Malinin in Pursuit of Art

He calls himself Quad God but he wants to be –and needs to be – much more.

Ilia Malinin, this maharajah of mad floaty magic, will lay all of it on display at the US Figure Skating Championships this week, feeling “very Shakespearean,” he says.

“In my opinion, skating is an art, and everyone has their own way of viewing art,” he said on a conference call. “I think there’s always different painters and artists and people who draw who have their own image of art and a perfect painting. Everyone has their own unique style of skating.”

Malinin says the style he has found for himself, with the help of the sparkly genius Shae-Lynn Bourne, is a mix of modern and contemporary movement (the raspberry twist isn’t Shakespearean is it, unless you are Sir Andrew Aguecheek?) and very dramatic and theatrical.

This time next year, as the Milan Olympics advances, he believes he will have shaken together all of his artistic bits and quad-hopping bits into a nice maelstrom of unconquerability.

This season, Malinin has chosen for his two routines music of angst and searching. At the end of one, he finishes in a crab position, looking up hopefully. In the other, he “dies” on the ice, spent.

The short program music is unusual, to rap, with compelling rhythms, vocals and lyrics. The singer is declaring self-worth. It’s NF, actually known as Nathan John Feuerstein, born in Michigan, from an unsettling background ending in the death of his mother from an overdose, leading to him writing ”How Could You Leave Us?” His songs are labelled Christian hip hop (didn’t know there was such a thing) and they have charted on Christian album charts, but he claims he does not make Christian music. His voice is enchanting.

The song Malinin uses is called “Running,” in which he leaves a relationship that has not been good to him. “I’m tired,” the lyrics go. “Of holding onto you.

“It’s time to let my pride go and learn to love myself again.
“I don’t want to wait another day. I’ve waited long enough.

“I’m ready. I can see the sun. It’s coming up.

“There’s happiness on this horizon…

I wish you well, but I can no longer stand aside

And watch you sabotage the two of us.”

“Making the programs with [Shae-Lynn Bourne] was a really fun time this year, especially having both pieces of music that are different from what I would usually pick,” Malinin said. “The short is a little more meaningful to me.”

It’s a song he has been listening to for three years “on repeat,” he said.

“I want to see how I could fit my own emotions into that piece,” Malinin said.

It’s working. It’s a masterpiece.

The music for the long program is very dark. Bourne hesitated. Malinin calls it “a scary pick” because of what he knows about the artist and the music.  Falling In Reverse is the name of the group, headed by Ronnie Radke, indicted on charges of owning brass knuckles that he had brought to an altercation. He did not strike the teen who was assaulted. But with a past history of narcotics and rehab, Radke was given five years probation. When he failed to respond to his probation officer, he ended up in jail for two years. He wrote his first album while imprisoned.

His second single was “I’m Not a Vampire,” and the video that accompanies it is a ragtag jumble of chaos, Radke with black eyes and long hair, split jeans, tattoos. The music is heavy, deemed post hardcore, metal core, rap metal, pop punk, hard rock, alternate rock, glam metal. It is fast-paced with a driving rhythm.

The version of “I’m Not A Vampire” that Malinin uses for his free program is a more pleasant and a rather glorious remake with orchestral piano. It’s more ballad-like.

The lyrics still rock on, though.

“Well, I’m not a vampire

But I feel like one.

Sometimes I sleep all day

Because I hate the sunlight.

My hands are always shaking.

Body’s always aching…

I’m insane.

Well, I can feel it in my bones

Coursing through my veins

When did I become so cold?

For goodness’ sake,

Where is my self-control?

If home is where my heart is

Then my heart has lost all hope.”

Although the music had an interesting take on life, Bourne rose to the occasion. “She was able to put a really good long program [together] and it’s one of my favourite long programs I’ve ever done with her,” Malinin said. “I’m able to put all my emotions into it and I feel like myself when I’m skating that program.”

To enhance his artistic side, Malinin says he stands in front of a mirror and improvises to music with different emotions and feelings. He tries to bring this to the ice. He spends 1 ½ to two hours a day on skating drills, which also serves to warm up his feet and ankles for the afternoon and jumping practice.

That aside, Malinin is coming to this national championship with boot problems, some minor injuries and a host of under-rotations that plagued him at his last outing, the Grand Prix Final. Although he won the gold medal at the event in Grenoble, France, he finished second to Yuma Kagiyama in the free skate.

His free skate was monumental: he included every quad there is for the first time. But he underrotated a lot of them trying it. Officials gave him a “q” (less than one-quarter turn underrotated) for his quad flip, quad Axel, a quad toe in combination with a triple toe loop, and a quad Salchow that prefaced a triple Axel. He got actual underrotations for a quad Lutz, (on which he fell), a rare quad loop, and a quad Lutz that led to an Euler and a triple Salchow. He received minuses on seven elements.

He won that event with 292.12 points (105.43 for the short program, 186.69 for the free.)

His best career scores are a total 333.76 from the world championships in Montreal last season, with 107.25 at the Lombardia Trophy at the beginning of the season, and a free skate score of 227.79 at his memorable world championship.

So far his best scores this season have all come from the Lombardia Trophy, with a final score of 312.55, and a free skate score of 205.30.

Malinin says he was able to take time after Grand Prix Final and “rethink what strategy I want to do leading to these national championships – just to get ready for the world championships in Boston.”

He’s trying to take his boot problems and minor injuries into account as he figures how best to set himself up for the rest of the season. “It’s a pretty normal thing for me to have this kind of thing before nationals,” he said. “It’s not the ideal thing before nationals, but it seems that it happens every year. The beginning of the year has been kind of rough with all these injures. I have to cool myself down after nationals to really give myself the time and the energy I need to go full steam before worlds.”

He says the injuries are pretty minor, and he just has to make sure he does not overwork himself, “just making sure I can manage my health and just control it and see where it takes me,” he said.

Asked what sort of impact he could make in Wichita, Malinin answers by revealing that he knows it’s the home of Pizza Hut. That fires his imagination. He’s expecting a good time.