Lyyli

I ended up to choose this quite recent program from many options. Papadakis/Cizeron FD Rain in Your Black Eyes, Build a Home from season 2015-16. My favorite ID program of all times. The commentators of this vid stay quiet through the whole performance so there is just the music and the skaters. To me this is magic. I´ve watched it many times and always wonder how all this is possible on skates and on cold and hard ice.

Your choice @xeyra. Do as you see it´s best. And thanks for all the work you do here!

Vivaldi Four Seasons doesn´t seem to be here. Riverdance, Dance Macabre and Masquarade Waltz are often used too.

He spoke about it in ISU interview : "The music of my free skate was composed by a Japanese composer, if I go deep into the story behind the music, it was actually the opening song of 1998 Nagano Paralympics. My mom watched the Nagano Olympics and Paralympics, and then she wanted my elder sister to skate, so she took her to skating class. If you think about it, those Olympics were the starting point of my skating life, so I want to use this piece of music. Also, as I mentioned, it was composed by a Japanese composer, so I think I can continue to present something I’ve learned from “SEIMEI”. The whole interview here (other Japanese skaters too) http://www.isu.org/en/single-and-pair-skating-and-ice-dance/news/2017/02/feature-teamjapan

At this off-season moment I say so about the gold, silver and bronze: Ladies: Kaetlyn Osmond, Evgenia Medvedeva, Mai Mihara Men: Yuzuru Hanyu, Shoma Uno, Javier Fernandez Ice Dance: Papadakis/Cizeron, Shibutani/Shibutani, Virtue/Moir Pairs: Savchenko/Massot, Sui/Han, Tarasova/Morozov Some of these are more my dreams than predictions. Like actually I believe Sui/Han will win and I love them very much but I would like Aliona to get the Oly gold, she deserves it imo. It would be nice to make another predictions just before the Olys begin when we have already seen how the skaters are doing and who´s going to be there.

Brave choices from Jason and the team for Oly season. Brand new programs and the two quads. Also fresh music for both SP and LP. That is great.

I also hope he´ll land those quads because he´s a great skater. I´ve not managed to find any articles etc where he or Kori speak about training the quads. I just hope the reason he didn´t get them yet are the injuries, not body structure etc. that would make the jumps more difficult for him in general than for example for Yuzu. Jason is as old as him, about a week younger, so the quads have been there for him as well. But every skater has his own path and Yuzu started in seniors already 2010, Jason 2013.

At LP of last WTT he tried to make 3A from Ina Bauer and SE as the last jump of the program. He popped it, but this shows that he´s truly ready to move forward with his axel.

Me too. I enjoy reading people´s opinions about the scores, layouts and the chances of Yuzu and the other skaters during the Oly season.

So much to read here this morning. Thanks each of you for the great discussion!!!! The quads puzzle me too but anyway I feel confident for Yuzu´s chances. I believe before the Worlds last season Yuzu and the team did find new excellent ways for his training because he said in Helsinki that finally he has worked hard and it really paid off there. I´ve been wondering how they changed it, more hours on the ice, more quads, power training etc during the practice sessions or what. In Helsinki he was probably in the best shape ever. Now they know how to do it and hopefully it works for the Olys too. Being in top shape like that gives him self confidence and mental strength that is needed especially at Olys. As far as we know he has also been able to train without injuries now, unlike last season so he should have all the possibilities of making progress in his skating overall. At this point I believe Shoma is his main challenger because I have got the impression that he feels less pressure in competitions than the other top skaters.

I agree. It is a song with positive energy which will carry him on the ice. He will fly and shine. The thing that it is based on a well known Spanish story of Don Quixote is also a good thing for a Spanish guy.

Javi probably chooses a version with more Spanish spice but I loved Brel´s version very much. The other song of two old lovers is just beautiful, full of emotion, thanks for that. French music is really a great idea for Yuzu, a new experience for him. Hopefully some day.

Thanks for the news. I don´t understand Spanish so what he said on the video is unclear to me. Do you or anyone else know is he using the version that was linked here? I looked up the song in Youtube and found many different kind of arrangements. For example Elvis and Frank Sinatra have recorded The Impossible Dream, but Javi has already used songs sung by them. They sound very different form that version of the musical.

Thank you for this video! That lovely song has surely comforted many people in Japan. Their performance as well as Yuzu´s solo of Hana wa saku is such a beautiful tribute to the victims.

Shortly back to discussion about the top male skaters and especially to the meaning of flexibility. To my eyes other top male skaters look more or less stiff compared to Yuzu and Jason. Their basic skating is very soft with deep knee bends and beautiful lines and extensions. Shoma skates like that too but his upper body, like said here before, seems not to work as well as Yuzu´s and Jason´s at the moment. Yuzu is the most flexible of all and does that make the decisive difference between him and the rest. I´ve heard it is not easy to maintain flexibility while doing more power training but he has managed in that. Flexibility allows him to do so much on the ice. I always pay attention to flexibility and in men field I look forward to see what skaters like Deniss and Jun Hwan will do in the future.

I missed it too, but happened to read two recent posts of the skater of Cricket club who earlier talked about Yuzu´z FS music. A racoon had managed to damage the ice at the Club. Yesterday she posted that there was a Japanese film group panicking because of that. They must be there for Yuzu!!!

Not at all, I didn´t understand because of my bad English skills. You write very well.

Well, I can say that for me the music choices are very important and I am anxious to find out what they are. This tweet is so far the only hint about Yuzu´s choice for FS. That´s why I am taking it into consideration though I am aware that it doesn´t reveal much. It´s also possible that the poster honestly is a skater from the Cricket club and knows the piece. I also find these speculations of FS music very interesting and it´s funny but they ease my impatience a bit.

I guess you mean the one I made. It is in Music talk page 31. Keep in mind that I did not go through all the GS pages because it took so much time and there were really many suggestions here and there. Actually I found some more some days ago. I will post them in Music talk as soon as possible.

Yes she did. This is the first post of hers. "Somebody just tweeted about it, so I don’t have to keep it secret anymore. Bb Jun is skating to the Planets for his free skate, and I am so stoked!!! It’s one of the best pieces of music in existence, imho. Also somebody on goldenskate already guessed Yuzu’s freeskate correctly. ;P It’s eating me up not being able to tell them they are right, haha."

Thanks, I found it : "I skate at the cricket. ;P But I dont want to out it before an official announcement. That would be kind of shady of me and I’d feel like I’d be betrayingthe trust of the skaters and coaches if I fully said it withouttheir permission. All I will say is that some people will be very happy, others will be very disappointes.

The link in the music thread gives only this: "Somebody just tweeted about it, so I don’t have to keep it secret anymore. Bb Jun is skating to the Planets for his free skate, and I am so stoked!!! It’s one of the best pieces of music in existence, imho. Also somebody on goldenskate already guessed Yuzu’s freeskate correctly. ;P It’s eating me up not being able to tell them they are right, haha." Is there another tweet? If you don´t remember where the link is, no need to search it for me. It can take a lot of time.

Thank you for this. How lucky we are that he did not change into baseball though his parents would have allowed it.

Thank you for this explanation. I knew I misunderstood something. Sorry @¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ! Oh boy, figure skating world is so complicated that I only want to trust Yuzu and the team. I know nothing but I believe FS is not Seimei. Somehow I trust on that tweet about the right guess on GS. I wonder how anyone would think that Yuzu is not pushing himself, he, who trains like crazy and has the best scores of all. I hope that it is impossible but like you said there is politics behind this sport too.

These comments of mine are about your last two posts here. First I must say that I am not sure if I understood everything correctly. There were quite a few words and expressions that were new to me. My English is far from perfect and using the vocabulary does not always help because words can have many different meanings. I do hope my post is understandable. Anyway, this is what I want to comment: I think it is always relevant to discuss about the scoring in figure skating because personal opinions of individual judges have an effect on GOES and PCS. As we know from the same element a skater can get for example GOE 1 or 3 from different judges. In tough competitions PCS can have a significant role in the final results. Yuzu very often talks about the importance of clean performances so there is no fear that he counts on other skaters mistakes. He has not been satisfied even if he wins when he has made mistakes. Like in Sochi. In Helsinki after the victory he said he has to practice harder. I have understood from Yuzu´s interviews during all his senior years that he wants to go clean not only because of the scores but because of his respect for the audience and his will to represent his country Japan in the best possible way. He loves to skate but he does not skate only for himself. He skates for the audience, Japan and for figure skating as a sport as well. For example he has said many times that he wants to "skate together with the audience". For me it is totally ok for sportsmen to want success also for their individual ambitions. They work hard, use lots of their time and money in training and expose themselves to possible injuries, heavy disappointments and public criticism. For the top athletes the Olympic gold is naturally the biggest dream. Not the medal itself, but the greatest victory of all and the title Olympic Champion. About consistency: Yuzu has suffered from quite a few injuries after Sochi tough he has not wanted to talk about them much. Because of the injuries he was not totally ready for Shanghai and Boston worlds. There was also the collision in CoC 2014 and an abdomen operation after that. The latest injury on his left foot, lisfranc joint ligament injury, was a serious one. He was suggested to skip the last season totally. If I have understood correctly this injury bothered him really already in Shanghai worlds. It got worse during the next season and finally after Boston he had to take a long break. At the same time he was supposed to keep training the quads. The quads are decisive for his consistency. Med is truly a very consistent skater because all the jumps are easy for her kind of talented and well trained skater. She does not challenge herself for example with 3A because she does not need it to win. She has not suffered from injuries as far as I know and she has said he does not feel disturbing pressure when she skates. The top men are learning new things and taking steps forward with the quads so it is understandable that they struggle more.