The End of the Harimoto Dream

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 NextLevel wrote:

 LongLips wrote:

I can't read japanese. Could you say what the 3 weaknesses are Mizutani identified? 

Google Chrome can translate.

One the whole, he said that Harimoto was living in a comfortable training environment with family and parents etc.  He said Harimoto didn't play under enough adverse conditions and in enough competitive situations to learn how to adapt to opponents under pressure.  Also, the competitive situation in the T-League wasn't good enough.  I might have missed something here or there but that is the bulk of it - basically Mizutani was encouraging the up and coming Japanese to leave the country and play under more competitive and uncomfortable situations in foreign countries.  Too often if things didn't go well for Harimoto, Harimoto focused too often on what was wrong with himself, rather than figuring out what to do to make his opponent more uncomfortable, and that was in Mizutani's view largely a result of not having dealt with competitive pressure in uncomfortable circumstances on a regular basis.

Interesting.  This is an issue at all levels, even at the levels a lot of us are at here at MyTT.  If I try to look back objectively, Mizutani's description of Harimoto's problem is how I would have described my own fundamental weakness and why it persisted (obviously, at a vastly lower level of play).  The same psychology and the same constantly comfortable training environment.  If you really want to get better you have to seek out environments and players you hate to play.