Fresca

Criminal that none of Yuzu's combination jumps or solo quad jumps got 3.0 GOE throughout the whole season.

Yes, I think so as well (I just tried it...). You are already in deep plie which means you need to push more off the floor to get up whilst the back leg is also straight, so you can't use it to push off the floor and you are relying solely on your front leg. Count me as a fan too! She is a phenom! As you said, like Yuzu, someone who makes the impossible possible. I can't wait to see what's ahead for her with all that talent! That's amazing! I only have experience with Vaganova. How are Cecchetti and RAD? How different are they from Vaganova? The Artistic Director and Founder of the school is a Vaganova graduate so I'm guessing it must be a Vaganova school Yes! I also found the following comments interesting: 1) that when Balanchine was there, most teachers were Russian and taught Russian technique (Vaganova I'm assuming as Balanchine was a graduate of the school) so Balanchine's methods were flourishes rather than a foundation; 2) many NYCB dancers started ballet and built their technique with other training methods and then went to SAB to finish their training. The only clip I've seen is here but he was very young then so I don't know how far he was into his training and didn't do much so it's hard to tell. Like you, I think it's likely that he did have some Balanchine training. As the website says the students performed Balanchine and as I also read in one of the Balanchine discussions I linked to that Ballet West has a lot of Balanchine in their repertoire, the Director must like Balanchine. Oksana is definitely more Odile than Odette! She makes that Balanchine-like break at the wrists in her arm movements become coquettish! I think Yuzu can be both as he makes such a good rock star though he's only given us Odette as a swan so far. Even when he was playing the half-black, half-white swan in White Legend, he put a lot of yearning and melancholy in his performance. He said he wanted to give a feeling of the desire to stretch his wings and fly away and he did exactly that. I still think in White Legend he is playing baby Rothbart before he turns fully Black, trying to fight his destiny of villainy. Yes his jumps are so beautiful Watching Yuzu for me is like watching Baryshnikov- a special genius in his field. Everything is effortless. You just feel privileged to be able to watch it.

Yes! If what you want is to improve flexibility and leg strength for jumping, then jazz is a good subsitute. As @koneko said, jazz as we know it today borrows a lot from ballet so has similar foundations and principles. There are big differences though to the movement and the feeling. Jazz is heavy, weighted. There are a lot of isolations and snappy, sharp movements. Many steps are done with bent knees (good for that leg strength!). Ballet is light, flowing and done on the toes (also good for leg strength!). Movement and energy are directed upward, not downward. Posture is also different. Ballet is done upright with the shoulders down and spine straight and lifted. Jazz requires a more open upper body. There is contraction and expansion of the torso and torso and shoulder isolations. So your style of movement in skates may change in an unexpected way. Not in a bad way! Just different than what you would get with ballet. I totally encourage you to give it a try! I will also be cheering for you from the sidelines! Do not do Latin dance if what you want is flexibility and leg strength. Beginner classes in Latin dance will not help you with those. You start with learning the footwork, partnering (following/leading) and Latin body movement. You'll only get signficant improvements in flexibility and leg strength from Latin dance once you start learning the very advanced steps that require such flexibility/strength. It won't be anywhere near as effective as what you get from the repetitions/exercises done at the barre or floorwork from ballet/jazz even at a basic level. Where did the ballet go indeed?? I guess one question is how much ballet did these skaters do? Sarah Hughes doesn't look balletic to me neither in her upper nor lower body. Nathan does have a balletic upper body with lovely port de bras and he uses epaulement. However, he doesn't have a balletic lower body. No good plie nor flexibility (Have you seen his spread eagle? It's quite ugly ) which are musts for a ballet dancer and which Yuzu does have in spades (those soft knees and turnout!). @koneko , you missed it but I went on a ballet rant in the Goldenskate Fan Fest about those critics Yuzu can definitely be balletic when he wants to be, certainly more than any of the other top men.

Ah I get it now. They need to label it that way as they don't recognize "World Record" LOL.

I guess they haven't updated it with any scores from the 2016-2017 season yet.

Yes, he said he didn't jump well at GPF 2016 because he ate too much and felt too heavy to execute the jumps properly.

I just watched the whole thing now. Simply gorgeous. In the beginning, it looked like he hadn't completely let himself go yet as I could see his determination to land the 4Lo but after the 4Lo into his spread eagles you can see him finally luxuriating in the music. BTW, his rock to the right and his skates leaving the ice in his 4Lo? Both right on the music. Love the music you love, Yuzu and love it unashamedly. You're the one who will need to listen to it at least 10x a day for the 3rd year! On the entrance to the first spin, I think Yuzu is overestimating the quality of the sound system. If you listen closely, you can hear a soft low note repeated 3 times which matches the repetition of his 3 toepicks on the ice generated from the same swinging leg movement to enter into the spin. On the combination, the entrance works beautifully I think. Don't look at his upper body. He's not using it much at this point. Look at his knees and his feet. He perfectly matches the bending of his knees and the stroking of his skates with the most emphasized notes including one lovely nuance where he raises left foot slightly into coupe on the note before entering the turn into the 4T. You'll be able to see it better in competition with all the lights on and the contrast between his black skates/pants and the ice.

Both spread eagle and IB (feet in ballet 2nd vs feet in open 4th) need turnout. How much turnout is determined by the edge and the curvature on the ice. Outside edge requires more turnout than inside edge. For outside edge, the tighter the curve, the more turnout required. If you tighten the curve, the more you have to angle your feet over 180 degrees hence why @koneko and I were cooing over his outside edge spread eagles in his SC 2015 SP. The opposite is true for inside edge where the tighter the curve, the less turnout requires. The tighter the curve the smaller from 180 degrees the angle of your feet becomes.

He can show another kind of perfection by hitting every note differently. There's so much nuance he can play with. Looks like a spread eagle with arms in ballet 5th to me. I love it. This was improv. It's not in any other performance though he took the step sequence from Chopin 1.0.

I can't wait to see it!! Programs like this, that rely on a person's heartfelt and honest connection to the music - they never get old nor do they have limits so long as the connection remains as they are a reflection of the person at that moment. If the person evolves, so does the program. Whatever new he has found within himself will be shown in his skating to the music.

It is special And special to him too. If it is indeed a piece of music he connects to that acts like armor- makes him feel stronger and confident in his skating and makes him feel like it can bring out the best version of himself - then I can't begrudge him reusing it a 3rd time for Olympic season. He did skate it clean thrice, all while injured. I'm sure he thinks he can do better. I love all his upper body movement in Chopin. Movement in the arms comes from articulation in the torso to the shoulders to the arms to the fingers. Everything also matches the weight/feeling of the notes - if they are lower or higher, softer or louder, staccato or held. Lower, louder notes have lower and straighter arms. Higher, softer notes are lighter and that's when he raises his arms and moves them softly.

Yes, I agree and I would also include the importance of alignment. @koneko, I would love to hear your thoughts on Shoma's jump landings in the Jumps thread. There's quite a bit of discussion there already on Boyang's, Shoma's and Nathan's jump landings. Yes me too! Beautiful plie, light on his skates and good alignment with flow out of them.

No it's not meaningless at all! They are 6 very different skaters with different strengths and different styles that suit them. This requires more research on my part though. I did promise to rewatch the top 6 men at Worlds and comment on their performances and I can respond to you as an offshoot from that. Yes so do I! In her Dying Swan EX she also referenced a lot of the original choreography with her bourrees and the corresponding arm movements. No Vaganova port de bras though I also thought she made quite a flashy and assertive swan which didn't really fit the delicate dreaminess of Saint-Saens music. I may be biased, but I thought Yuzu did a much more beautiful version of Dying Swan with his Notte Stellata EX.

Hummingbirds is good! They have such busy arms! Yes, being succinct is tough...I text people in paragraphs... Yes I noticed that! Similar to jazz where you enter your turns from a lunge position but both knees are bent so not all the weight is on the forward foot! 55 consecutive pirouettes!! 13 en pointe!! And that is some insane adjustment to continue turning while raising her foot behind her head! She's a beast!!!! With that sensitivity to balance and alignment, what kind of monster figure skater would she have made??? Yes, when going off-axis/off-balance, not just in turns but for all sorts of movement, you need to develop an awareness of where your core is (the trick I learned is it's your 3 middle fingers down from your bellybutton!) and use the openness of the limbs/torso around the core so you can control your center of gravity and control your balance/alignment through space (from off-balance back to balance for example). Given this discussion, I did a quick web search about Balanchine technique and injuries and what I found was very interesting. In this ballet school website about different ballet methods, their summary about Balanchine at the bottom of the page ended with "Balanchine Method dancers must be extremely fit and flexible. Injuries can be common for those inexperienced with this technique." In the comments section of this blog post on Balanchine, they mention that many Balanchine dancers have needed hip replacements early in life. I checked the names mentioned and they are indeed true. Finally, in this discussion board there is a very interesting conversation between a former Balanchine dancer (CygneDanois), another ballet dancer (leibling) and a dance teacher (Victoria Leigh) on the shortcomings of Balanchine technique. I tried to do a bit of research on the Ballet West Academy syllabus which is where Nathan did his ballet training but didn't find any details on the method they use. They only say it's been created by the Director of the Company. However, on the website at least, I did not see Balanchine fingers. I don't know what style of ballet Nathan is trained in but I hope for his sake it's not Balanchine. I'm already worried enough about his hips given his bad jump landings without reading about these injuries from Balanchine technique

I love LGC but for different reasons than Chopin. I love the choreography, the impressive tech, the musicality, the energy of it and I love the rock star persona that Yuzu shows on the ice. Also, it's his only program where he directly engages with the audience (flying kisses! "I can't hear you" hands by the ears!). It's a lot of fun and his most entertaining program in my opinion. I love Chopin too again because of the choreography and musicality but also because I feel it's the program where Yuzu is at his most free, his most honest. He's not selling a character or persona or a narrative. There is only the music, himself and his skating. Yes there are others who have skated expressive classical numbers but I don't think I've seen anyone express as natural or as deep a connection to a piece with the same ease as Yuzu to Chopin not even Yuna to Danse Macabre or Gershwin (I notice she loses a bit of that connection in her crossovers and jump setup because she's mechanical while Yuzu is musical even in that). In the beginning where he closes his eyes, breathes, and rolls his head, it looks as though he's surrendering himself to the music and then never lets go.

Yes I see what you mean. Figure skating is not judged as dance as Yata said earlier. If the judges will give a dead performance of Chopin high scores but will heavily penalize a moderately energetic vs. highly energetic LGC then Chopin is definitely easier for bad days.

From my perspective, both need selling but in different ways- LGC with the rock star character and Chopin with the connection to and feeling of the music. Yes, the tech in LGC is unforgiving but think of it this way. If the tech in Chopin were just as unforgiving as LGC, on an off-day would it be easier for you to play the rock star as in LGC or keep the connection to the music as in Chopin? For me, on an off-day with extremely demanding tech, it would not be possible for me to establish any connection to the music and I'd end up looking as lost as Shoma in his FaOI performance of Vivaldi. Even on an off-day, I'd be able to put some semblance of game-face on if I needed to play a character.

It's also different because you have an audience, many times made up of strangers and they expect you to perform. What is easier for you? To pretend to be someone totally different in front of an audience when you're having a bad day? Or while having a bad day to still let yourself be open and connect to a piece of music so you can interpret it through your movement to an audience? If it's the performing itself that is causing the bad day, then I definitely find it easier to try to play a character, especially if it's something in my technique that is off. I find it more difficult to keep the connection with the music if something is off with my technique because I can't interpret it the way I want to.

Sorry I missed this but from the perspective of someone who has had to perform on bad days, whether in class or rehearsal or a show and seen many others perform on bad days too, it depends. What is easier for you? To put a fake smile on your face and pretend to be a different person or character no matter what you are feeling? Or to connect to a piece of music and be honest with it? To put your heart on your sleeve and let it be judged by an audience even if you're not at your best? Both are difficult. Most times, for me, it's easier to hide my emotions and pretend to be someone else because at that moment, I am not me having a bad day but a rock star or a fairy or a princess. However, when I connect to a piece and love it, then on bad days, it becomes a sort of refuge or armor. No matter what I was feeling before, I can let myself truly feel the music because the piece will make me feel beautiful and strong in my dancing. Maybe this is what Yuzu feels when he performs Chopin. Don't say that! Be a little shameless Just look at the marriage thread! It's a loooong list! But nobody took his turnout yet *heehee*

OMG his outside edge spread eagles into and out of the 3A are absolutely fantastic. Look at that sustained turnout and the curve on the ice he gets with it @koneko you must see his spread eagles in the vid above! You can marry his turnout since I got his Vaganova fingers! His triple axel there reminds me of the one he did at Worlds FS 2012 . The Russian commentator..."Wow wow! My goodness! What a 3A. Maybe he can even jump 4A! Wow!"

Shoma wants to bring in 4F 3T in the second half? It will be a good strategy BV wise but I'm not sure it's a good strategy considering the risk of injury he faces with his 4F...that's the jump he lands UR and lands extremely misaligned the most. Risk of injury increases when skating tired and even further if he is tacking on 3T after his 4F. On the music argument, I also didn't find it an issue and sounds to me like a criticism on how to make the piece better and shouldn't take away from Yuzu's program. On the choreography, I totally disagree. No matter if the choreography was deliberately created to be CoP friendly, it is still musical and organic. "Forced" is the exact opposite of anything I would associate with the choreography in Chopin. I can understand if it is not to someone's taste. Chopin and Yuzu's execution of it has a very contemporary dance style of movement. Not everyone likes contemporary dance. I remember the many, many complaints about Yuzu's noodle arms and posture when in reality if these are natural and fit the music and the piece, these are considered beautiful in different dance styles. But I don't see how anything in the choreography in Chopin is forced. I will agree to disagree with that criticism.

I'd still love to see those arguments to see what they are characterising about it as "average". Is it the choreography? The tech? The execution? The music?

As a dancer, I'd love to see those arguments and how movement to LGC is more artistically complex than movement to Chopin.

Yes, LGC is technically more complex than Chopin because of the transitions. He can make Chopin 3.0 technically more complex than LGC if he wants by adding more to it. You cannot make LGC more artistically complex than Chopin no matter what you add.

Saying Chopin fits Yuzu isn't putting him into a box at all. I think Yuzu is very versatile and can do many types of programs. I'm cross-trained in dance (ballet, contemporary, jazz, hip hop, ballroom) and I think Yuzu can do many of those styles well. He can do jazz, he can do blues, he can be balletic, he can be a warrior, he can be vulnerable, he can be a rock star, he can do more lyrical/commercial hip hop. There are however, certain pieces of music and certain styles of choreography that you can connect to more, that naturally fit your style of movement. That is what I mean when I say Chopin fits Yuzu. It looks like a very intimate conversation between Yuzu's skating and the music. Which one drives the other? Having a piece of music or particular style of movement you organically gravitate to does not lessen your capability. Also, saying Yuzu fits Chopin is definitely not underestimating him. Artistically, it's a more complex program than PW, LGC, or Seimei. Those are more straightforward since Yuzu is playing a straightforward character. In Chopin, there is no character to play. His movement and his expression need to evoke the qualities the music - light, heavy, staccato, flowing sustained, etc and needs to do it all with an ease and flow. It's more nuanced than PW, LGC, or Seimei. Connection with the music is a must. If Yuzu didnt feel the piece as he does, it would fall apart. One more point: music may be classical but his movement is not classical. Not at all. He has such an open upper body, arms and head and that's what he uses to evoke that feeling of lack of inhibition.