyu didn’t spend a lot of effort adapting to this degree of pain. It seems…
It’s not possible to add any more?
Ji He Yu placed a soft pillow under his front foot. Due to the different heights of his front and back feet, gravity heavily compressed his body down, and a sharp tearing pain immediately came from the root of his thigh. A bead of cold sweat instantly exuded on Ji He Yu’s forehead.
Pain tingled and prickled, like a burst of electric current rapidly travelling up from the base of his leg. Ji He Yu took out his phone and opened a video of Yevgeni3, the world’s number-one men’s singles skater from country R.
Yevgeni was a skater of a completely different style from his past self; they both represented two extremes of figure skating—one was brimming with the magnificence of masculine power while the other was full of a graceful sense of beauty, gentle and soft.
It must be said that Yevgeni’s style held significant learning value for Ji Heyu. The video Ji He Yu was watching was Yevgeni’s free skate to “Messiah’s Song” from last year’s Winter Olympics.
This was a grand epic poem derived from the Bible, praising God and Jesus. People from country R are generally tall and strong, and Yevgeni, with his burly frame and explosive strength, was a perfect fit for such a monumental theme, quite the opposite of the slender Ji He Yu.
Ji He Yu genuinely loved figure skating. Immersed in the competition videos, he completely ignored the pain in his leg.
When Ji He Yu finished watching the video, he felt a bit unsatisfied. It was the same spins and jumps, but he performed it completely differently from Yevgeny. This kind of bold and powerful feeling was something he lacked.
Although, in Ji He Yu’s critical eyes, even Yevgeni who ranked as the world’s number one figure skater, and had a unique style, still had some flaws in his footwork, jumps, and spins. Moreover, Yevgeni hadn’t broken through the upper bounds of figure skating by conquering the 4A!4
Of course, even Yevgeni’s “flawed” moves were far beyond Ji He Yu’s current abilities. But Ji He Yu knew that soon, he would be sharing the same stage with them.
As he turned off the video, the throbbing pain in his leg returned. Glancing at the time, Ji He Yu realized he had reached the limit for this stretch and finally stood up. He still had to stretch his leg muscles, as well as his back, shoulders, and arms…
After going through so many things today, while lying on the bed, Ji He Yu felt a sense of “as if it were a lifetime ago”. Oh indeed, compared to the old days, it truly was a “lifetime away”.
He had thought he would be so tired that he’d fall asleep as soon as he touched the pillow, but he didn’t expect that apart from the soreness in his body, he wasn’t sleepy at all. Instead, he was unusually awake.
Ji He Yu subconsciously began to think about which two pieces to choose for the club league competition.
In each region the figure skating club league is divided into individual competitions, the preliminary rounds and the final rounds. Those who rank in the top six of the preliminary rounds in each region can advance to the finals.
Although the preliminary round includes both short programs and free skates, there is no set promotion ratio (criteria or scores needed ) for advancing from the short program to free skate.5 This setting is precisely designed to reduce the possibility of these first-time competitors losing their chance to enter the provincial team due to nervous mistakes.
This was the first step in his “career,” and he had to secure it. Ji Heyu mentally replayed the songs he practised repeatedly in the past.
All the pieces he had practised in the later stages of his life were passed (dismissed). With his current fifteen-year-old body, he couldn’t possibly support those grand or heavy performances.
His greatest advantage was his youthful vitality, which must be firmly grasped.
But if he used his early works, although they were simple and easy to perform, they wouldn’t keep up with the difficulty required in the later stage. He had to choose a moderately difficult piece that could be refined and polished for this year’s Grand Prix.
I’ve got a solution, I’ll use “New Sprout” for the short program!
“New Sprout” was the piece he had used for his comeback at the World Grand Prix after recovering from a serious knee injury.
This music was an adaption from Vivaldi’s Violin Sonata in G Major,5 with its dense beats and cheerful tone, symbolising his enthusiastic belief that he would return to the rink.
Isn’t it just fitting for his current self?
The memory of wearing a deep green costume and soaring over the ice replayed in Ji Heyu’s mind. He was no longer the performer but a “spectator”, who could easily pinpoint his past self’s flaws.
Yes, this was Ji He Yu’s work at twenty-one, and from the perspective of his twenty-five-year-old self, it had many shortcomings. Ji He Yu mentally noted these flaws, knowing that it was impossible to correct all of them at once with his current skill level, he had nearly a year to polish them before the Grand Prix.
Gradually, the image of his slender form on the ice began to merge with his present self. His footwork might not be as powerful as his twenty-one-year-old self, his spins not as fluid, and his jumps may not be as graceful as his twenty-one-year-old self— But his aura had transformed! It was now a truly rejuvenated youthful aura!
Ji He Yu could feel the deep green costume symbolizing vibrant spring becoming lighter, clearer, and more transparent. As if it was a tender shoot suddenly sprouting through the white snow, fragile yet surprisingly strong, breaking through obstacles, pushing aside layers of snow until its leaves spread out!
Yes, he was only fifteen; there was no need for the costume’s colour to be so deep. A hint of bright green amidst the white snow was enough. A white base with streaks of light green was perfect.
The costume change inspired Ji He Yu immensely. He now knew how to adapt his past repertoire.
The author has something to say:
Once again, I emphasize that all the athletes mentioned below have no prototypes QAQ
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Ji Baobei: Since I can’t compete with their ten-plus years of practice, I’ll just have to… Crush you all!!!
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PS: It’s not very realistic to complete all the work alone, but since this is adapted from Ji Baobei’s previous experience, so for the time being, I’ll open the golden finger just this once. Once he’s famous, he’ll form a team!
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(sxhbyc ᥫ᭡ footnotes:)
- Juanwang is an internet slang that means Roll King or King of Rolling which is used to describe a person who is very competitive to an extreme degree in their work/studies. ↩︎
- A Biellman spin is a movement that involves the skater pulling one foot over their head. This move requires a lot of flexibility (mostly in the legs and back). A Biellmann spin by Denise Biellmann time stamp(0:11-0:15), if my explanation isn’t the best. ↩︎
- Yevgeny (Евгений) is a Russian name which can be translated as Eugene in English. Can someone tell me which one they prefer, please? ↩︎
- Quadruple axel is a very hard jump with four and a half rotations. It’s known as one of the hardest jumps in figure skating. Fun Fact: This jump has been attempted by many outstanding athletes but only one person in history has successfully landed it – Ilia Malinin. ↩︎
- A Short Program requires figure skaters to perform a brief routine, typically with specific compulsory elements. The free skate is a segment that lets figure skaters perform a longer routine, containing a broader range of technical elements and artistic expression ↩︎
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(sxhbyc ᥫ᭡ notes: I’m not an expert at some of these figure skating terms – so if there’s any mistake please tell me ᯓᡣ𐭩)
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