KatjaThera

Practice videos from shows maybe not... but a media day, with just him allowing media to film him while doing general training, though without actually revealing anything program or layout wise, could happen lol But since they even had Shoma have a media day this year, I don't know if even Yuzu could get away without one...

We sort of have a date lol When do the Russian test skates start? Depending on that, I'm voting actually for 4th-5th...

Actually, I would guess it might be next week. Possibly Tuesday and Wednesday like last year, but they'll show a bigger coverage on Saturday. It was the same last year, I think. ETA: the show is a weekly show, IIRC, so of course, they'll only cover it then. But media day itself will probably during the week. (Especially if Russian test skates are also around then?)

I think he's also said that it's hard to breathe during that - and Ina Bauer, too, I think? Plus, I think it's also some pressure on the ankle, when he's pulling the leg up - which was my guess as to why he left it out at Olys. I want him to do it only for as long as he's comfortable doing it, to be honest...

I liked the butt spin in Oly SP, with the arm behind the back. It suddenly looked more elegant. There's a variation of upright spin Shoma does that I like (or at least I think it's upright spin), but if Yuzu did that, it'd seem like he's copying, so, nope. I actually do like the Biellmann, but not if it hurts him >_< I'd also vote for the traveling sit spin - the one in White Legend is so awesome! - and layback spin. And long Ina Bauers, as well as long hydroblades (not tiny ones like Dory). But I'm pretty sure no matter what he does, I'll love lol

Oh, thank you for this. For the GP events, it usually appeared in the Announcement pdf, but for these two, it doesn't appear there, so it had me confused. Didn't cross my mind to search elsewhere, since it seemed logical all the info would be in that one official-looking document... e.g., 4CC's one I'm not 100% sure, but I thought it was 5 million from JOC and 5 million from JSF? But yes, overall, 10 million that he donated entirely. I expect them all to have prize money, as common courtesy, but it's not always listed in the Announcement pdf. There's no mention of prize money in the documents for ACI last year or this year, and like I said, not for 4CC or Worlds either, although as kelly pointed out, they are mentioned in articles on the isu website for the latter two. Maybe if I search for ACI, I'll find it for that, too...

Yuzuru "Oak Tree" Hanyu...

Personally, I'm a bit biased, because I absolutely love Tessa & Scott's Tango de Roxanne... (and also, as a newer fan, I haven't had the chance to get that sick of warhorses)

I'm really late here, but since I happened to be checking various threads here, I remember reading Yuzu - not very seriously - saying how when he was a kid he wore a helmet because he used to fall and hit his head a lot and had lost consciousness (don't remember if just once or more times). I'll try to find the source when I get home, but it was an interview early in his career, I think. Hopefully it's the same incident as here, and there weren't others. Of course, not every head injury equals concussion, also I think losing consciousness doesn't necessarily mean it was a concussion, but yeah, I guess I'd be surprised if he's never had any. >_<

LOL that's cute, I hadn't noticed that before. It does seem normal to me that there would be a prize, even if the sum is really small (it's still better than nothing). And I guess for smaller competitions there might be donations like this, so it's hard to announce from the beginning if there's any prize money. (I'll check, out of curiosity, if there's anything about prize money for this competition.) But I'm more intrigued about the big competitions. Worlds, 4CC, I admit I didn't check Europeans. If a GPF Gold is worth 25,000USD, a Worlds Gold, for example, should surely be more? And for the Olympics, is it normal and no discipline gets prize money (aside from those coming from their own country)? I have no idea, actually... Never had an interest before ^_^; ETA: Quicker than I thought. Yes, it was mentioned in the announcement

OMG, I want this... I ended up buying the Pyeongchang stamps in Sendai, after the parade... While walking through the JR Station I happened to pass by a post office in there and there were two men outside trying to lure fans with Yuzu stamps... and I willingly let myself lured lol But this looks great, especially with postcards and frame!

I'm not sure if this is the best place to start this topic, but I was just looking through Announcements for ISU FS events and I saw only the Grand Prix Events mention prize money. Does that mean the other competitions don't have any prize money? I had already noticed nothing of the sort for the Olympics (aside from each federation/Olympic committee having its own prizes, I guess), but now I saw that neither 4CC, nor Worlds had it either, last year. I know money is one of the big issues in figure skating, because everything is so expensive. But I was under the impression that even though the sums were small, there was prize money for all competitions. So now I'm really surprised... What do we know about money skaters earn through skating?

Hmm thinking about what makes something a sport to me, I think anything that requires a higher level of physical fitness than is required for average, day to day life, has the potential to be a sport, to me. I'm not entirely sure about the definition of sport that the IOC has for example or why things like wife carrying or car pulling aren't sports, even though there are competitions for it. (I think one requirement is that there have to be enough people doing it and also there have to be formal request for a sport to be included in the Olympics. But no real idea). Going by that personal definition, I can't argue Ice Dance is not a sport, when looking at the level of physical fitness that ice dancers have. The guys, but also the ladies. It's definitely not something some regular person walking down the street can do. Admittedly, the same can be said about ballet and dance and so on. But as long as those are the requirements, I will respect them just like all other athletes. (Then again, I'm an F1 fan and consider F1 drivers to be athletes, simply because of the level of fitness required to withstand the G forces that occur in the cars, so maybe my opinion is skewed lol) That said, I did watch ice dance live at NHK last year and I had no idea why each pair got the scores they did. All I knew was that when Scott and Tessa took the ice, they were on a completely different level. Though I'm not sure it had much to do with the technicality of what they were doing, but they were so in sync and had so much chemistry and passion and spectacular moments, it was impossible not to like them. (And I actually was far from a fan before that.) So my own judging of the ice dancing I saw had little to do with technical stuff and more to do with general impression. Anyway, sport or no sport, what makes figure skating, as a whole, really great and special to me, is that you have these people do incredibly difficult things - that most normal people would probably break their necks if they tried without the years of preparation - but make them look much easier than they are and, even more so, make it look beautiful, also adding music and beautiful costumes - and I think that's what disguises it and makes people think if it looks easy and pretty, then it must be easy and frivolous, hence it's not a sport; I'd like each person claiming it's not a sport to take on any of these skaters in any regular athletic activity and I'm quite sure they'd have no chance of beating them - and not only that, but they do it while balancing on thin bits of - sharp! - metal on slippery ice (that's also why, when someone said ballet dancers don't have the advantage of picking up speed when doing jumps, that's true, but they also don't have to land on a thin blade of metal, that can easily slip on the ice, at the slightest tilt the wrong way; so, IMO, each discipline has its own difficulties). It boggles the mind that there are people who don't find this impressive...

No problem It worked now (Enjoying the bigger one while I can, then LOL)

From what I remember reading, it was actually revealed by JSF that he was injured after Nationals and was late in going back to Toronto. However, the narative going into Worlds was that he had healed. I think even Brian said in an interview that Yuzu had been injured, but was ok going into Worlds. And the fact that 4T was the problem was known, so they had decided to replace it with 4S where possible (though I think Yuzu switched back in the end? Or at least spent one of the practices jumping a lot of 4Ts. I don't remember exactly, but reading was, to me, very indicative of how not calm he was then). Whether Brian knew how injured Yuzu actually was or not, I don't know. I don't think Brian ever said, but I tend to think Yuzu played it down. Boston was a mess on many levels, but I think it was also a very good lesson for all of them. A painful, but good one. Who knows if last season would have gone like that if not for the lessons learned from Boston. But anyway, back to 4CC 2016, I do think it was known to JSF that Yuzu was injured then, even if not the full extent and his main goal was Worlds, so it made sense to skip. ETA: I believe, theoretically, all skaters have a choice to refuse, however in Japan, refusing to do an assignment is almost unheard of. So, once assigned, I believe they themselves might feel they need a really good reason to refuse. On the other hand, it also makes little sense to send one's top skater to a competition that might tire them out before a bigger one. So generally, I think 4CC is where the not top skaters go. Exceptions are probably made when the competition isn't too strong, so it's an easy win/podium that can be a boost as far as reputation and maybe even confidence go.

In that case... Hi, Yuzu! Don't be shy, we'll be happy to help! Even to point out mistakes, if you like!

I REALLY really doubt that is the case at this point. His English just doesn't seem to be up to that level just yet. But maybe he should visit it, it could be good motivation to improve his English, so he can join in XD I also doubt you'd be that opposed, but I think it'd actually be fun... I wonder how fired up he'd be lol

He knows he has fans all over the world and fans who watch online - I still remember him commenting about that, was it at Worlds 2017? Or somewhere else? - and I think it would have been hard for him to miss the Planet Hanyu banner that was behind Brian virtually the entire Rostelecom Cup last year. But whether he did come here to browse, I don't know. I guess it depends how comfortable he is with it. Personally I think he probably has, but he might find the sheer amount of English overwhelming - the same way many of us find long Japanese texts overwhelming with the sheer amount of kanji lol. If you actually put in a bit of effort, it's not that hard, but at first sight, it can be a bit of a "Err, no, thanks, I'll pass!" lol I also doubt he'd spend too much time here. If anything, I think he might be more interested in more objective opinions on him and the sport than actual fan forums. While it's nicely supportive, I'm sure it can get a little too much to keep seeing people gushing over you. IF he's confident enough in his English, he might actually be more interested in the General Skating Chat thread and other threads there than this one. Just IMO. He does seem like someone who'd be interested in hearing what others have to say about the sport and maybe even debate on it himself - though I doubt he, at this point, would actually join in the debates, anonymously, or other wise.

I was just trying to change my signature now - just replace the gif with another one, from the gif thread - but no matter what I do, I get errors. Even just clicking save on the existing signature gives the same errors. On top there is this: Then below, And that's for each image, including the badges and the gif - both the current one and the one I wanted to replace it with. I'm guessing this might be a new issue?

I watched figure skating occasionally since I was a kid, and for a while I actually watched men's competition, although I don't really remember much. I remember liking Yagudin over Plushenko and I'm pretty sure I liked Stephane, though mostly because he was hot. The skating never really did anything for me. I did become curious about FS again after I heard even my classmates in Japanese class hyping up Yuri on Ice, but even that, while cool, wasn't really anything that special, to me. When that curiosity combined with even my teacher being a Yuzu fan and incidentally finding out there would be a competition broadcasted on Eurosport, I watched. It was GPF 2016 and I remember seeing Shoma and Nathan first and thinking they were pretty cool. But then Yuzu came and the reaction was an instant: "This! This is what I wanted to see in men's figure skating!" He was everything I never even knew I wanted to see to really get into figure skating. Even with the mistakes then - or perhaps because of them - he was perfect. Then finding out everything else just added to it. Now, there's something I don't usually like and that's people who are too good. Too perfect. At first, whenever I saw Yuzu interviews, everything he said was everything I expected him to say. Everything seemed so by the book it was borderline annoying. But in time I learned that's just who he is. And that it's all genuine. He's not just saying the things he knows people expect to hear. He actually means the things he says. And he also says a lot of other things. By now I think one of his charms is that he seems so very perfect from so many points of view, yet he is also very real and very human. He's never hidden the human side. I can't imagine anyone could ever say he's a robot. He is human, he makes mistakes, he shows a lot of feeling, he's shown his weakness and he's been very honest and genuine about his not so great days and yet he is the one closest to perfection in figure skating and he is perfectly kind and polite and incredibly aware of everything and everyone and so very grounded, despite his quite sheltered life. He is both perfection and humanity in one and I think it's impossible not to be drawn to that.

JSF give the assignments and I think it's possible to refuse, with a good reason. I'm not sure it's possible to refuse just because he doesn't want to go or it's too much of a pain (traveling from Toronto would be a bit of a pain). I think he wouldn't refuse if he were assigned, but they might prefer to give it to Shoma. (Though Nathan will probably go as well, so Shoma's chances of winning are a bit smaller...)

4CC assignments are announced together with the Worlds ones, after Japan Nationals. So after/around Christmas... I don't think they'll announce it earlier, since it's not really Yuzu's choice, but JSF's (officially, at least)

I think 24HTV coverage will continue at least today if not for a few days more, so I'd be a bit surprised if he released any info to trump that. I think he'll let 24HTV have the spotlight at least, before announcing anything that could overshadow that - since news would have to cover new programs and media day or whatever else and that'd leave less time for 24HTV coverage... But the sooner we get program news, the happier I am, so... fingers crossed I'm wrong lol

I could be wrong and it'll be SP news - like I said, Japanese fans seem to be getting excited, too, and technically, they should know better - but I think it's better to have low expectations and be pleasantly surprised ^_^

I think N stands for News since the program is news every. And Yuzu might just be the highlight of the hour. It's a regular news program, just aside from regular news, they often have a special report, too. Last year,a day or two after 24H TV, they showed more footage, where Yuzu talked a tad more about his asthma and they actually showed the kid skating Mission Impossible and Yuzu watching him - that wasn't in the original broadcast. I'm guessing they'll show more from this year, too, that wasn't broadcasted. Whether it'll be this or not, no idea. Or maybe he decided to screw media day and did his new SP at Ice Rink Sendai especially for those special guests. (But I don't know if that'd be the smartest media move on his part, since even if this is a charity show, it'd be best not to show that kind of favoritism, I think...)