Xen

From US media? o_O I didn't know they were Yuzu fans based on the stuff US media was throwing out this season so far. (question, is this hacked, or did Nate piss them off for something? )

Um, today while checking up Jeffery Buttle's wikipedia article, it says he had 2 programs for the 08/09 season that apparently he never skated because he announced his retirement in Sept 2008, right before the start of competition. The pieces he chose were: 1) SP -Ryuichi Sakamoto's MAY in the backyard: https://youtu.be/c99djvL_4Xg 2) LP-Gerald Finzi's Eclogue: https://youtu.be/EkQbzZgwfl0 So, would it not be interesting to see Yuzu skate to 2 pieces that his own choreographer never brought to the public eye? Would Jeffery Buttle be okay with it? How would some of the music pieces that JButt skate to work with Yuzu? They both were of the same approximate height, similar slender builds, and light agile feet. I'm not sure how the first piece from Sakamoto would work, but it does seem to have some blues and Jazz components. I personally don't really feel this music, but who knows. Eclogue feels very different from all of Yuzu's competitive programs-the melodic flow is soft, possibly even more challenging to express than even H&L? Last but not least, some part of me wants to see Yuzu skate to "Sing Sing Sing" again. I was looking up Buttle's 2006 SP to the same song, and can't help but wonder, if Buttle could choreograph for Yuzu a SP to that same song, what type of insane, but fun footwork would we get? For reference, Buttle's Sing Sing Sing: https://youtu.be/bHUmNqaOAoM

Well it'll be Chinese New Year's for me, I need that much caffeine to cope with relatives. And I just realized I might be cheering for Yuzu, probably on a working day afternoon, from my office desk at work, to a nearly full room. I foresee losing this challenge to my discipline.

What about us caffeine people?

Yata....thanks for the reminder. We need to program the pooh droids to do extra duty soon, and dig enough irrigation ditches. In 10 days, we need to prepare for a giant massive flash flood. Speaking of floods, since we're such dry cacti, would the sudden onslaught of water kill us? o_O

I wonder if it's a cultural thing too. Living in East Asia, I've noticed that there is a different attitude towards "cute things" between the older guys (born before 1990) and the younger guys closer to Yuzu's age. I work with a nearly all-male team and notice that with the guys around the 25 and under age range (1990 and later), they have a lot more plushies and anime figurines on their desks. Some have very kawaii/moe seat and back cushions in their chairs. There's next to no disdain for it-on the contrary it's the norm. So my office, with a team of about 40+ guys, chances are that totoro plushy belongs to a 25 year old male, not one of the females on the team. A couple even have very moe humidifiers on their desks.

Extra fans for an extra space kitten. Seriously the talents of the Yuzu fans are something, wonder if other stan-groups are jealous yet?

Um, so I went back and did my excel calculations for the men's Sp from Helsinki and this is what I got. Hope everyone is okay with no charts? Helsinki SP scores as % earned: 1. Yuzuru Hanyu: Actual TES: 52.04. Perfect TES: 65.4 TES%: 79.63% PCS%: 94.75% NOTE: The fact he missed the 4S3T combo was absolutely devastating. The base of that combo alone was 14.8. Without factoring in GOEs and PCs candies he could have gained, he would have hit 107 just by hitting that combo clean (TES would have jumped to 60.34). If he went clean in the SP, we might have seen a score above 110-giving him a normal GOE of 2.43 for that combo and a PCS boost of just 1 point, he would have hit over 111 in the SP. 2. Shoma Uno: Actual TES: 59.16 Perfect TES: 65.45 TES%: 90% PCS%: 91.4% 3. Boyang Jin: Actual TES: 57.65 Perfect TES: 67.23 TES%: 86% PCS: 81.98% NOTES: hmm..StSq3 hurt him, and the GOE on the 4T plus the PCs was a bit puzzling. However, I'm not sure whether or not to call his movements before the 4T steps. If they are steps, then his scores stay the same, if not then...he drops another 4 points and closer to Kolyada. 4. Nathen Chen: Actual TES: 55.22 Perfect TES: 67.15 TES%: 82.23% PCS%: 86.22 If we actually followed rules, and gave the -GOE for no steps, he would be lower by another 3 points, and closer to Kolyada for the SP scores 5. Patrick Chan: Actual TES: 54.11 Perfect TES: 57.6 TES%: 93.94 PCS%: 96.04% 6. Javier Fernandez: Actual TES: 60.79 Perfect TES: 63.35 TES%: 95.96% PCS%: 96.52 I then went ahead and tried to see what would happen if we actually applied the flat -3 GOE if no steps preceeding the solo jump rule were actually applied. In this case, I went ahead and picked on Nathan Chen, because he does have one of the highest, if not the highest BV in the SP among the men. For this calculation, I picked on his Skate America 2017 SP: Layout: 4Lz3T FSSp3 CCSp4// 4F 3A StSq4 CCoSp4 Total TES: 59.56 (had a -1 GOE on the 3A). PCS: 44.56 If he skated clean but had no steps: his total TES would be only 55.99 (in this case I did not add any positive GOE to his 3A, just gave the base value), because a -3 GOE would translate to a -4 in the final score. This, with his PCS there, would only give about 100.55 SP score, even if skated clean. Now realistically, if he skated clean, his 3A would get GOE candies, and his PCs would also get a boost. So I added another 3 points into that hypothetical (1 into his jump GOE, and 2 to his PCS against my will). But even so, that makes his SP score within 104. A 104 SP score is only slightly higher than Patrick Chan's WC2017 SP performance (where there is only 1 4T combo in the first half), slightly under Shoma's SP score from WC2017, and under what Javi achieved, nevermind a clean Yuzu SP. And this is with a 4F and a 4Lz3T in the SP. So then, I thought well this makes something clear-you need a quad in the SP, even if the -3 GOE flat were applied. The question is, how many quads and what layouts could even rival Nate's in TES points if skated clean? How many quads do I really need? So with the Fisk8 app I went and made a couple hypothetical layouts. The GOEs I used are 2 avg for everything, and +3 GOE for a StSq4, spins being a CCSp4, FSSp4, and CCoSp4 (Pchiddy's WC17 SP spins) 3A// 4T3T 3Lz: 55.26 3A//4T3T 4S: 60.81 4S// 3A 4T3T: 60.61 3A 4S//4T3T: 59.76 So you would need at minimum a 4T and 4S to surpass Nate's SkA 2017 SP (on sterioids)layout. But this also means that for guys like Javi, it's possible to compete. A 4T is probably the minimum needed in the SP, but if the skater can maximize the GOEs and PCs scores (say 45-46 PCs), the point between this layout and Nate's is a lot smaller. While not completely solving everything, I think this could make a difference in the SP, in that it puts pressure on the guys with multiple quads in the long to stay on their feet-a 3 point lead in the Sp can be easily gone with 1 fall. The Jason Browns of the world might not have a shot, but the Patrick Chan's of the FS world do.

So pooh is that floodgate lever. With Pooh-sunshines, daisies, everything's dandy. Without Pooh- Argh, yossha, mitaka! Bring it!

I can settle for something rock-star-ish. What did Buttle unleash into the world?!

Hate to say this to you, but you came to the wrong place for help. We're all waiting for the day that Empress 3A gives birth to 4A, though we're not sure the gender of said baby yet, and are not certain of the expected date. So...wait, is that a paprika? Looks very lovely, I think I'll take a bite... *dies*

Morning commute-checking out the planet while standing on the metro for 40 mins is interesting, though you do get the occasional granny or grandpa checking out your phone over your shoulder.

I think Yuzu might actually be the same-maybe the quads will come out a bit faster, but you can't really get rid of musicality. He has fairly "extra" views on figure skating, so the final product might not be that different from what we have today. As for the second part. Boyang might be the same still-him and his team always struck me as very "my pace" and China never really pushed FS or any of the single's discipline that much. So he would be free to do as he wished. For Shoma, I think he would lean a bit more as an artistic skater, more SS and TR, not as huge a rush for quads. Actually I think in such a world, Shoma would be No. 1 right now. As for Nathan, maybe more artistry, but he'd still do the quads, just not pushing them out as fast, but he always came off to me as a more "technical" guy.

Considering that Yuzu had started trying 4Lz since 2014, I think he always had his own agenda of how much he wanted to push the technical boundary-something that I don't think is the case for either Chan or Javi. He might have thrown out the 4Lz in competition anyways, even without Jin or Nate, he would have brought it out sooner or later. Just that with Jin and Nate both doing 4Lz, being such a visual guy, Yuzu got a stronger image/inspiration that might have sped up his 4Lz acquisition.

That's what worries me the most about a lot of the young skaters these days. I recall watching Nate at Nationals last year, and a commentator saying "He was injured, but rather than decreasing quads, he added more quads." One off-season and whoosh, everything but the 4A. Now, I would assume Nate and his team has been at it for a while, because I don't think you can go from 4T to everything but 4A in just 3-4 months. At least not competition ready. And even then, if you can't jump from most positions, that's why your transitions and steps before jumps suffer, that's why the landing isn't always stable-because the fundamentals of the jump are not that stable yet.

Hmm...my rink is weird so I'll share this. One day we tried to see if we could pull into a bielman if someone pulled up our legs for us, and we only needed to hold it. My impression from trying that myself: - Shoulder strength and flexibility-need a lot of that to get the twisting done correctly. My shoulder felt the most strain - Upper back flexibility and strength- the more you have, the less strain on your shoulders, I'm not sure fat here does anything for you, since strength to hold your upper back up is more important - Hip/thigh strength- more than flexibility, I recall strength was an issue, because otherwise my leg wanted to go down, which made my shoulders work harder. I'm not sure if Fat is as important. Mao Asada had nice biellmans too, and she didn't have that much body fat either.

Think he said he liked berries in general, so Xylitol made berry flavored gum I guess. I don't recall berry flavored gum before. (wow his sponsors love him-then again, this will sell really well.)

He seems to be an efficiency freak, so he's probably got a system to study effectively for everything. I wonder if his english wasn't good due to him and his memorization issues. Most of the english courses I see in China focus on rote memorizing vocab over everything else, which probably does not work for him. A more systemic way of teaching language would be beneficial for him (maybe grammer focused?) since he's pretty good at logical/systemic subjects like math. Or one that's very "listening" based-put his hearing/ears to use.

Well would video analysis persuade this poster? There are 2 posts on Perform Live's blog: Yuzu's 4 Lz (which also has Nate's): http://perform-live.com/blog/video-analysis-of-figure-skating/231-quad-lutz-what-else.html Shoma's 4 Flip: http://perform-live.com/blog/video-analysis-of-figure-skating/164-how-to-do-a-quad-flip-by-shoma-uno-japan.html Nevermind height and distance etc, that all contribute to airtime. If Shoma's generating that much more absolute height than Yuzu, they need to explain why Shoma's airtime is significantly less than Yuzu's, and closer to Nate's airtime for the 2016 4Lz (roughly 0.60 seconds). And if Yuzu is generating so much more airtime, despite having significantly smaller jumps-other than something being wrong with the logic, I guess Yuzu just has such great technique that it allows him to defy gravity or something. (Sorry, not a physics major, apologies if I get this wrong.) Even if we compare jump height to skater height for perform live's data- Yuzu's 4Lz at 69 cm, is about 40% of his height of 172 cm. Shoma's 53 cm, while good for his height, is about 33% relative to his height. Meanwhile Boyang, based on the data Perform live uses, is clocking in at about 38% of his actual height (170 cm). From a skating perspective, I'm trying to remember where, but I recall hearing somewhere that more explosive jumpers tend to pre-rotate less. And too much prerotation tends to have a negative effect on jumps, since you don't get the full "pole-vault" effect for toe jumps. For more explosive jumpers, it is the lutz jump that is favored since it permits little to no pre-rotation. Edit: I went and checked that specific poster's blog, and well.....<---the more in depth explanation made me do that.

But didn't he have good grades despite his schedule? Wonder if he has a time turner, not sure how he fits everything in 24 hours.

Fan accounts=official accounts=possibility that my quad ladies, salarymen quads and potentially sengoku quads will become official?! Uh...I guess I better get the official portraits done at some point.

Forgive me for I have sinned! I can't help myself when maths is brought up. But in all seriousness, I also recall reading an article before that says quints might not be physically possible: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-the-quintuple-jump-in-figure-skating-physically-possible/

A game? For children? Do said children get rewards for pointing out and correcting errors? Are there different levels of rewards given depending on the type of error spotted (obvious basic knowledge vs in-depth knowledge)? Maybe that ramen is the bestest ramen in the world-hmm, how to make spanish ramen.

Amazed this professor has the courage to publish his data in a newspaper in asia. Pretty sure physics is considered a mandatory subject in middle school (at least in China it is). I give up with this news article already...Yuzu just needs to publish his own math notes and call it a day. Now mathematically, if Yuzu can maintain the airtime of his lutz (roughly 0.8 secs) , at 5.3 rotations per second in the air he can get a 4A (4.24 rotations), and if he goes up to 5.7 rotations per second he could theoretically do a quint (4.56 rotations in air). Considering that russian blog's stats, Yuzu might be able to pull off 4A since 5.3 is pretty much his RPS speed for 4Lo and 4S. Quints might be harder, since the only guy who rotates that fast so far is Nathan and maybe Boyang-and given airtime, Boyang might actually win due to the height and distance of his toe jumps. Hmm. Okay, don't kill me, please.

I want to see Yuzu skate to swan lake some time. This season, with all the swans floating around in the ladies, the only real proper "swan" seem to be an EX in the men's. T_T