Only One Wish

Very few things are truly important.
I believe this is a fundamental truth of life, and at the same time, the core of any strategy in expression.

In my 20s, at a multinational mega-corporation with tens of thousands of employees, I was summoned for some reason to the private offices of the busiest top executives every week like an Uber driver to repeat my presentations. Around that time, a powerful senior friend, a seasoned business leader, gave me a piece of advice:

"Push the quality of the one most important slide to the absolute limit. Only one slide will ever leave an impression."

My pitch, in which I proposed building a team and requested an investment of 100 people and 100M USD over five years, ultimately failed. But that advice was perfectly accurate. It bore no fruit simply because the single slide I burned into those executives' minds lacked enough persuasive power.

—

When creating an aerial performance, I found myself ruminating on that same advice.

Suppose you create a 3-to-5-minute piece. It will be packed with various elements: flashy drops, elegant spins, eye-catching power moves, complex wraps, and movements showcasing flexibility. As performers, we are greedy; there are so many techniques we want to show. But when the performance ends, what actually remains in the hearts of the audience?

Most likely, no one remembers the details of the many techniques you unleashed. If they remember anything at all, I believe it is nothing more than a fleeting impression, like an afterimage, left by a single part of the entire performance lasting perhaps ten seconds, or even just five.
In my view, for an audience receiving artistic expression, a performance is not an average score; it is a single point of memory. (A judge in a competition would scrutinize the entire performance, of course.)

If that is the case, the fundamental strategy of expression lies in honing the quality of that one specific part—the one thing you want to express above all else—to the absolute limit. If you are only going to be remembered for 10 seconds, or just 5, which segment would you carve out? Even if you perform for 4 minutes, what if only that one instant leaves an impression?

—

The two coaches who walked alongside me likely understood this perspective of mine pretty well. My only wish was to raise the quality of this specific part in the latter half of the performance at all costs, and I explicitly communicated that priority to my coaches (going so far as to prepare presentation slides).

To give that specific part precedence as a performer, I even ignored several scoring criteria required by the competition rulebook. For instance, I was well aware that the required number of drop techniques was insufficient, but I went as far as cutting them for the sake of the expression I wanted to prioritize.

If my only reason for doing aerial is the wish for that single moment, then winning an international competition was, in truth, not a goal at all. It is a cliché, but the medal just happened to follow (though since it wasn't gold, saying it that way lacks a bit of flair).

In the same way, in your final hour in this world, perhaps all that is recalled is only the fleeting afterimage of your precious moment from a specific day.
If so, then only one wish is all that matters.