Xen

I think the "4A everyday" might be screamed more by the critics of the "shifting goalposts" fame. And in reply, us Hanyu fans might need to go bash back expectations (and criticisms) with a mighty bat. At this point, I'm looking at the 4A prospects with something that's a weird combination of a sad smile, a smirk and extreme snark in preparations for comments wars from other corners of the FS media world. A sad smile, because it's so good to see him overcome adversity and situations that would have made most people cry and give up. Yet sad, that despite all he gave to the sport, accomplishing on painkillers what no one has managed to do in 66 years, in one of the most competitve quads of men's skating, the goalposts are ever shifting. And while he says he feels no external pressure, I always think that somehow, those comments do nag at him, even a tiny bit. He's human, not an emotionless android afterall. The fact he turns all these external pressures into something of a challenge, that he could shape into something that may be "fun" for him, is amazing. The smirk and extreme snark are of course for the FS media commentators out there (we know who they are now) with the shifting goalposts, always asking him to be perfect and beyond perfect, yet no matter what, always say he could be a bit more "perfect." If anything, they have trouble understanding that something this extraordinary is being done by a human (though maybe not 100% normal one)-sometimes they have tin foil hats on, ones so thick that logic from fans or even more neutral critics cannot even reach their brains.

Honestly, I'm terrified he'll get invited to France. If he goes, the ice better be good, and a proper medal please. Granted if he actually goes, there might actually be more money for these things. o_O The ones that I think would invite him are: France, China, Russia and possibly Canada. I'm still thinking that NHK might still be his spot-there's something of a homecoming for him, and Japan might want to see him compete back on home soil after not seeing him this season, if nothing else, just sentimental reasons.

Has it ever bode well for Brian's hair? At this point, Brian's hair have resigned to reality. Yuzu and the concept of "chill"- much as I wish, I think his concept of Chill is just too different from ours. We think Chilling means getting out of bed at noon, laying around on a beach for a vacation, I think his idea of chill probably involves doing those 4-4-3 or whatever crazy combos he does at gala practices. Very chill.... As for the new rules, I think he'll be fine. I think someone, fireovertheice, had a post where she listed the time spent by the men in various elements. Yuzu spends very little time on his jumps and his jumps setups, just does one after the other in rapid succession. This is due to his great SS in general, since he needs little time to gain speed-that built over the course of a program means a great deal of time can be saved. The time reduction I thought will mostly affect his choregraphic sequence, so I fear either the bauer or hydroblade will go. Which I will cry over if it happens. As for jumps, with the new GOEs range, while not knowing how they will tie into the TES. Will it be a BV% factorization, or a pure +5 GOE? If the latter, then a +5 3A can equal a +3 4T when done with latter half bonus. Even so, the 3A takes on perhaps more significance. All the men need to up their 3A game.

Let me join you in that...though I might have to resign to eyerolling. I can lend a german shepard to join you in the growling too. Still..tall grasses growing on ice rinks....

Well if tall grasses start growing on ice when he goes into a 3A, I guess we know what's going on-"Shifting goalposts!" for the length and size of his axels. Speaking of which, I hope that goalpost doesn't get into his potential future coaching or his potential professional shows etc. He already does a lot in his shows, with some *special combos* tried out in shows.

Hmm. Let's see if I can describe this correctly. If you rise up to your bottom toepick and gradually press down, so you are moving onto your rocker, there is a small portion on your blade, close to the ball of your feet (just under the bottom joint of your toes) where you can wiggle your blade freely, and easily, but there is no noise. That is the sweet spot for spinning. In my case, I try to locate it first, just by moving my blade around a bit to get a feel for where on the balls of my feet it is, and try to hit that place when I go into a spin, and then lock my spin leg knee. Have you tried this exercise?

Sucking at other sports, doesn't mean you'll do poorly at figure skating. (*personal experience speaking here*) Also, why do people hate on spinning so much? Just don't give up on them. I recall when learning how to do them, it was a constant struggle to get the "feeling" of the "pull into center" right for 5-7 weeks, and then one day, like magic, it worked.

1) good strategy on Samantha Thavasa's part. They got me checking them out on Amazon JP, and I may consider buying something when I need a bag or wallet switch. Though I'm failing at locating the pooh wallets (those look nice and are one of the few non-pink items). 2) Agreed about the 4A-->4F bit. We don't know what his full goals are for the future, and for all we know, the boy might decide to go get all the quads, since he's um, not too far from it. He's only not landed a 4A and 4F in competition yet, with 4A being in-progress. I'm not sure I fully buy the no-external pressure though; external pressure will always exist, simply because he's 2-time OGM, and people still view him as a "goal" to obtain (or beat in competition). But so long as he views skating as a true joy, and has fun, then I'll be happy.

You will. Flip jumps are kind of hard to forget. =) in my opinion at least. Did something stupid again, I tried to go sit spin to pancake spin. Then a rinkmate told me that actually it's easier to go sit spin to mushroom spin, and after I stabilize that, I can try sit-->pancake. >_> oops.

Don't, you might give him ideas. Like the idea of quints. We don't know where he lurks and what his antenna picks up, maybe just stray random troll-worthy thoughts get high priority. One of these days, when talking about his programs, he'll just casually mention, “I saw this idea somewhere about Ave Maria and Les Mis being programs, and maybe La La Land as an ex, and I thought that might be possible."

Honestly it shouldn't matter? If you're doing a 24/7 auction you should have people monitoring this at night too. If they didn't, then it's just piss poor planning. Seriously, if it's an international bidding, then you will have people come bid at night, and if you are getting most of the fake bids happening at night, it should be necessary to even double the number of people checking at night. This is just basic planning, and they ran into fake bids at night twice. On the third try, they should have learned.

Uh, guess yes. Last I checked about 3 hours ago, it was a reasonable 6 mil. Well, watch it deflate again in 3 hours. As for YOI-I'm a pretty big skating fan, and a pretty big YOI fan. To me, there's nothing conflicting about liking either. And frankly, it's easier to locate more FS fans that way. FS is such a niche sport outside of Japan, that it needs all the publicity it could get. And as an anime, it's pretty well done (the choreography from Miyamoto anyone?). Oh, and sometimes the anime doesn't have as wild scoring as real FS-so it's better for my blood pressure. Btw, back to skating topic, why are junior girls getting such low PCS? some of them have better SS and TR than some senior ladies, yet aren't really getting scored 8's at all.

...Hamtaro Yuzu and his Hamtaro quads...okay, someone stop me before this gets too far.

Question, is there a thread we should do for compiling news clippings or articles in other languages? I know I posted the interview with Zhao Hongbo in the General Skating chat, but maybe we should do separate threads in the translations section? That way people won't need to flip through pages to find something.

Some time ago, during the off season last year we started joking about the geography of this forum, should it be an actual real planet. The conclusion was that we have a capital city with lots of storage space for all the poohs collected, many many ice rinks, a giant center for BV calculations, and a volcano that erupts whenever something major happens. Paprika fields grow wild when things are sad (due to Yuzu mentioning that he doesn't like bell peppers/paprika), while tomato fields also grow and bloom when things are good (because he loves them). And of course, Prime Minister Pooh is the tissu box pooh. =) If you're into humorous takings on the suffering of a Hanyu fan, check out the daily spread eagle:

@Elle@creamlullaby@wingman: Also joinging in the chorus-Welcome to the Planet! Just a small warning-please pay attention to Mount Irene in the NW corner, as it tends to erupt occassionally, with the eruption consisting of Poohs, glitter dust, chocolate vapors etc. Also watch out for the Paprika fields at the border of the capital city-when Yuzu is gone for a long time, sometimes the paprika fields expand wildly, and prime minister Pooh needs to deploy more android pooh bots to mow down the wild paprika. Yes, we are at times extremely silly (quad harem ladies, salary men quads, mental theatres), and very serious (complaints and discussions about new judging guidelines). So hope you are ready for the rollercoaster. And if you skate, or are looking into figure skating, there's a group of us in the knick-knacks section who skate. =) Also, if you ever attend a Yuzu competition, look out for planet meet-ups.

See...that actually takes efforts and money. But seriously, do they dislike the people of Tohoku that much? But so far, the rise seems more gradual. I'm hoping they asked for proof of a legit ID and bank account or something before people bid. Edit: It just hopped to 2 mil after rising gradually to 0.8 mil. Now I'm getting worried. The days when I wish I were filthy rich, just so at the end, I can buy it for an astronomical sum without guilt, and say "Take it trolls, take it hard..."

^This and no more injury news. This season has been bad enough as is.

Should we do warhorse bingo even though it's not Oly year? "Guess the new warhorses" game?

Honestly, out of the young guys, the only one who managed to keep his nerves more or less in tact was Boyang (even on both ankles being injured). Which is why it would not surprise me, but amuse me like heck if he ends up pulling an upset.

They should just go contact the people who bid the really high bids and verify first before allowing them to re-place bids on it. Possibly place a portion of money in escrow first. Wonder what is the possibility they'll take it fully offline instead.

Yep, I can easily see 10+Mil yen being coughed up by organizations or corporations or even trusts that bid for museums. And in those scenarios, it's highly possible that a request from Yahoo japan didn't get replied to immediately-and depending on what forms had to be filled, it may get stuck in bueracratic chain of commands (ie someone bids for 40 mil, but might be getting told by the big exec 30 mins later not to go that high). Christie might take a more significant cut than Yahoo auctions, plus it might be a mistake on the part of the charity organizers who didn't anticipate the bids to go that high. I was thinking it might also be a strategy to dissuade others from bidding. Our idea of early might be someone else's idea of "now's a good time"-there are only 3 days remaining.

True, but doing an online bid is a bit better if you want the bid to be international. However, they need a good process to ensure those international bids are legitimate, maybe like a third party representative in Japan who can verify in place of Yahoo Japan, and place bids on behalf of the original bidder. And for those who wonder about the price of this...right now, his boots cost less than a good SUV in China. So really, not that pricey.

I'm more likely to suspect bots. But realistically, I think it'll end up around 10-15 mil yen.

I wonder if people started retracting bids or something? For a while I thought those high bids were legit, especially if organizations were involved. A lot of the high bids stayed there for over an hour. Guess bots were involved?