INTERVIEW

Sugihara: I want to create a space where those watching can somehow feel involved in my performance. One of the great things about gymnastics is the excitement of watching difficult moves performed easily and gracefully, watching a human body precisely controlled in movements that might seem impossible. I want those who see my performances to have a great time.

I think one of my strong points is that I’m always positive. Failure is discouraging and energy-sapping, but it’s precisely at times like that that I think about how I can make things fun for myself. Since enrolling at Mukogawa Women’s University, independence has become more important in my training. I think about things more than I did before. For example, I now spend more time on things I want to focus on. That way I can express myself better. I also think the ability to stay positive has a lot to do with moving my base of activities back to the Kansai region. I went from living alone to living with my family, who are always in high spirits.

Sugihara: I have two main patterns of feeling less than ideal. I’ll feel tired and slow. Or I’ll feel a bit uncoordinated due to swelling, like just before my period. When I’m like that, I can’t execute the moves. But that’s not because my technique is bad; it’s because where my physical state happens to be. So I try to avoid doing too much, to avoid pushing myself too hard. I lower the tempo of the moves, perform easier ones, or just take some downtime.

I used to get frustrated when I couldn’t execute a move the way I wanted. I’d keep trying. But moving without taking into account day to day differences in your physical state puts way too much stress on your body. I’ve been injured because I pushed myself too hard, when my physical state wouldn’t let me pull off a move, or because I was in great shape and couldn’t maintain control when my body moved too much. If you know where your body is, the state of your body, and understand that muscle response is the problem, you can address the problem by performing certain movements that stimulate the nervous system before starting actual training. This affects your performance in competition, too. I think it’s important to practice self-care and to learn how to monitor your own condition.

Sugihara: Sugihara: I haven’t mentioned it to the media, but from the winter of 2019 to the spring of 2020, the navicular bone in my right foot was injured. It was one step from a complete fracture. I’d injured the left ankle before the World Championships in October 2019, but I made up for it by shifting the strain to my other foot. I had surgery when COVID postponed the summer competition. After the surgery, I used the compact ultrasound bone growth stimulator for 20 minutes at a time. I’d do that two or three times a day. I was skeptical that just continuously applying it to the injured area would help it heal, because you don’t feel anything. But it reduced the pain within a few days. I ended up being able to return to action about two months earlier than planned, which surprised me. I also used a small EMS device around that time to stimulate the calves and to stimulate muscles I hadn’t been using.

Later, in about July of the same year, when I injured my left ankle and nearly ruptured a ligament, the doctor recommended I use it three times a day. That’s when I was training intensively because I really wanted to do a double twist on the vault at the competition. So I was worried I wouldn’t be able to do it, and that I might not make it in time for the competition. It was the student championships and summer competition qualifications season. I really didn’t want to find myself thinking, “If I had had just one more week before the tournament...” It helped me cut my treatment time and get back to training sooner.