Xen

Oh next season will be interesting alright...I haven't had to say "I don't care what medal X gets, but I love X's skating anyways" for a long long while. Small fed skaters will have their work cut out.

*bangs head* I'm sorry guys, if you don't see me joining in on FaOI fun, it's because I can't bring myself to get over this (due to a mixture of sadness and insanity). But GOEs...oh gods. I always thought that most guys when they go for quads automatically get the jump height and distance checked, because everyone automatically assumes "if quad --> good height and distance" since those are considered necessary to achieve a quad jump. I think unless the skater does something awful, bullet point 2 will likely be given. This is the trend even in today's IJS rules. Bullet 3 will be interesting, but I see that may be awarded often enough. I don't see a point for adding steps since that messes with bullet point 3, and bullet point 5 and 6 are rewarded enough as is. Honestly, the gap between quads and triples just got bigger, and with BV reduction for 3A, I don't see how even 3A short of in combo, could catch up easily with a quad jump anymore. Sorry. T_T

Um, Mao Asada, Sochi 2014, Rach 2 Long. Mao 2010 Vancouver, Bells of Moscow LP are probably iconic ones from her. Sasha Cohen, 2003-2004 both SP and LP (Malaguena and Swan Lake)-both pretty iconic Sasha Cohen programs. I think for men, I only recall her choreographing for Alexei Yagudin (his more iconic ones such as Winter and Man in the Iron Mask). Johnny Weir's SP and LP from 2004-2006.

@yuzupon: Did you call? Now, how many articles are we at? Is there a nice long compilation of links for articles for "rewriting"?

That looks delicious! Wonder if he finished everything? His meals were servings of everything in those photos right? I guess the actual portions sizes are a bit smaller than they appear in the photos? *I also doubt his digestion being that slow, since as an athlete his resting metabolism can't be super slow. I was thinking more the reverse-that perhaps his body doesn't always fully absorb everything he eats-most of the guys I know who are like this are super lean, and generally light eaters

He said that he'll reconsider some things if his skating and classes clash, but it's not clear what he's going to do about it, and it seems that since PC, he's starting to eye Beijing more seriously. My guesses for Yuzu and Shoma are: Shoma: CoC+NHK Yuzu: SC+RoC

Oh...something from my hometown eh? *thinks hard, goes to Panda research center and tries to grab a Panda* Hey, you think this can be shipped? *gets arrested and jailed for life for trying to ship out a national treasure* Actually if we plan to do a giant gift card thing, I do have an idea. When they announce the GP entries, maybe we can give targetted gifts cards? For example, Starbucks prepaid gift cards are region/country locked right? So if we know that someone in TCC will be skating in China, perhaps we could give some starbucks giftcards that work in China. We know there will be TCC in Japan, Canada, Spain and Russia, so those countries' gift cards could definitely work. Then this won't appear as odd, since it's much more targetted.

That's actually deflecting from the real debate- the steps before jumps rule, and the no repeat quads rule. The first one is being removed because....judges don't apply it consistently. The reason right there is pointedly an issue already. For the second issue, no repeat quads. Well yes, I see why guys will need age raised- just so they have more time to learn more quads and splat themselves in the junior ranks.

I think if he gains his 4Lo back in time, it should be fine points wise, since he's one of the few guys who can probably land +4/+5 GOE 3As , which should help offset any downsides if the "no repeat quad" rule passes, and give him some breathing room (especially since his 3As are all second half). It would depend on which GPs he goes to. Would ACI coincide with the Russian test skates? In which case, both of them can go to Finlandia in early October, and then go to SC in late Oct 2018. And if necessary, one may go to Rostel in mid Nov too. Actually scheduling wise it would depend on recovery, but another possibility is to go ACI-->Skate America-->NHK-->GPF. If they go Finlandia, then it would be Finlandia--> SC--> Rostel--> GPF The one I'd be worried about is if one of them ends up at IdF, in which case, the time between IdF and GPF is too close, even though thanks to being in Canada, they won't have to travel as much to get to GPF.

Well Yuzu has 3 stable quads, Nathan has 4 (though Sal in second half is iffy), Shoma has 3, Boyang has 3. The main difference as I've listed above, is the value of the 4Lz and 4F really balloons-to the degree if you only have 2 quads, just the 4Lz and 4F may be enough for you to do well, especially if you can on average get +3 GOEs. o_O This is not a universe for health and safety.

I also heard elsewhere that factorization may no longer apply on triples? If so, I hope that's true. See, without factoriziation: 3Lz backloaded, BV: 6.6 4Lz frontloaded, BV: 13.6 3Lz at +3 GOE: 9.6 If the 4Lz falls with -5 GOE (not factorizing up to -6 even): 8.6 I think a lot of guys can probably get a +2 or +3 GOE on their 3Lz, so in some way, a backloaded 3Lz would be better than a failed 4Lz.

I'm going to get a nice soft cushion for my head, because depending on what rules pass, the amount of head-desking next season may increase significantly. And I don't want a concussion from excessive headdesking at 3 am.

Oh increase my blood pressure during a work week, decrease my anger tolerance too? Why the heck not!

3A-4A jump squence?

Well it's not just injury per se- it's that the course of training for quads would be changed. Right now if I were a junior male skater, I would go for 4T and 4S first and stablize them first. They're useful for junior circuit. But realistically, most of the senior men in the top 10 are closer to skater C, so in order to beat skater C, I'd have to go for harder quads. That changes my training significantly. So instead, perhaps I would focus more on stablizing 4Lz and 4F first, or 4Lz/4F and 4Lo first, then stablize a 4T or 4S for second half but the harder quads would take priority. Which could lead to injury among juniors. >_<

There are some things I can see being good in the proposals, but the rule about a variety of quads (no repeat quads rule) just doesn't sit well. So I went and played with numbers, for 3 hypothetical skaters, A, B, and C. I'm using the men's FS here, since the no repeat quads rule doesn't impact anyone else that much right now. For now, A is a guy with 4 quads (4Lz, 4F, 4S, 4T stable, hi Nate!), Skater B is a guy with no quads but a good 3A, and skater C is a guy with 4S and 4T but no other quads (hello Javi!). The calculations below assumes 1) no falls; 2) +5 full GOEs (tied to % of BV and factorized); 3) 10% bv reduction on all quads, no reduction on 3A (I can argue why later); 4) that assuming everyone only backloads 4 jumping passes in the bonus half (I've yet to see guys do differently and stamina wise any more with quads is crazy). For the +5 GOE bit: I've tied each +1 GOE to 10% of BV, and factorization means that same as right now, all triples other than 3A gets x0.7 of the GOE. For below calculations, I only factored in jumps, since spins etc aren't really won't effect BV that much (it's pretty fixed) Layouts: A: 4Lz 4F 3Lz//3A3T 4S3T 4T1Lo3S 3Lo BV: 79.16 +5GOEs: 117 B: 3Lz 3S 3Lo//3A2T 3A1Lo2S 3Lz3T 3F BV 54.22 +5GOEs: 76.43 C: 3F 3Lo 3A // 4TLo3S 4S3T 3A3T 3Lz BV 70.64 +5GOEs: 103.28 Difference in BV between A and B: 24.94; A and C: 8.52; C and B: 16.42 Difference after GOEs between A and B: 40.57; A and C: 13.72; C and B: 26.85 The difference, without mistakes between having 4 quads (4Lz and 4F especially) is over the BV of 2 3As. Even having just a 4T and 3S would give an advantage of 1 3A. After you factor in GOEs, it gets bigger. So conclusion-having no quads would hurt you a LOT, in fact even having just a 4S and 4T is not enough (the BV diff is the value of a 3A). Can PCs help? Actually, again NO. Assuming that the PCS factorization goes to 2.4 for the free. Let's say Skater A gets an avg of 8.5 PCs, B an avg PCs of 9.5 and skater C an avg PCs of 9. A: PCS=102. TSS= 219 B: PCS=114, TSS=190.43 C: PCS=108, TSS=211.28 A-C: 7.72 A-B= 28.57 C-B: 20.85 By the way, for C to surpass A with just 2 quads, assuming all the above applies, skater C would need an avg PCs of 9.75. Realistically...poor B, poor triples and poor skater C. So far, at least in men's, I don't recall seeing many perfect GOEs being given out for triples (other than 3As). Second, the guys I've based on skater A off of, usually are rewarded higher PCs, so the actual difference is greater. And skater B to a degree does not exist (the closest is Jason Brown, but he barely gets PCS in LP higher than 90). So if anything, not being able to repeat quads, but still triples, doesn't really curb the BV difference between the have-quads and have-no-quads. And actually exacerbates the differece between the have 4T-4S and have-many-quads guys. I also then added a hypothetical skater D, who has a 4Lz and a 4F (not in combo) but no other quads: Layout: 4Lz 4F 3Lz//3ALo3S 3A3T 3Lz3T 3Lo BV: 74.52 with GOE+5: 108.34 PCS avg of 9.25: 111 TSS: 219.34 See-in short, if you only have time for 2 quads, just get the 4Lz and 4F, at least you have a fighting chance if you get your PCS avg up to 9.25. So unless ISU is really looking for a proliferation of 4Lz and 4F being standard fare (and guys splatting and injuring themselves left and right), limiting the ability of guys to min/max with the quads they are capable of doing (rather than pushing for more variety of quads) is going to make it harder for smaller fed and lower technical skaters to do well. And even if a guy has quads, it matters more what quads he has-as illustrated above, get the 4Lz and 4F or go home. If a skater is injured and can still do quads, just of the lower BV type, he won't win unless he gets some amazing +10 PCS scores across the board (above example skater C has to avg 9.75 to beat A). So of all the potential rules, this is probably one I'm least in favor of-it makes the difference between the 4Lz haves and 4Lz have-nots even greater than now.

Were you thinking "firebird"? Maybe my gut feelings are linked to you in some way. That would be why my gut feelings wanted me to volunteer in Milan (though my brain ruthlessly took over and stopped it).

The more I look at these proposals, the more I fear the following combination: -Only 4 jumping passes in the second half get bonus -Quads cannot be repeated -falls being evaluated in PCS rather than outright -1 deduction -And none of the variety of jumps bonus being proposed getting passed This...well, I feel bad for the guys who have less than 3 quad types. The TES scores and limitations to min/max would be pretty severe, and the difference in scores between TES of the guys with only 1-2 quad varieties and 3-4 quad types would just be scary. Also, since when has anyone seen a triple (other than a 3A) get perfect GOEs? Then there's the factorization for triple jumps so final GOE is actually lower for triples? I'm not sure how this is suppose to help balance PCS and TES, when in reality quad BV due to variety is the only way to min/max points. The only way might be to do all your jump combos in the second half if you don't have a 4F/4Lz solo jump or combo, since that's the only way to maximize your points.

Yeah really targetted. Russia on the ladies side gets hit pretty hard (Sasha and Alena won't make it), and Canada on the men's side gets hit (Gogolev won't turn until 22/23). Well if this passes, from an age/stats perspective, we might not get another 2-Repeat-OGM on the men's side easily, since it usually takes about 2-3 seasons before a male skater does well in seniors, and then he has to maintain that past age 24/25 for a second OGM. With all the quads coming, I don't think that's going to be easy.

o_O Hello Coach Savchenko! Wow.

Ah...so you've reached the stage where you can clearly differentiate Yuzu's hands from the rest. I see the "Yuzu detective squad" has a new potential trainee. Don't worry, you'll graduate to the level of IDing him by the curve of a leg, a foot or just outline in no time! Ci

Oh dear, this is so....well I think Koi Dance has a new rival for EX programs.

First and foremost-congrats! Thank you for making a podcast series to is actually about opinions and facts and not gossip (unlike another certain youtube channel). What the FS world actually needs! For later shows-maybe a compilation or suggestion of programs for new fans to watch. Not just of current skaters, but also older skaters. Perhaps a brief history of the skaters of figure skating history. =D Not a tall order at all!

@Toni @wingman: My own 2 cents on this, and it's long, a bit depressing, don't read it if you don't want to have bad feels for the day, so I'll keep it hidden. Anyways, long post. Good luck with everything, and thank you for reporting (although how Twitter deals with it is not encouraging). I've always wondered if we should publicize who are antis so Yuzu fans who don't read Japanese, won't accidentally follow an anti?