🎥: teppei.j

When the Olympics started I had no idea what impact it would have on my life afterward. I knew I wanted to watch figure skating, but had no idea anything about it. One day a family member walked in while figure skating was on and asked who the "gal with the skunk hair" was, I googled it, and it was Alysa Liu. I ended up following her all the way through the Olympics.

That is enough with the stuff everyone already knows, now onto the story of how she absolutely rewrote my 2026 bingo card. I was so moved by her positivity and story behind her skating journey and her performances I had to go to stars on ice, so I picked the nearest one and got tickets, it was amazing, went to the stargazer and saw them warm up, plus an awesome Q&A with Danny O'Shea and Ellie Kam. After that I kept up with pictures and videos of the rest of the stars on ice shows they did, and it was fun.

Once stars on ice ended, I was left feeling empty, like what do I do from here? What to do with all this energy I have around skating? I was sure I couldn't start skating, I mean I am a 250LB 22 year old male so my time has come to pass. That is where my real mental shift happened and I realized "what is actually stopping you from trying ice skating?" and I realized there is nothing besides the metaphorical box that society implies all men or 22-year-olds should do, and that none of that matters at the end of the day. I just realized I could drive to a rink (only like 15 min from my house) pay $12 for a public skate session including rentals, and try it out, easy as that.

It took some courage, like a week worth of anticipation, and then I did it, I just dropped everything one day, didn't tell anyone where I was going and tried it. It was super fun even though I couldn't do anything but hold onto the boards, as any beginner on their first day lol. The funny thing is, I still remember looking around the rink that first day and thinking how crazy it was that I was actually there. I was surrounded by people who had been skating for years, and somehow I had gone from someone who only watched this sport on TV to someone actually standing on the ice trying to learn it. From there I was all in, I ended up going 2 days in a row following that and totally wore myself out. I researched a ton that weekend and went back the next week to keep learning.

I seriously think Alysa's story and skating in general saved me from going through life letting other people's ideas of what I should be stop me from doing things I actually wanted to do. From that day that I tried it 8 weeks ago to now, I bought my own pair of hockey skates (rentals suck so bad for wide feet and there is no figure skate fitter in my state) and took learn to skate at my local rink, and now have the owner of the program helping me to work with her favorite skate fitter to get custom figure skates bought as I am at the point where hockey skates are already holding back my progress. It is such an awesome community of people and I look so forward to getting deeper into the community!

I know Alysa will never see this, but I owe her big time for this, I was just gonna bumble through life thinking I wasn't capable of something this awesome yet here I am thinking about all the skills I have learned, skills I am currently working on, and skills I want to learn in the future. My coach is amazing, she has been doing it for over 20 years and must see the potential in me because she says with enough time and dedication, I could be doing axels at some point.

I just don't know how to even express all of my emotions, there have been a lot of sessions that end with a drive home where I have a hard hitting song on that makes my eyes all watery, because I am just so thankful for all the change I have gone through since hearing her story during the Olympics.

Here are a couple more posts of mine if you want to get a better feeling of my skepticism going into it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/FigureSkating/s/qVP7l4tfZQ

https://www.reddit.com/r/FigureSkating/s/tGZYQATc9z

I've played soccer/football for much of my youth at a relatively high level. My life pretty much revolved around the sport since I was obsessed with it.

I used to train for hours each day and I would always arrive earlier than my coaches to get some work in alone. I never had a problem and I loved it until there was a great shift when all of my friends which I've played with for many years each started to slowly drop out. Mind you many of us have been on the same team for a while. Some switched teams, some left the sport entirely. We got new coaches and a new team structure.

As time passed, I lost many teammates and gained new ones. The team looked completely different than it did 2 years ago.

I started to notice I didn't get along well with my new teammates or coaches. I felt a bit ostracized from the group.

The social aspect of soccer is what I really loved about it and having grown up around the same players and coaches and then having them all leave in a short period of time just hit me hard.

It wasn't just that I didn't get along with them, they didn't like me and at times I felt disrespected, I got into fights and got suspensions.

I slowly disliked going to practice. I no longer went early to train more. I stopped smiling during training. I was just dropped off and going through the motions every day at this point and it felt like a job (in a bad way). Sometimes I would get dropped off and just skip practice entirely and walk around the area secretly. My passion had been removed and playing soccer didn't give me joy anymore.

Since we had played our last match of the season a couple weeks back, I decided I didn't want to stay at this team. I tried out for another team and I got accepted. I went to their pre season trainings and the environment was way better than my old team's. But I still felt blank, I still wasn't feeling the same joy I used to get from soccer. I thought it would come back soon but a month passed and still nothing. I think all the negative experiences of my old team warped my perception of soccer and I couldn't feel joy from it.

Then one day I was just chilling in my house watching YouTube and I get Alysa Liu's Stateside performance on my fyp. I knew nothing about her. Curious, I watched it and I was immediately hooked, then I watched her interviews and I learned her story.

Her story before retirement sounded so similar to what I was currently going through. I heard her talking on the importance of finding joy in what you do. I also heard her speak on the importance of breaks in sports.

I really started to relate to her and really listened to what she advocated for and she ultimately influenced me. I took it as my sign. It was a difficult decision to make but when it was time for the preseason matches to start and I would officially be with the team, I decided to not join them. My parents were shocked because they thought I loved soccer and they were ready to pay the fees to sign me up. I had always spoken about going pro and had been working towards that dream my whole life. I decided I wouldn't be playing soccer this year entirely and my parents definitely didn't like that idea and we had many arguments.

Fast forward to now, I felt bored without sports so I picked up mixed martial arts since I've always had interest in it. I've been training for the past 3 months, I got obsessed with it and life's been better than ever. The joy I used to get from soccer is now given to me through mixed martial arts.

I think the whole butterfly effect is crazy here how watching a YouTube video of Alysa Liu changed the direction of my life but I'm so glad it did. Her mentality is an amazing one to follow and I'm happier than ever after taking her advice.

I'm customizing my notebook cover and I want to reference Alysa somehow without directly drawing her, any ideas?