Xen

So apparently.....it's now that arm movements with quality cross overs count as transitions, judges can also look at official practice for PCS scoring. Well: 1) I guess everyone better wear their competition costumes at official practice; 2) More swan lakes, or bird themed stuff incoming 3) Foresee fanwars about my skater's crossovers vs your skater's crossovers. Never will have crossovers become so critical in the War for PCSTM Welp, guess all those fan made videos showing what is good transitions, crossover use ratio etc are now pointless, cause hey, they're all transitions now. I hope at least judges, who have a brain, and some senses, will at least not follow this specific stupid guideline and still give appropriate scores for complexity. I don't mind judges following official practice, but many skaters don't do well at practice, and it would be bad to say because X skater fell in practice, they are not so technically sound, to the degree it negatively affects their scores significantly.

It's already at 1.1 Mil Yen.

It's a sad state of affairs. I remember my old days still in the US, learning how to skate, when Michelle Kwan and Sasha Cohen were dominant, and coaches used to fix all our issues, and asked us to blend artistry and technique. Oh USFSA, how far you have fallen....and in less than 20 years even.

I'm hearing stuff on twitter regarding the ISU conference and rules changes, and quality cross overs, and windmill dramatic arms to the skies are now considered transtions. I'm dreaming right? Well, if I go really quiet next season, or have a shorter fuse than normal...you all know why now.

It's over 403K now, I wonder if it'll hit over 900K at the end?

My thoughts exactly, he really takes care of his boots. My boots after 3 months look more worn than this. (I'm sorry my dear boots, I've mistreated you).

Well I'm only going to consider changing my blade+boot after I hit axels. =) Might be a year, cause my coach has me working on crossovers (she said the underpush was too weak for my level)-yep, when you can jump flips but you get demoted back to crossovers practice. It depends...rinkmate said it took him 2 weeks to fully adjust for his new gold stars, but he was back to jumping axels within 4 hours of getting his new blades. So who knows...according to him, he can't quite figure out the change foot to backspin yet, but all other spins are easier, footwork is funny but faster (he's having issues with the dovetail blades), and his jumps have increased. I was trying to get him to try pattern99's, but he declined to be an even more obvious fanyu, and said something about how to shorter blade scares him a bit.

Eh, not really. Everyone has a different adjustment rate and period. I did adjust, after about a week, but that's what I consider slow? And even Cor-Aces and Pattern99 are different. Cornationa aces are 7" and cross cut, while Pattern is 8" and straight toe. But I recall from some drawing from Paramount blades, that they both have 3 rocker segments (2 for spins/jumps, 1 for basic gliding), whereas Gold star, gold seal, MK pro (most MK blades actually), just have 2 rocker sections (1 for spins/jumps, 1 for gliding). http://www.askmredge.com/blog/2013/03/blade-radius-rocker-explained/ Rinkmate and I were comparing spinning between his MK pros and my cor aces, and it seems for cor ace I had to be more precise. Also, he always said he was closer to the toepicks when he centers, while I was further back (more ball of foot than him).

Well I started skating on giant straight toe picks and flat 8" rocker blades, and after many years of not skating, come back to find I have to skate on 7 inch rockers with cross cut picks. That was an adjustment period, and I hated the feeling of toe jumps because they never felt...solid. I frankly, can't wait to graduate out of cross-cut toepicks and 7 inch rockers. Rinkmate of mine just got his Edea Ice Flys and Gold Star Revs in Jan. He said it took him about 2 weeks to adjust to the blades, and he still hasn't fully regaind his forward upright change foot to backspin combo back yet. He said something about the rocker and toepick is making it harder for him to hit the backspin. @asahi: thanks for the info. So for me I guess Pattern99's it is. I'm currently on Cornation Aces, so I guess the adjustment won't be that severe. My rinkmate dislikes the profile of my cornation aces, it just looks too flat to him. Apparently I also center my spins a bit differently than him, supposedly I'm a bit lower on my foot. He was MK Professional and found the switch to gold star pretty easy.

Wow...nice. Gold seal revs, you need to update us how those feel once you get them mounted. =) You're up to doubles or triples if you're going for Pianos? Also, is there a difference between Pattern 99 and Gold Seals? Not just the stuff we find online, but is one easier for spinning and one for jumping, etc? Like I had one coach here say she prefers the MK gold stars over the Wilson Gold Seal, because the Gold Star spin rocker is even more noticeable, so you get even faster spins. Personally, my dream shoes+blade combo is probably a risport Royal, and a Pattern 99 Rev.

Hi Holina! Let me chirp in and welcome you to the planet too! Yes, from what we've heard TCC is pretty private, and hard to get into I imagine, so the athletes can really concetrate on their practice. Added layer of security and privacy for Yuzu. Autumn Classic is pretty close to Toronto this year I hear, so maybe you can consider going there, depending on the skaters attending. =) It's a really neat little competition, and you do get to run into skaters (other than Yuzu) since it's a small venue, sometimes get photos and autographs from them. Maybe you can join us at 2018 GPF? Also seconding Danibellerika that watching Yuzu (and other skaters) in practice is a pleasure. You get a real sense of how much speed they pick up from just a few simple strokes-the TCC boys and girls have quite extraordinary speed on ice, and gain speed almost effortlessly. By the way, Yuzu and Javi both have very quiet blades-you rarely hear any scratching noise when they land jumps.

guess I am going to retweet you guys.

heard from friends that there is already a bash fest between yuzu fans, takahashi fans and even mao fans due to that award, at least in chinese fandom...for his sake, I hope Yuzu avoids social media for a good long while...

all competitive athletes have a diet of some shape or form. And jumps is more about body and muscle structure, if you notice most of the big jumpers in ladies have very muscular legs.

Losing jumps happens sometimes. There are days where I can center every spin I do, and then next day I'm traveling all over the place as a menace to the public. Did you by any chance start lutzes or work on any other toe jumps? I had a brief period where learning a lutz created issues with my flip (as in I started Lipping), and recovering my flip made me lose my lutz edge (started flutzing).

Think I got ice dance right....and everywhere else, my silver and gold switched (except for the men's).

I'm not sure why but you and Murieleirum are the two my brain drags up when it comes to music. Was it because we were both chatting about Tango for him at some point? (IMO-assassin's tango could work for him) Going through more of Alberto Ingelsia's works right now, there's a really nice piece from The Constant Gardner that I like and a small tango like piece from Hable Con Ella that may work. I'm also trying to find more Japanese composers, though I have a really soft spot for Joe Hisaishi OST for Depatures (Okuribito). But yeah, it does seem now that maybe The Kite Runner OST may work better as SP. The song Suplication from that OST could work, but I think Yuzu said he doesn't like singing in his programs that much. *goes and learns how to splice music now*

@Murieleirum and @SparkleSalad: Question, what do you guys think about Alberto Inglesia music. I stumbled into the OST for The Kite Runner, and somehow wonder if this is music that is suitable for Figure skating, and if its something that Yuzu would consider skating to. If not, are there other skaters who would be suitable for the music? I'm wondering how to splice together the following pieces, either for a SP, or an LP: These two bits have some singing, but not very distracting, and certainly not the level of the lady from Loco: https://youtu.be/cBm0Vw07J0U https://youtu.be/gB6_M7gVUmY Then there's this long piece, that I think some parts would work for the mid section of a long, and definitely for a step sequence: https://youtu.be/TIkap7dEYJk And this one has sections that are good for step sequences: https://youtu.be/NJXneqe3B7U Granted, I don't know how Yuzu would feel about Islamic music (which I like).

Well then we get into ISU finances.... And frankly, there is quite a bit of subjectivity involved in scoring. IE how do you deal with the IN and PE of a program with music you just don't like? Let's not kid ourselves, music that we don't like nor understand will influence how we judge skaters. How do we know the IN and PE is okay? And then, here we have reputation scoring. Let's just say it's a piece of music I'm really sick of...like "RoooAxanne!" Okay, now I don't like the music but it's Yuzu skating to it, I know he has a history of being a pretty good interpreter and performer, so maybe I give him the benefit of the doubt and just shrug it off to myself not liking the music. But as I don't see anything wrong per se, I give him a 9.5 for PE and IN, even though it's probably not the best I've seen from him. Now if I switch this to a skater I'm not aware of, and I don't like this music, I might not give the skater the same benefit of the doubt, and boom, 8.5 or less in IN and PE. See, this is some inbuilt bias, because in the end we're trying to judge something that is subjective and highly influenced by other factors (like even whether or not I like the music), on an objective scale.

The issue is that it's not ISU that selects the judges, they say which countries get to judge, and I believe the country's federations nominate the judges? In which case, its in each country's interest to have judges vote certain ways. Which is why a truly neutral judging panel might need a complete re-working of the entire way judges are selected, and whom the judges owe their allegiance to. I think we rely more on people's conscience than anything really. Someone more familiar with judge selection want to add? I recall hearing this from somewhere, but don't remember where.

http://www.usfsa.org/story?id=91354&type=media According to this, so are Maia and Alex.

Have mercy on the fans...

Yep, they essentially translated the quote of "Efforts may lie but they will not be in vain." But I need to check the Beijing U weibo. But I think there are more eloquent ways to put this, so...c'mon Beijing U.

What if....for every one of us who do well, Yuzu's ankle heals at 10% faster rate?

Other places think he's replacing Jason, since rumor has it Jason is shopping around for coaches.