Lotte's Shingo Ishikawa has only played in 14 games this season, his third since transferring to the team, and at the fall practice held at Zozo Marine Stadium he summed up the season by saying, "As you can see, this is how I'm able to perform, and it's important to reflect on what happened and see how I can use it next time."

Furthermore, in an interview on October 26th, Shingo Ishikawa said, "Now that I've been doing it for so long, I've gained a lot of knowledge about what not to do and what to do, and I think that has created an image that it has to be that way. Looking at it objectively, I'm not overturning common sense, but I'm at the stage of breaking it down."

A month and a half has passed since then, and I wonder what phase we've entered since the "destroying stage"?

"Right now I'm in the stage of facing my own body," she revealed.

"After doing something for a certain number of years, you start to think, 'It has to be like this,' or 'I should do this at this time,' and come up with your own answer, and you start to feel satisfied with that, and I start to think that this isn't such a good thing."

"I've tried things that I've never done before that I thought didn't work, and if it doesn't work, I just stop. The same goes for building my body. For me, the conventional wisdom was that during the off-season, I should increase my weight training menu and use heavier weights, unlike during the season, but I've turned that idea around and thought, why not do the things I do during the season in the off-season too?"

This season, his third since the transfer, ended disappointingly, but in order to show an evolved and mature side for next season, his fourth year with The Marines Shingo Ishikawa is working hard in the offseason.

Interview and text by Yuta Iwashita