Xen

"In his presentation before the test skate, you also mentioned that a new system would be proposed for World Championships and the Olympics at next year's ISU Congress." I'm hoping this isn't for Beijing, because if the system goes as it does now, it's highly possible that ladies will be primarily Russian and Japanese, if the top 24 in world standings trend holds. Men's might be a bit more diverse, but still, less diversity overall. As for the artistic versus technical program, how will this work out for pairs and ice dance? I guess for ice dance we'll have compulsory dance patterns? o_O Which brings me back to an old tweet: Speaking of which, after this format change, what kind of titles will we have? The 2023 Jump champion? The 2023 Hand Choreography World Champion? Speaking of which, about the artistry competition, no one has bothered to reply yet, was the Peggy Flemming competition format programs significantly more artistic than status quo?

Laybacks are evil....you have to snap to bend back and down all in one motion. Apparently when starting it, there's a point where you will start to feel the pull to bend back and you have to bend back in one move at that point, else you screw up. It's dizzy as heck. Coach says it's less dizzy if you actually fully bend back, but if you're in the middle (where I am), yes, it can get a "little" dizzy. And it's so easy to lean too much on your LBI edge that you...lean inwards and out of the spin. 90 degrees from your hips? Hmm... have you had a coach or someone spot you when you step into the curve for the spin? I mean the LFO curve, sounds like something is odd there-an alignment issue between hips/knees/ankle or possible the curve being off?

Why Roxanne or even ICSSEE-chan, when you can instead go for NEEESSIIEEE- *dun dun dun* *runs*

Yuzu doesn't pick high, but if you notice, he reaches very far back, and accelerates the edge a bit before he fully picks in. . The motion is more like a scissoring motion, just think that his two legs are like scissor blades, but instead of one leg staying still and the other reaching back and up on its own (the mule kick), both blades are moving together. He picks IMO (and you get this more often with the guys) with his legs much closer together, which you don't really get if you mule kick the pick. You get same or more amount of force concentrated for take-off with his methods (think the physics of how scissors work). XD Also practicing flips...and apparently I'm a lipper. Coach has already caught me. =( Spins wise...I've just started layback.

The Yuzu, Boyang and Mikhail erasure! Rise boys, rise!!! On another note, it seems that some tweets get to appear on the ISU figure webpage if you use a hashtag? So, the troll side of me is wondering, why don't I just call out URs in each comp and make it to their webpage. If I go CoC, I could even do it live, for a certain VZ. Good training if I want to be a true protege to Shin, right...

Um I don't think it's good nor it will help? I actually don't like this move at all because the move seems very haphazard and not though out at all. And I think so far all the options we listed, maybe except for TCC, are just PR based ideas to prevent points dropping more rather than actual real fixes since it's too late to fix.

I think we're all still in the denial stage that Shoma to Eteri is a very real, big possibility. 1) "Eteri hasn't trained any successful senior men."- Okay, how well known was Brian for training senior men before Yuzu and Javi? Putting aside the fact that Eteri has 2 senior men now (Morisi and Erkhov aren't chopped liver), why do we so easily presume she cannot coach a top man? She's stated before she'd like to try coaching a top man, and has stated a preference to try with an asian skater before (aka Yuzu for one). 2) "Training with the girls won't help": But we're forgetting that these girls, most of them, have quads. All of Eteri's snr men have quads. And Shoma does not have textbook technique- far from it, for flip and lutz, he's closer to Eteri's camp when it comes to PR and borderline UR too. 3) Consistency: that's the bigger issue, the issue of consistency which is something Eteri skaters are known for. 4) Starvation debate: the diet issue is mainly on her female skaters, we don't know if it's applied as much to men's side. Also, all athletes will watch their diet since weight does affect jumps, diet is something you'd watch anyways. 5) What's in it for Shoma: Honestly, in my opinion, none, it's too late. The goal of the move was to stop points from dropping more, which may happen should he stay in Japan. It's not really about dramatic improvement, but maybe gradual improvement, some re-imagining of him as a package. Otherwise, Saitama was pretty clear that they're willing to place V*ncent over him. I don't like the choice, not because of just the above reasons, but because the move just doesn't seem well thought-out. If I were Shoma and the rumors of where Barkell is going is true, I'd actually consider Lee as first option. But I don't think the reasons why, is something his camp would consider.

Hmm...if we assume school schedules, then I'd guess SA: Nate+Boyang SC: Yuzu+Misha+Keegan+Cha Idf: Vincent+Shoma CoC: Vincent+Boyang Rostel: Yuzu+Misha+Cha NHK: Nate+Shoma

How many pages of kuyashii, and variations of kuyashii do you want to read?

I don't think it's an NA coach. If it were Raf, well Raf's been quieter than normal about this type of news. Same applies to Tom Z, though I think he'd keep more quiet than Raf. As for North America in general, can you imagine TSL not leaking rumors about this? No, given the trends and how J*ck G reported of a JPN skater going to Eteri, I think it's likely Eteri's team. It creates the least amount of conflicts as she doesn't have a jnr boy to focus on (which Raf has), nor a top Snr man (Tom Z). I'd be a bit surprised too if it's Lambiel, though it would be kinder than Eteri. But just for sheer drama value alone, I'd guess Eteri.

This is why I never ask my coach who she likes among skaters, though I have an odd feeling at least for Jumps she likes Yuzu, since "Hanyu never does this" gets mentioned enough times. =P Curious, has anyone ever used the new Jackson Ultimate Legacy 7 or Legacy 8 blades? Supposedly they are 30% lighter than the MK and Wilson equivalents.

I use a little hard carry on luggage suitcase, around 20 inches, kinda like Yuzu. =)

I'm going to toss this out there, but I think the pace might be a bit too fast, even for Yuzu. But man, if someone can actually skate to it and hit the notes...*bow* (there's also a 2 cellos version)

Guys, echoing Fay, what you guys are discussing might be better sent to Gen Skating chat, where we debate more about narratives. And IMO, the momentum was going for Chen even heading into Olys 2018, sorry. It won't go down, because it's in ISU's interest to keep USfed (and money) engaged, so politically the hype won't go down. On the other hand, if there's any guy who could go back up in terms of momentum, once he heals up, it's Yuzu. From the way he worded things, that 4A is no longer a dream, I have my suspicions the boy has landed Nessie in practice enough times, just not at the ratio to bring it to a program, or maybe he held back due to injury. I also suspect he has 4Lz back too, but injury derailed him (if you follow the documentary, he actually listed 4A or 4Lz or 4Lo).

No, no that I get. I guess the way I'd say is this- I don't get why we *must* make PCs balance with the TES for all skaters. Other than give a higher coefficienct for PCs, another way is to say, multiple the TES score by 0.8. But back to what @hoodie axel mentioned about inflating PCs, I think people saying it's okay for the PCs to rise with TES for some skaters, is ludicrous, because not all skaters are that balanced. And it's perfectly okay. I'm just wondering why people think it's okay to give some quadsters around 85+ PCs when it's not warranted. In regards to PCs scoring, there are some fans who insist on an absolute scale- ie 7 is above average, and there's no pt in raising it up just because someone is a senior vs a junior. Well the issue I see in some of the PCs scoring is while there is a bell-curve system going on, it's not like judges are truly scared to give below 8 PCs scores for senior skaters. If you look at the protocols, especially for some small fed skaters, 6's and 7's are quite common. Above 8.25 is not that common. And that raises the question how exactly are judges really judging PCs? If 7.75 is the avg for a senior skater, then any senior skater who does not stand out for their SS/TR/ etc should not be getting above that (certainly not above 8.25). In which case, it makes some scores of some quadsters extremely suspect. But now it's a bit of a mixed bag, where there's both a bell-curve system going on and an absolute system possibly mixed in. Smaller fed skaters do seem to be getting judged to an absolute standard, but there's also a weird bell curve system being used in some ways to justify others' scores (*ahem* big feds in particular).