by Lucinda Ruh
Festivals were great in Tokyo. Two of my favorites were the family festival at school and the New Year’s celebration in the city. They both brought charm and excitement to me. The ringing in of the New Year was especially beautiful with all the Japanese lanterns burning lights of hope and faith and the festival at school was a day of fun with no responsibility. There was a Swiss stand and it felt like a little piece of my home would light a candle of joy in my heart. I have so wonderful memories of my school. It was heaven on earth and for me, the best school in the whole world.
I had so much love from my mother and father and I lived a beautiful life filled with everything I could have wanted — beautiful home, beautiful clothes, everything the best that both money and no money could buy. I was surrounded by luxury. But, and I cannot stress enough the “BUT,” I was not spoiled in a negative sense nor was I a spoiled brat at all. Things came with consequences. Even though skating destroyed so much in my life it also taught me so much. Maybe skating is what grounded me and taught me to work and to appreciate every luxury. I cannot think what my life would have been without skating because how can I be so arrogant to even think that I could know what it would have been. How could I be so arrogant to take such luxury to decide to change an incredible aspect of my life?
And maybe skating did save my life, by awakening me to see and feel things I would have otherwise never touched. Without skating I might have been that spoiled brat. In sorrow we discover things that really matter; we discover ourselves. Without sorrow there is no joy. Without water there are no trees. Without the rain we would not see the rainbow. Without the struggle we would never get to the top of the mountain and without the depths of the ocean we would not have the horizon. Only when we can lose sight of the shore will we have the courage to reach the other side. I feel skating and everything that came with it was my lesson and was the biggest lesson of all. Without it life might have been too easy and you never know how I might have taken advantage of it. Yes, I am thankful for skating, for what it gave, what it took, and ultimately what it presented me with.
At around twelve years old I began to participate in serious competitions and was winning them even outside of Japan. There was one competition I had in Switzerland where we met another Swiss girl who was skating in the exhibition. She was much older than I and was the Swiss champion at that time. Her spins were incredible, the fastest and most innovative back then. My mother loved her spins. She told my coach right away she just wanted me to stop skating then and there and to throw my skates away! She thought I would never have better spins than that! In fact, I would, but this girl had more going on than her spins. I remember seeing her in the restroom as she was scratching away at her scalp and nervously picking her skin on her fingers until she bled from every which place. The stress had caught up to her and my mother told me she hoped I would never get to that stage. Little did we know.
I was starting to have to travel to Switzerland a lot because as a Swiss citizen I was to compete internationally for them and had to pass their skating tests on top of the Japanese ones that I was already doing. I was up for the challenge and incredibly excited. It felt prestigious to be able to be in this sport. I was also going to start competing in the Swiss National Figure Skating Championships starting with the Junior level and then proceeding on to the Senior level. I would never become a Japanese citizen and so therefore I would never be able to compete for Japan, but the federation there loved me. I was the only skater that was so artistic and the only one in Japan who did such creative spins, especially the Biellmann spin.
In Japan whether in sports or in school, students are taught to copy, not to create, and although I was in their system I had been taught by my parents and at my international school to be creative. I was a different species from them and they were evaluating me nonstop. Therefore the federation wanted and allowed me to compete “out of competition” at the Japanese regional, sectional, and national levels. The Japanese federation wanted me to be present in order to push their own skaters to do what I was doing, and for me it was great practice. “Out of competition” meant that I would not take a spot away from any of the Japanese skaters. So even if I placed first, the second girl would actually be first.
The other skaters despised me for entering with them. Even the skaters my mother used to kindly give a lift home after evening practice, would bully me in the car saying I was a disgrace and it was so terrible of me to even be in Japan. They said I had taken away everything good from them and on and on they would talk. By now my Japanese was great and I understood everything. My mother, although understanding a little, didn’t quite get all the nuances and I didn’t say anything to her about what they told me. I just sat there and let the other skaters talk. It was their way of venting and as much as I tried to push away the hurt, it affected me internally very much. I wished I did not understand their language.
Maybe to some people it would become the drive do better but I am not that type of personality. Everyone deals with a situation differently, usually to the best of his or her ability, and for me it closed and shut me down. I am too sensitive, an over-analyzer, and being a fighter was not my thing. I would hide like a turtle. It must have been hard on my mother as well. She was the only foreigner at the rink and no other mothers dared talk to her in public for fear of losing face. They feared it would destroy their social status by talking to a so-called Alien. My mother was very alone, and not having my father around either to help out, she must have been going through a lot of anger and pain inside of her as well. Remember, it was only the two of us in our world.
Competitions were so exciting in Japan. There was all the preparing my mother and I did together, the rituals and superstitions, and I always couldn’t wait to show the world what I could do. Whatever number I drew to skate, would be the number of times I would repeat all my exercises until the competition was over. My mother always did my hair in the most wonderful updos and I would be the only one with that style. I would show it off proudly. We also prayed together for good results and that I would skate my most possible best.
My mother especially, being a great believer in God, made sure that prayer was always incredibly important and poignant in my life from the time I was born. Whenever possible, Mass would be attended, and each morning, evening, and before a meal our prayers were always said. My evening prayers would always last at least ten minutes as I made them up myself, always somehow praying for everyone else but me, wishing for world peace and the happiness of my family. While I attended a Catholic school I would pass through the rites of Baptism, first Communion, and then Confirmation with much devotion to the higher power. To this day, prayer and God are always my constant vision. I am thankful for this and realize how important it truly is in one’s life. Without it I would not have survived.
My mother always made sure I did not just get on the ice and do a program. I would need to tell a story and paint a picture on the ice, and my whole look from head to toe matched my music and story that I was telling. I was an actress and I absolutely loved it. It was like a world I went to and sold my emotions nakedly on the ice.
Before I went on the ice my mother gave me sheets of math questions that I would have to do in my head. There were always about one hundred of them, and as she corrected them, both her focus and mine would be on how many I got wrong, not how many I got right. I needed, not even wanted, but needed, to always be perfect. I would be totally disappointed in me if I got any wrong because then that would mean I might not skate well. The purpose was to get me to focus and concentrate and it did work wonders. Being in the zone was an amazing place to be and it made me skate perfectly.
My mother always did everything for me and she never did something for herself. Watching me skate was filling her cup of joy. After the competitions, the minute I stepped off the ice, I would be flooded with gifts from all the other skaters that overflowed in my tiny arms according to their custom. But there was always a gesture dance of refusing the gifts a couple of times to
show your appreciation before accepting it. Timing in Japan was everything, in speech and in actions. Gift giving is a beautiful and necessary form of communication with rules of its own in Japan. It brings so much joy to the person who receives the numerous gifts, but they are never to be opened in presence of the giver, to save face just in case the receiver is disappointed. I remember coming back from international competitions with my suitcase filled with souvenirs that I would happily give out to all those that you were required to give to on returning home. There were rules of who needed to be given these gifts and they would be followed thoroughly.
At age twelve I won my first Swiss Junior National title. It qualified me and gave me the exciting honor to skate for Switzerland at the Junior World Championships. I later on competed at four more Junior Worlds, and after winning the Swiss Senior Nationals I went on to five Senior World Championships. The season would be filled with competitions all around the world as I also did the Grand Prix Circuits and European Figure Skating Championships. I had competitions in many different countries and I was so fortunate to be traveling the globe. I was going to exotic and faraway places that only my classmates could imagine. They hardly saw me anymore. I was more absent than ever, yet still getting all A’s. I always said it was much more informative, challenging, and brain stimulating than any history class I could have taken. I would see and be immersed in many different cultures. It was an amazing life to lead. Even all the various airports were enthralling. I was becoming a world citizen.
Exercise was very prominent in my life and my mother and I had a fear that if I didn’t do it constantly I would forget how to skate. I was terrified of that. So even during layovers at airports, and during the flight itself, I was never allowed to sit and rest. With my running shoes on I would run around in the airports for my jog, and in the plane I would do sit-ups and my mother would stretch me on the floors in the gangways on a towel we always had with us. It was so exciting to be at such a high level in my sport and to train so hard at it to see how good I could get. I do not want to make this book, however, about how I prepared for a competition, or how I was nervous before getting on the ice, or how I just wanted to have fun out there (or so other skaters say, not me).
In this book I do not intend to explain and write about the moments leading up to the jumps, recount how many jumps and spins I did, what I felt when the marks came up, placements, figures and numbers, and so forth. I think this will bore the reader and I know too many books are out there with all this repetitive nonsense. It would be much simpler to write about this and tell you what I placed when and where, and what jump I landed or didn’t. But who I am and who I have become is not about that. To me, the results never did and never will impress me. That is why, perhaps, I never wanted to be an Olympic gold medalist.
To me it is the life one has led, the thoughts one has thought, and the actions one has taken that intrigue me the most. The psychological nature of a human being fascinates me. You are reading this book because destiny has led you to it and I am here to express to people about the humble little slice of life that I know about through my experiences. Not a skating life but a human life. That is what I feel I must do.
Living in Japan I never could travel with my teammates to the competition because they were flying from Switzerland and I was far, far away in Tokyo. The Swiss federation would do a despicable thing when paying for the trip for my coach and me. If the competition venue was closer to Switzerland than Japan, they would pay for our flight to join the team from Switzerland, but if the competition was closer to Japan, they would pay only for our flight from Japan to the competition location. It was rude and unforgivable and was just added to a list of things they would later do to me.
My mother always came with my coach and me to competitions. I was too young to be myself and I needed my mother so very much. I loved having my mother with me. She was my best teacher, supporter, tree trunk of life, my savior and most of all my best friend, all intertwined with being my mother. She knew she had to be all of these for me, as I had no one else. For my very first World Junior Championships skating competitions we did, however, travel with the Japanese team and it was a great experience. We stopped in Vienna for a bit to train before going to Budapest in Hungary for the competition. I placed sixth overall, and although I was happy with my result the Swiss were not.
It was very hard for me because I was living in Japan, yet wasn’t Japanese, and skating for Switzerland, yet wasn’t really Swiss either, because I had lived there only four months of my life and they did not see me as a typical Swiss. By now, I really didn’t know where home was. I was always a fish out of water, the odd one out. People used to tell me “You’re so spoiled,” but little did they know of all the turmoil I was going through. No one could have guessed it by just looking at my life at that time as I was good at hiding my emotions and putting a smile on my face. But I didn’t speak. I didn’t ever voice anything out loud because I was too scared.
The Swiss tragically never saw me as a Swiss. In their thinking I didn’t have their views, I didn’t have a Swiss coach, I didn’t speak just like them, and so forth. As for me, I thought, “Just watch me skate. Judge me on that, not on where I live or whom I speak to.” I wanted them so badly to be proud of me, their skater. But skating doesn’t happen that way. It is a very political sport and a skater can’t just skate well. They need the whole village, the whole country to back them up so judges can be bribed and marks can be tweaked. You alone cannot win anything. Pure skating alone will not win anything. That is the sadness of the sport and the part that I detested most.
The Swiss delegates were not able to see my skating on a regular basis due to my training in Tokyo. They expected that when I did go to competition, nothing was good enough other than winning the gold medal. As a result I was a big failure to them in their eyes and I felt it. Not having support from my own people, or my own coach who was more my dictator, or my own federation who were mere trial judges, was hard to deal with as a child. Once again, it was just my mother and I who were trying to figure everything out.
From when I was little, spinning and artistry was always my forte and that’s what set me apart from anybody else, and really that’s the only thing I wanted to do. I however, from the very beginning, always mentioned that I would never be a show skater. I loved skating for me, but just for a little while, not forever. I wanted to skate, but I would become doubtful of it as I grew older. I became too scared to skate anymore. The responsibility and consequences were too heavy on my shoulders. It was like a snowball rolling downhill that became bigger and bigger, that we couldn’t stop until it would smash into an obstacle so large it would break into pieces.
Most importantly skating seemed not pure anymore and became tainted with politics. Competition skating was too harsh on my heart and soul, and later on, show skating sold something that was too sacred for me: Spinning. Spinning had been my glorious meditation and I felt I could no longer do that for the judge’s marks or for money. I felt it was a disgrace and a dishonor for me to do to my God-given talent. I became ashamed of myself for spinning in that way and in that arena. I could not see how happy I was making people with my glorious spins, while I was so trapped in my own pain.
How did my spinning start?, you may ask. Well, when I was about eight years old my father told me to find something special, something that no one else could do and that I would be the only one in the world to do it. He said that this is what would make him proud of me. He never said that it would make me win a gold medal, or it would make me a champion. But for him to say that this would make him proud of me, made me want to do it even more. As kids all we really want is for our parents to be proud of us. He had come home one time from a trip to Switzerland and had seen a Swiss skater spin and told me that I would not only have to spin like her, but even better than her. I felt from the time I was little that spinning would now be my thing. I would spin faster than anyone else, longer than anyone else, and in positions that
I would create, and that only I could do. Spinning was to me the thing that would make me a champion in my father’s eyes. That became all I wanted.
On the other hand, believe it or not, jumping wasn’t a problem for me either. I was very tiny, even the tiniest among the Japanese kids my age, and I never missed a jump in competition and rarely in practice. But, as I became afraid of the intense pressures put on me as I started to do triples, my body and I began to fall apart. The fear broke my confidence in jumping. It was not my height that was the problem then. I didn’t really start growing until I was in my mid-twenties. This was due to the hard training I was under and my not resting or sleeping enough so my body didn’t have time to grow in any direction. At age nineteen I was five foot five and by the age of twenty-seven I was five foot nine. My growth plates in my spine were still open at age of twenty-five! Even my feet that had been so cramped in my too small skates (since my Japanese coach had always said the boot needs to be very fitted) grew two sizes once I stopped skating!
I didn’t see my father much, yet I felt his presence strongly. He used to bring the most wonderful gifts back to us from all of his travels. I collected turtle figurines and he would make sure I had one from every country he visited. I loved the days when he returned and was so excited to see him. It would be like Christmas on those days. My father and I didn’t need to talk much and we knew what the other was thinking. Even if he wasn’t physically present, his wishes and his love were strongly felt. My father must have had so much courage to do what he did. He too must have suffered from being away from the family so frequently. I didn’t talk to my sister much and the only real daily contact I had was with my mother. Looking back at that time I can see now that it was getting very intense and dangerous. At that time, however, neither my mother nor I realized anything.
I wasn’t going to go through puberty in my teens and actually did not until I was twenty-six years old! While I was young, I was actually happy about it. First of all, I didn’t really know what it was, since my mother never spoke to me about it, and I wasn’t around kids my age enough to be talking about going through it or about cute boys or about anything girlish at all. In whatever ways the other kids my age were developing mentally and physically, I was not. I didn’t know how to communicate with other kids, didn’t know how to socialize or talk about normal things, and I didn’t know how to have a good time and laugh and party. I was at a standstill, but I sure could skate better than anyone else.
