◎It is a blessing for this bear kid to meet Ji Tiantian◎
"You can see many tiny marks on these patterns, and you can see clear instructions on how to use the blade. For each step, it is written clearly whether to use the left front outer blade or the right back inner blade, where to start and where to end." Jiang Lin pointed at the pattern and continued. The ice blade has internal and external blades, and the blade closer to the inside of the body is the inner blade, and the opposite is the outer blade. The pattern dance has clear regulations on the blade changes for each step.
"The International Skating Union, which is responsible for organizing international figure skating competitions, has stipulated that before the start of each season, the rhythm of the short dance of that season must be determined. Rhythm can be simply understood as rhythm and beat. By specifying the rhythm, the speed of the music is also specified. Under the condition of ensuring that the rhythm is consistent, each group of players can choose their own music. At the same time, each season will also select a set of pattern dances from these patterns as technical movements, which must be included in the players' short dances. Do you know why the International Skating Union does that?" She stopped, wanting to deliberately test Ji Tiantian.
“In order to set the dance framework and make it as fair as possible, so that the contestants can have room to display their strengths and ensure the show’s watchability?” Ji Tiantian thought for a moment and answered.
"That's right." Jiang Lin nodded appreciatively, and at the same time glanced at Xu Chi and Tang Yi who were listening, signaling with her eyes that Ji Tiantian was very smart, and you two rough men should be careful with her.
Xu Chi couldn't help but reveal a complicated smile. He and Jiang Lin once had a romantic relationship, but many things happened later and the two of them finally didn't end up together.
Time was running out, and Xu Chi could not support Ji Tang and his team through all the pre-match sprint training alone, so they had to look for external help. However, the new season had already begun, and all the reliable ice dance coaches in China were busy preparing for the competitions and adjusting the programs for their players. Xu Chi could not find anyone else to help, so he could only think of Jiang Lin.
Fortunately, there was still a tacit understanding between him and Jiang Lin. Jiang Lin also knew that Xu Chi would not invite her unless it was absolutely necessary, so she immediately flew to South City. You don't know until you see it. Ji Tiantian is smarter than she thought. Asians have always been weak in performance, and their sense of dance and music is relatively weak, but she saw more possibilities in Ji Tiantian. So she stayed without hesitation and trained Ji Tang with Xu Chi.
"The short dance is different from the free dance, and it focuses more on the basic skills of the contestants. If there is no rhythm, some athletes can skate like a rocket, while others skate like in slow motion. They are not in the same world and it is difficult to judge. The short dance is very important because it determines the judges' initial impression of you. The initial impression is directly related to the score of the free dance later. If the short dance is solid enough, the points deducted for mistakes in the free dance will not be too severe... Of course, it is too early to say this. In many ice dance competitions, such as the World Championships, if the short dance fails to enter the top 20, there is no chance to compete in the second free dance. Therefore, you must pay attention to the short dance. The performance of the short dance does not require great creativity and performance. What matters is the basic skills that are practiced every minute and every second."
Ji Tiantian nodded gently. She understood Jiang Lin's words. Although in the eyes of many people, ice dancing, which does not have the high-intensity jumps of other figure skating events, looks easy, it is not actually the case.
It is also easy to make mistakes, but the mistakes are more subtle and not easy to be observed by the audience. For example, when the rhythm is flying, it is difficult to really skate every step according to the pattern. If a step is done with the wrong blade, it is likely to form a domino effect, causing a chain reaction and loss of points. What's more, this is a sport for two people. If one person makes a mistake, it involves two people.
Fast, clear, clean, neat, highly synchronized and graceful footwork are the ultimate pursuit of ice dancers, but that is easier said than done.
"You are actually skating pretty well now, better than most kids of your age that I've seen, but I still have a selfish motive and want you to have a more solid foundation." Jiang Lin smiled and touched Ji Tiantian's head, who was frowning. "You can think of these patterns as the foundation of ice dancing. I hope there is no problem with your foundation."
"I understand." Ji Tiantian blinked. "These pattern dances are like the slow movement of ballet. If you can dance the slow movement composed of various difficult movements well and lay a solid foundation, then you will be able to dance solo variations or even ballets more easily."
"Although I don't really understand your ballet stuff, I think you're right." Jiang Lin smiled, "I hope you can remember these 22 pattern dances firmly with your heart and your feet. You're so smart, you can definitely do it."
"I'll try my best." Ji Tian nodded and squeezed her hands in protective gloves. The ice rink was freezing, but she didn't feel cold at all.
"Please take out the waltz pattern dance first." Jiang Lin said to Ji Tiantian.
Ji Tiantian did as she was told. There are many categories of waltz, including American waltz, Australian waltz, Ravensburg waltz, Golden waltz, Starlight waltz...
"Your current goal is to participate in the National Championships, and the rules of the National Championships follow the international season. You are very lucky, the rhythm of the short dance this season is waltz. That is to say, the music for the short dance can be any waltz music. Compared with Latin rhythm, waltz is easier to master. International figure skating competitions are usually divided into adult and youth groups. The two groups of pattern dances are regulated separately. This season, the adult group's pattern dance is the most difficult Golden Waltz, while the youth group's pattern dance is the Viennese Waltz, which is slightly easier."
"Viennese Waltz." Ji Tiantian repeated.
She felt that she had a good affinity with this dance style, as her senior female student from the national standard dance program had once tested her. This is also the dance style with the longest history.
Waltz on ice is more like the upper body maintaining the grip and posture of the waltz, while the lower body skates in rhythm, occasionally accompanied by choctaw, mohawk and other foot-changing movements.
The Viennese Waltz pattern dance is relatively simple among many pattern dances. The characteristic of this pattern dance is that the male and female partners maintain a holding posture and swing back and forth like a pendulum. Before Jiang Lin came, Ji Tiantian had already mastered this pattern dance under the guidance of Coach Ma and Xu Chi.
"At your current age, you only need to master the pattern dance of the youth group. I heard from Old Xu that your Viennese waltz is almost complete." Jiang Lin looked at Xu Chi, who nodded immediately. "But I still think that a comprehensive understanding of waltz will be more beneficial to your future development. Anyway, we have a lot of time today, so just pick a waltz pattern to practice. It will be like this in the future." Jiang Lin touched Ji Tiantian's head and spoke.
Ji Tiantian picked out the most difficult Golden Waltz from a bunch of pattern dances without hesitation, then turned around and raised her eyebrows at Tang Yi who was standing not far away, as if asking "Do you dare?"
Tang Yi stared at Ji Tiantian without blinking, his calm eyes seemed to be saying "I'm not afraid".
Jiang Lin couldn't help but smile. After getting to know the two children more closely, she found that their micro-expressions were quite interesting.
"The main difficulty of the Golden Waltz is that it involves a lot of foot changes, body turns, grip changes, and the skating speed is not low." Jiang Lin said, "Okay, you can try it first."
So Ji Tiantian and Tang Yi started practicing the Golden Waltz. During the practice, she found that this pattern dance was really challenging.
As soon as they started skating, she and Tang Yi had to switch from the waltz grip to the kilian grip. The kilian grip is a grip where a man and a woman walk side by side and move forward. It is not as stable as the face-to-face waltz grip, especially when skating at high speeds.
The Golden Waltz has many Choctaw steps, such as foot-changing and body-turning steps, and a series of difficult single-foot steps, which require the female dancer to slide on one foot while lying on her back with the support of her male partner, i.e. the lay back position. After turning, she must continue to turn in circles. When completing these movements, the female dancer cannot change her feet, but can only use one sliding foot and the strength of her male partner to support her body. It is not easy to not lose control in this series of steps.
Not only that, this dance also has many ballet poses, such as coupee (the pose where the floating foot is sucked onto the ankle of the sliding foot) and attitude (crane standing pose). It can be said that after social dance was transplanted to the ice, many variations have evolved.
But these familiar ballet variations aroused Ji Tiantian's desire for challenge.
Although Ji Tiantian could find familiar dance moves in the pattern dance, it did not mean that she could do every one of them well. Everything became uncertain when gliding at high speed. The changes in angle and speed between her and Tang Yi would affect the quality of the dance steps. Sometimes she knew that she would make a mistake in the next step, but she had to make a mistake to maintain the balance of the two people at high speed. This situation was something she had never encountered when dancing on land.
It is not easy to skate steadily and perform graceful movements, and this is the charm of ice dancing.
This is a competitive art that pursues ultimate beauty in speed.
The sparkling ice surface turns the stage into a challenge where only the strong can survive. Many people are happy to do so.
Ji Tiantian and Tang Yi pushed the ice, stepped, turned, and squatted with their knees outwards to the accompaniment of Jiang Lin's beat. At first, Ji Tiantian still fell hard. She was not only skating according to the signs of the pattern dance, but also taking into account the dance posture and skating speed of the upper body, not wanting to fall behind.
"Ji Tiantian is a very ambitious girl." Sometimes Jiang Lin would stop clapping and let Ji Tiantian and Tang Yi skate at their own pace. At this time, she would chat with Xu Chi.
"If she didn't set such high standards for herself, she might fall less often, but she doesn't want to." Jiang Lin looked at Ji Tiantian on the ice and whispered softly, "She is a natural ice dancer."
Even if she knew she was going to fall, she would still maintain a graceful posture before falling. She looked very beautiful and very stubborn, which made Jiang Lin, who was used to all kinds of hard training, feel worried for her.
Jiang Lin feels sorry for those athletes who are too strict with themselves. Their pain and dedication are incomprehensible to outsiders.
Moreover, after these days of practice, Jiang Lin also had a deep understanding of Ji Tiantian's fearlessness. If it were other girls, they would be trembling and cautious when cooperating with national team players, but Ji Tiantian was different. She became more and more courageous, as if she would not give up until she caught up with Tang Yi. And her progress did not disappoint her efforts. The distance between her and Tang Yi was also shrinking at an astonishing speed.
Xu Chi silently watched the two young athletes on the ice. In this training camp focused on the national competition, he and Jiang Lin had a clear division of labor. Jiang Lin focused more on instructing Ji Tiantian, while he paid more attention to Tang Yi.
Compared to Jiang Lin, whose face was filled with relief and pride, Xu Chi had a heavy face. Ji Tiantian was growing up very quickly, and he felt a strong sense of crisis for Tang Yi.
"Tang Yi, stretch your movements a little more and learn from Ji Tiantian!" When the two people on the ice were facing each other in the attitude (crane standing pose), Xu Chi could not help but shouting out loud.
The attitude in the Golden Waltz requires two people to hold one hand above their heads, the other hand of the female partner is raised above her head, and the other hand of the male partner holds the waist of the female partner. At the same time, the two people stretch their floating feet backwards, with their knees slightly bent. Such movements are difficult to do gracefully in high-speed skating, and once they are not done well, they will easily become funny.
Attitude comes from ballet. Ji Tiantian can perform graceful movements according to the dancers' habits. With her outstretched limbs and neck, she looks like an elegant little swan. In comparison, Tang Yi is not so elegant.
In fact, since the two of them started practicing together, Xu Chi has called on Tang Yi more than once to learn more from Ji Tiantian.
He didn't do it on purpose, it just happened naturally. Because Ji Tiantian was talented, even though she wasn't very skilled at gliding, she still made her movements look good enough to attract attention.
At the moment, Tang Yi's only advantage seemed to be his gliding speed. Xu Chi patted the railing beside him anxiously, worried about Tang Yi.
Seeing that Tang Yi was scolded by Xu Chi again, Ji Tiantian couldn't help but smile smugly, leaning close to his ear and whispering, "I didn't expect that you would have this day."
"Are you very proud?" Tang Yi looked at Ji Tiantian.
“Of course not.” Ji Tiantian stretched her neck with a smile on her lips, like a little swan that had just caught a fish and was flapping its wings happily.
Tang Yi didn't give her more time to be proud. He grabbed her hand and continued practicing.
They repeated the steps they had just taken, the KILIAN grip, the floating foot forward and COUPEE backward, sliding on one foot, facing each other, with the clasped hands raised above their heads. But Ji Tiantian's sliding skills were not good enough. Even with Tang Yi holding one hand, it was still difficult to control the speed when sliding on one foot for a long time. After she faced Tang Yi, she accidentally bumped into him.
Tang Yi was just thinking about how to lift his floating feet to get the attitude right, but he didn't expect Ji Tiantian to rush towards him. He opened his eyes slightly wide and was knocked two meters away by Ji Tiantian, sitting on the ice, looking a little embarrassed.
Ji Tiantian watched, trying to hold back her laughter. When they practiced skating together, they always fell in all kinds of unexpected positions, but this was the first time Tang Yi fell so far.
Tang Yi used protective gloves to support his body and stood up. Because of the protective measures in place, he was not injured.
"Laugh if you want to. Don't waste your energy holding it back." Tang Yi pushed off the ice and slid in front of Ji Tiantian, looking at her helplessly.
"Hahaha, you flew so far, you need to eat more." Ji Tiantian laughed without giving any face, then glanced up and down at the thin body of the young man Tang Yi, thoughtfully, "It suddenly occurred to me that in ice dancing, the woman can lift the man, right? I think..."
"No, you don't want to." Tang Yi resolutely interrupted Ji Tiantian.
At this time, Xu Chi called the two to rest, so Tang Yi went to the side to get some water. While he was drinking water, Xu Chi came over and whispered a few words to him, asking him to be more careful.
"Tang Yi, you have such a good temper. You're not angry even after being criticized and thrown down like that." After Xu Chi left, Ji Tiantian slid to Tang Yi's side and spoke.
"Are you praising me?" Tang Yi stopped and turned to look at Ji Tiantian.
"Of course I'm praising you." Ji Tiantian said.
Recently, I don't know if Xu Chi has become more strict with Tang Yi or what, Ji Tiantian always hears him scolding Tang Yi, something like "Learn more from Ji Tiantian". Most people would definitely get upset, but Tang Yi didn't.
As for Ji Tiantian, she felt that both coaches doted on her. They spoke to her in a gentle manner, not as harshly as they did to Tang Yi. If it were someone else, they would probably get upset over this obvious difference in treatment, but Tang Yi didn't. He had always been very stable, at least it seemed that way.
"Why didn't I realize before that you have such a good personality?" Ji Tiantian murmured, "Now that I think about it, this is your greatest advantage, and I didn't even realize it."
Tang Yi subconsciously clenched the mineral water bottle in his hand.
In his previous life, before Tang Yi went on a blind date with Ji Tiantian, he was dragged out by his good brother Ni Chuan and forced to give some advice.
"You only knew how to skate before, but you didn't understand women. I'm going to give you some advice now with great reluctance." Ni Chuan said to Tang Yi, "If a woman says you're handsome, she must think you're handsome. If she says you're ambitious, she must think you have a promising career. If she says you have a good personality, she must think you don't have any advantages and can't praise you anymore. There's no hope in this case."
Tang Yi came to his senses and threw the mineral water bottle into the trash can next to him.
"Tang Yi, are you okay?" Ji Tiantian felt that Tang Yi's aura had become a little lower, but she didn't know what she had done wrong and felt a little confused.
"It's okay. I'll continue practicing." Tang Yi spoke expressionlessly.
After that, Ji Tiantian continued to practice with Tang Yi, still at a loss. Tang Yi seemed to be stimulated, and the following practice was like a chicken blood injection.
Seeing him like this, Ji Tiantian, who was originally a little tired, also perked up and tried her best to catch up.
"Tang Yi's attitude is really good. Not to mention he does it in a very generous and natural way, better than other boys of the same age in China." Jiang Lin couldn't help but exclaimed, "If you didn't have such an excellent role model like Ji Tiantian by your side, you might not know how to improve Tang Yi's performance."
"Indeed." Xu Chi nodded with great emotion, "It is really a blessing for this bear kid to meet Ji Tiantian."
"At first, Tang Yi gave me the impression of the poor boy who was lucky enough to get a ticket on the Titanic. Although he had a beautiful appearance and talent, I always felt that he was missing something." Jiang Lin said with emotion, "But under the guidance of the Swan Princess, he is also evolving and becoming more and more like a nobleman."
"Perhaps this is the significance of cross-border selection." Xu Chi thought, "I just realized that ice dancers with different backgrounds can learn from each other. Ji Tiantian can learn from Tang Yi his flexibility and skillful use of the blade, and Tang Yi can learn the innate elegance from the dancer's daughter."
"It is the cross-border selection of these two that has more meaning." Jiang Lin looked at the two young contestants chasing each other on the ice and couldn't help but smile. "And the relationship between them is really interesting. It seems that they are all holding back a lot of energy... I am looking forward to their free dance."
Before I knew it, another training day was over.
Ji Tiantian left the ice, panting, put a hard blade cover on the ice blade, and slowly walked towards the locker room.
Tang Yi sat at the side and changed his shoes. When he finished, he looked up and found Ji Tiantian was still walking slowly there. Generally speaking, Ji Tiantian would change her shoes as soon as she got off the ice like him, and would not go anywhere else to change.
He paused, went over and grabbed Ji Tiantian, "Take off your shoes." His tone left no room for questioning.
"What are you doing..." Ji Tiantian opened her eyes wide and was about to refute, but Tang Yi pushed her onto the nearest chair.
Ji Tiantian looked at Tang Yi cautiously. Tang Yi stared at her intently, emitting a strong oppressive force.
Ji Tiantian sighed softly, but could only do as she was told and lowered her head to loosen her shoelaces.
Even though I had bandaged my ankle as a precaution, I still had a large bruise on it. I also had blisters on the soles of my feet from constantly switching blades. I had had blisters before, but not as severe as this. I was just training too hard.
When doing strenuous exercise, Ji Tiantian's attention will be focused on the movements, unlike when she steps on land, when she only feels the piercing pain.
In the past, dancing for a long time would easily cause skin breakage on the feet, and Ji Tiantian had long been accustomed to the slight pain, but this time the injury was on the sole of the foot, which was a bit troublesome. She thought about the way home, which was not very close, and couldn't help but take a deep breath. She was just like a little mermaid who had just transformed her tail into legs, and every step she took was on a sharp knife.
She calmed down and looked at Tang Yi who had been standing beside him. Tang Yi lowered his eyes and looked at her feet. He didn't say anything, but the pressure around him became more and more unbearable.
"It's just... just a minor injury." Ji Tiantian said in a low voice, "It's nothing serious."
"You hurt me so much that I won't hide it from you, but what about you?" Tang Yi finally spoke after a while. He looked at her with anger in his eyes, and his voice became unusually low and hoarse, "In the last life and this life, have you done it yourself?"
Ji Tiantian was startled and looked to the side in panic.
"Oh, what happened?" Jiang Lin received Ji Tiantian's look for help and walked over. He looked at Ji Tiantian's feet and couldn't help but gasp.
"How come you're injured like this? Why didn't you tell me?" Jiang Lin's tone was a little anxious. "If you knew I would let you rest more. If you keep doing this, there will be problems. Don't bear it in the future, okay?"
"Okay, coach, I know I was wrong." Ji Tiantian nodded her head. She didn't like to trouble others, and seeing the coach's worried look, she felt guilty.
"How are you?" Xu Chi walked over and asked Tang Yi.
"I'm fine." Tang Yi paused, turned to look at Jiang Lin who looked worried, tried to suppress the anger in his heart, and spoke in a calm voice, "Coach Jiang, I'm here to take Ji Tiantian home."
-over-
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