KBS Special "The Lark Ascending" part3

Saturday afternoon.

Mom takes a role of coach when the coaches are not available.

Mom is her de facto technical coach.

What should we do?

Youve done spins, right?

Try step [sequence], step.

From the long step, when you do turn, turn, turn

make sure your left foot stays.

Dont turn in the middle of it.

But Yunas condition seems not good today.

What could be the problem?

She cant do anything because her foot is hurting.

She cant do anything because her foot is hurting.

Where is she hurting?

Its the boots

its pressing hard against her ankle.

When it folds and presses, it causes the pain. (Crew inaudible)

Today

Yes, after the boot breaks (worn down) a bit,

always that spot pressures her ankle.

The new boots are troublesome.

Shes only changed to a new pair two weeks ago.

But its already worn out badly.

First, they halted the practice.

For a year,

skate boots have been giving a headache to Yuna and her mom

Get your left foot ready

I have to sharpen it quickly.

[Inaudible]

Its getting crooked even more!

Its driving me up the wall!

The boots are problematic but the blade trouble matters more.

Why does the blade keep getting crooked?

It happens when the surface is not even

or from the impact on landing from jumps.

This may look like hard steel,

but actually soft (malleable), so it crooks a little.

But if you hammer it like this,

sometimes that will set it straight.

But looks to me this one is ill-designed.

Skate blade and the foots center of mass have to align,

but it seems theres a problem with finding the right axis.

[note: Yuna is having hard time finding the precise axis means the boot's design is not working for Yuna's foot]

[2006 Supermatch Exhibition, Sep. 6, Seoul]

The boots gave her a serious trouble in last September.

In an corporate-sponsored exhibition show,

she fell 3 times.

This wasnt the Kim Yuna who won the Junior World Championship.

There are no skating boots experts (or master craftsmen) in Korea.

Swapped [or replaced?] blades (from left to right and vice versa?)

more than hundred times

Yuna got injured while going through this

When the boots are broken,

theres only so much you can do with recalibrating and fixing.

And those broken boots

cant set up the angle properly on the landings.

So, she had injuries from pelvis, to knee, and to her foot.

The boots are very important.

You have to have the boots that suits you perfectly

and the blade that can center your axis of foot correctly.

Yuna is unique and sensitive

so its hard to tailor the right boots for her.

The boots bought from Canada last summer during the overseas training

also didnt have the right axis.

Mom struggled with the boots for two months.

But, with a senior competition just around the corner,

she couldnt find a solution.

Thus, they considered retiring.

Every time I change [the boots] I had to go through it [the pain].

That was really tough. I couldnt find the boots that suited me.

So

I started losing my confidence.

One time, I really didnt want to skate.

Nobody could solve the boots problem for us.

I wanted to make the boots work for her,

but that didnt do anything;

Yuna wanted to skate, but that didnt do anything either

Back then, it wasnt about talking about the problem...

We were both going through really difficult times.

[Yuna]cant skate anymore.

Everyday..

We both thought she cant continue to skate

Yuna visits a sports clinic center weekly.

The boots' problem led to her injuries and

caused her back problem.

In addition, the jump practices,

in which you rotate only a certain direction [anti-clockwise]

are not good for the back.

Yunas spine is crooked 3.8 degrees than a normal person.

[Kang Sun Gu, Physical Therapist]

She recently has had a growth spurt to 162cm.

As a result, the angle of her legs has changed.

As you become taller,

the skate blade and its center of mass have to be recalibrated.

In the process of getting used to that change,

she had ankle injuries.

Continuously

[2006.11.29. Kimpo Airport]

15 days before the GPF

the time is short but mother and daughter

decided to go to Japan for 2 nights and 3 days itinerary,

to meet the skate boots expert.

Yuna's fan club members worked hard

to find the right person.

[Shin-Yokohama]

In Shin Yokohama, Japan,

there is a figure skating specialty shop.

Asada Mao, Ando Miki, and other world class skaters

order skate boots from this shop.

On the wall, there are lots of photos of the shops owner

with the figure skating stars.

Ohthere is Brian[Orser]!

[Seiji Sakata, a former Japanese national skater]

Upon hearing the winner of the 4th GP event has visited the shop,

the owner,who also worked as a coach in Nagano Olympics,

formally greeted her.

They first showed the boots Yuna puts on regularly to him.

Probably they sharpened the boots

with the same method they use for general ice hockey boots.

There are currently three ways to sharpen a skate blade.

The first is called vertical-type

and it sharpens like this [hand gesture].

Rather than using the general machine

that sharpens blade regardless of the type of skate boots,

Mr. Sakata uses his own patented machine.

Using this method, he can sharpen

where the general machine cannot--

up to the very front of blade.

[Comparison of the blades of Yuna and Miki]

The blade sharpened with this method

makes the blade right behind toe-picks curvy, not flat,

which is also the [pivotal?] center of jumping.

This part

if you use a general machine

you cant sharpen this part.

But if you sharpen that part and make it curvy,

there should be an improvement in edge take-off jumps.

Because shes in the middle of the season,

its not a good idea to change the boots right now.

Korea doesnt have this machine

so its impossible to sharpen the blade like this.

This is the same one as what Ms. Yuna is wearing but,

as you can see, the center pin breaks. [note: I made up the word "center pin" because he means "shim" (?)]

Explaining the process of preparing tailor-made boots,

He also tells them things to be careful

when applying heat to the boots.

This part is plastic and the heel is made of fiber.

So, when you apply heat, plastic gets soft and malleable.

You have to leave it untouched for a day.

Lastly, he measures Yunas foot size.

But the size Mr. Sakata tells them is different

from what theyve used to know.

240mm is too small.

Small? No, its big.

But she has a wide feet.

Arakawa Shizuka (the 2006 Winter Olympics Ladies figure skating gold medalist)

used to say her feet hurt a lot when she put on small boots.

So I advised to her to wear the size one above her current size.

She adjusted the size of her boots

and had no problems after that.

The new size for Yuna they discover is 243mm.