MIRAI’s Soul-Packed Friday Column
Injuries and Conditioning
November 13, 2026 (Installment #11)
¡Hola a todos!
Everyone! Friday has arrived! ⸜(◍´˘`◍)⸝
Somehow, all of a sudden, it has gotten even colder!! It’s already snowing in Iwate! Even though Halloween was being pushed everywhere until just the other day, no sooner had a little time passed than it was already Christmas. And before we know it, New Year’s Eve will be here. Time passes way too fast ( ´͈ ꒫ `͈ )
Now that it’s getting colder, aren’t there a lot of you dealing with aching knees, aching lower backs, or old injuries flaring up?? This time, I’d like to write down my own thoughts on injuries and conditioning.
First of all, as a basic premise, I don’t want to get injured, and I want to stay in peak condition!! That goes for everyone, right? (´>∀<｀)ゝ Tee-hee!
However, if you keep doing pro wrestling, pretty much everyone ends up accumulating more and more injuries… Well, of course you do. You’re taking impacts like car crashes in every single match, getting put in submission holds that push your joints beyond their normal daily range of motion, getting thrown from high places, or leaping off of them yourself. We’re constantly doing things you would never do if you were just living a normal everyday life ( ᐙ ) Aha.
Naturally, when you get injured, your overall condition tends to drop as well, right? Injuries and conditioning. I think this is an issue that follows pro wrestlers, no, any athlete around wherever they go. It’s very difficult…
For starters, I hate athletic tape! Unless a doctor or trainer forces me to wrap up, I avoid wearing tape as much as I possibly can! (laughs)
There are three reasons for this.
The first is simply because I don’t like being immobilized and having my movement restricted. This applies to everything, both my physical movement and my way of life, because I hate being restricted. I’m a free spirit, after all!! (ᵔᗜᵔ*) (laughs) To put it in a more proper-sounding way, to the extent that you restrict movement in one area, extra strain gets placed on another area instead. And then that other spot ends up hurting next… Things like that actually happen.
The second is because it actually makes you a target. It’s practically like announcing, “Right here is my weak point!!” so it makes that spot much easier to target. In tournaments and league competitions especially, there are a lot of wrestlers who will come right after it. Though that can’t be helped. On the flip side, however, every once in a while there are wrestlers who intentionally avoid targeting that spot altogether! And that actually makes me feel frustrated and sad in the opposite way, thinking, “They’re going easy on me,” or “I’m not getting to fight this person at 100%” (laughs).
The third is because it causes the fans to feel “worry.” I believe pro wrestling is a wonderful genre where you can share emotions more deeply than in any other sport.
It’s the wrestlers who are fighting inside the ring, yet they aren’t alone; it feels kind of like we are all fighting together.
People often tell me that because MIRAI looks like she’s having so much fun in her matches, they end up having fun watching too! And when MIRAI feels frustrated or sad, there are fans in the crowd who shed tears right alongside me! I feel like “worry” gets in the way of that shared emotion just a little bit, and my honest feeling is that I want to avoid making the fans carry that emotion as much as possible.
That is why MIRAI tries not to wear much tape. So, unfortunately, just because MIRAI isn’t wearing any tape doesn’t necessarily mean I’m in 100% condition ( ¨̮ )
Injuries and conditioning. It’s tough, but precisely because pro wrestling has so many different ways to fight, I believe it’s possible not to make an injury automatically equal poor conditioning.
“Sorting Out, Eliminating, and Changing”
I feel like this is the answer I’ve arrived at within myself. It sounds simple, yet it is actually quite difficult to do. I didn’t use many moves off the top rope to begin with, and ever since I injured my knee, I’ve used them even less. Because my right shoulder tends to act up during cold weather or consecutive match schedules, I don’t throw my right-arm lariat as much as I used to. Before I knew it, I had learned submission holds targeting all sorts of different body parts. Muto-san also transitioned from the moonsault to the Shining Wizard.
Ultimately, in order to avoid making the fans feel “worry” as much as possible, I think it is necessary to face yourself as you are in each given moment and change how you fight.
Even so, right now, even if I were to injure my left arm, I think I would still throw my left-arm lariat. That is because no matter how much damage I take, I want to show them my left-arm lariat, and I believe that is what the fans are asking to see from me. The current MIRAI cannot eliminate the left-arm lariat.
Speaking of Michinoku Pro Wrestling, Rasse-san once told me, “Back in the day, I used to fly around like crazy, you know.” Conversely, even though Tsunagu Sato-kun is still a young wrestler, the amount of tape on his knees has been gradually increasing, which makes me worry, yet he says he still wants to fly right now. And he actually takes to the air and gets the crowd fired up.
Will a time for change eventually come for Tsunagu Sato-kun? Or will he keep on flying? Watching over a wrestler’s journey over a long period of time might be one of the joys of being a fan, too (´֊`)
You only have one body, and the final decision on what to do with it rests with you. Moving forward, I will continue to captivate everyone with the pro wrestling I believe in and the pro wrestling I have chosen for myself. I’m going to give it my all! (ノ`•ω•)و Yeah!!
Well then, please read again next week too~ ´ω`)ノ
Translation Notes
- たまこめ金曜コラム (Tamakome Kin’you Column): “Tamakome” is an abbreviation of MIRAI’s signature catchphrase, Tamashii komete! (魂込めて / “Putting my soul into it!”).”
- ¡Hola a todos!（オラ・ア・トドス）: Since joining Michinoku Pro Wrestling, where lucha libre heritage is deeply embedded in the promotion’s training and touring culture, MIRAI opens her columns with Spanish greetings accompanied by katakana pronunciation guides for Japanese readers.
- いい感じふうに言うと (Ii kanji-fuu ni iu to): Literally “To say it in a nice-sounding/proper-sounding way.” After joking that she dislikes athletic tape simply because she is a “free spirit” (jiyuujin / 自由人) who hates restrictions, she pivots to giving the legitimate biomechanical trainer’s explanation: immobilizing one joint forces adjacent joints to compensate and absorb excess load.
- First-Person Pronoun & Name Shifts (
私/わたし/MIRAI/みらい): Throughout the column, MIRAI alternates between standard kanji watashi (私), softer hiragana watashi (わたし), her stylized all-caps ring name (MIRAI), and hiragana (みらい). Notably, when describing how fans empathize with her joy and tears in the ring, she writesMIRAIfor her energetic matches and switches to the softer hiraganaみらいwhen talking about feeling frustrated or crying alongside fans. Per nomenclature standards, both third-person self-references are rendered asMIRAIin English. - イコールにしない事が出来る (Ikooru ni shinai koto ga dekiru): Literally “It is possible not to make them equal.” She is referring back to the previous sentence (“Injuries and conditioning”), expressing her philosophy that carrying an injury does not have to equate to delivering a subpar performance or appearing in poor condition if a wrestler adapts their arsenal.
- 『整理と排除と変化』 (Seiri to Haijo to Henka): Translated as “Sorting Out, Eliminating, and Changing.” Seiri refers to organizing and taking stock of what moves one still needs; haijo means cutting out moves that put unnecessary wear on compromised joints (such as top-rope maneuvers on bad knees or right-arm lariats on an aching right shoulder); and henka refers to evolving one’s style by adding new tools, such as joint submissions.
- 武藤さん (Muto-san): Refers to legendary wrestler Keiji Muto, who famously preserved his career after severe knee deterioration caused by years of Moonsault Presses by inventing and transitioning to the Shining Wizard and low dropkicks/submissions.
- ラッセさん (Rasse-san) & 佐藤維くん (Tsunagu Sato-kun): Refers to veteran masked Michinoku Pro Wrestling luchador Rasse and young Michinoku Pro high-flyer Tsunagu Sato (who debuted in November 2024).
- 魅せていきます (Misete ikimasu): Written with the kanji 魅 (“to enchant/captivate”) rather than the standard 見 (“to show”), a classic puroresu orthographic choice emphasizing that she intends to captivate the audience with her chosen style.
- んでば、来週も読んでけどがんせ～ (Ndeba, raishuu mo yonde kedoganse~): MIRAI’s signature sign-off in her native Nanbu/Miyako dialect from coastal Iwate Prefecture. Ndeba means “Well then” (では / それでは), and ~te kedoganse means “Please do ~ for me” (～してください).