micaelis

Kurt Browning one time remarked that Yuzu is the only skater he knows who can have the audience totally riveted on him while he's standing out there doing absolutely nothing. Truer words were never spoken.

Actually, Kurt Browning on CBC, who as a four-time world champion probably has experience and knowledge behind him, has on more than one occasion praised Yuzu in his jumps for having a totally relaxed torso, with no tensing and straining into, through, and out of his jumps. He's the one who once remarked that some jumps were made in heaven and Yuzu's just the one to grab them and do them.

Thank you for the info. I imagine NBC is thanking the skating gods that Nathan came up gold every contest this season. This gives them the rationale to tout the big story this Olympics - Will the American Nathan Chen dethrone Yuzuru Hanyu, the reigning king of men's skating? They could hardly have wished for a better scenario. Add to that the suspense of how much on top of his game is Yuzu after the long layover. NBC will be doing trailers about Nathan vs Yuzu all over their program blurbs heading to PC. For us Yuzu fans, though, there is the collateral damage(?) that far more than the normal men's skating audience in North America will be watching men's singles this time around. Yuzu will probably have the biggest TV audience he's ever had this Olympics, at least as far as North America is concerned.

Introducing a new but related topic here - Was the fix put in or is it just the way things worked out? What's at issue? Is it just coincidence that the men's individual events (SP and FS) are placed in the morning in Korea so that the live broadcasts are smack in the prime time hours in the US and Canada (8 PM Eastern time both events)? For us here in North America it's a gift from heaven but I'd like to know who to thank/blame for this because if the fix were in on this, the reason wasn't to give Yuzu maximum exposure, but to give Nathan.

We are in an area that I have some background in and I have to say that I don't think Yuzu required any degree of ballet training even going all the way back to junior competition days. Ballet training can help some skaters, gymnasts and such primarily to give them a sense of how important stylistic elements are in competition. With ballet the fundamentals involve turnout and pointing the toes when the leg is elevated and leading with the toes when moving across the floor. Also the importance given to elements like port de bras (the position of the arms) and for those training seriously in ballet eventually a memory of the vast language of specific moves that comprise the art of ballet. The intent of such basic ballet training is to give the athlete some sense of how the ENTIRE body is involved when moving. Yuzu never has needed that. If you look at the programs he was skating back in pre-TCC days you will see his programs even then are very densely choreographed, meaning that there is hardly a moment in the program where he isn't engaged in some pre-planned movement. Particularly if you look at the sheer drama in some of his earlier programs (R&J1 is the best example as it is the best-choreographed program he skated before Brian came along) you see how even then Yuzu was the complete skater his reputation is built on, even though that completeness needed some polishing. It is very significant that when Yuzu started with Brian and Tracy he was steered away from the jumps and drilled on basic skating skills before they finally got around to the jumps. They did this because they knew from Yuzu's earlier years that Yuzu had the talent to handle highly detailed choreography but that he had to acquire a mindset that treated every detail in a program with the same level of importance. That he has heeded that philosophy through the succeeding years is testament to how well that mindset has become ingrained. It also meant that those choreographers he worked with knew that he was capable of handling a densely detailed program. The results are plain to see in that those records he's set over the years are not only the results of jumps to die for but also spins and steps and those myriad smaller details that have given his programs, when skated cleanly, the aesthetic polish that have made him the superlative skater he has been over these last few years. I'm not sure which other skaters have had some ballet training but on the basis of what they're skating I can see that a number of them would have benefited from a few months in non-intense ballet work. Those who talk about 'artistry' are not seeing the picture for what it really should be, for it's not the specific ballet aesthetic that is at issue but the building up of a sense of how those elements that constitute figure-skating's aesthetic core are of great importance. Basically the ballet is to help the skater develop a sensitivity to skating's artistic elements. Yuzu has never lacked that so he really didn't need it, though if there were some ballet training back whenever it wouldn't have hurt. It just wasn't necessary. I will conclude by saying something I've said in earlier posts, that if Yuzu had a couple more inches in height (you need the height and the strength that goes with it to handle those lifts that are part of a top danseur's required skills - notice that in skating's pairs and dance the men are always very tall and the ladies petite) and had trained in ballet from the age he started training in skating, he would today be a world class dancer because the innate talent he has is the same innate talent that dancers, gymnasts, divers and skaters need to truly succeed, and that is the ability to perform and remember specific patterns of controlled movement, skills that if mastered put them at the top in their field.

A brief addition to my lengthier post dealing with the virtues of participating in the team competition as a means of getting into competition mode. If Yuzu wants the experience he HAS to do the SP because there is no guarantee that Japan would be one of the five teams to advance to the FS. I know there have been some who feel Yuzu needs more experience with Seimei but he can only get that if Japan is one of the chosen five. To rely on Shoma in the SP to boost Japan to the final round is not advisable, particularly since Yuzu has had much more consistent success with Chopin. He's set three records with that program. The only program he's set more with is PW, his Olympic SP, which he set four records with. Thus if Team Japan wants to have a greater chance for Japan to graduate to the FS round Yuzu is the obvious person to skate the SP. Also, if Japan does not advance Yuzu still has had the experience to help him towards a successful competition mentality. So the choice is fairly simple - Skate the team competition for the desired experience, meaning the SP must have Yuzu skating, or go cold turkey into the men's competition. I go for doing the team and ideally both SP and FS (depending there on the rest of Team Japan doing its part).

I wouldn't be surprised if Yuzu was exempted from gym class as he was a world-class athlete engaged in intensive physical training. Considering his training regimen the school's administration was probably doing everything it could to facilitate Yuzu's taking the courses he really needed. As for TCC, it has a short-course (25 meters) swimming pool with a retractable roof so things can be opened up during summer. Had Yuzu wanted he could easily have taken instruction there. Also, I think he would still be able to float even with a very low body-fat ratio. But somebody who is fully accredited in sports physiology would be able to provide a definitive answer there. I think an element that might account for his lack of swim training is quite simply fear of the water. I know that was what I had to deal with when I was in high school and it was only by sheer will-power that in my senior year I was able to swim (dog-paddle, which means your head doesn't go under the water) the length of the pool. My classmates there, who were aware of the many years I had been dealing with the problem, actually applauded me, recognizing how I had at last been able to cope with my fear. The fear wasn't gone. It was simply answered by a lifelong avoidance of swimming pools and other bodies of water. Whether that's the situation I do not know and I doubt there will be any official word concerning the issue. The world has more important things to worry about where Yuzu is concerned.

To team or not to team, that is the question. I've been thinking about this and reading all the speculation in this thread and I've finally decided that in my mind Yuzu should do the team event. The reason I'm now thinking so is that Yuzu will get additional official practice in doing the team event. I would think that getting on the ice in the midst of others who are just about to compete with you is one of the major factors in getting into competitive mode. Having those other contestants there is far different from practicing in the seclusion of one's training facility even if one has other skaters present. In an official practice Yuzu will be dealing with the presence of those he's out to defeat and the ambience there is totally unlike practice at home. So much of the discussion here has been on the potential benefits of getting into competitive mode by skating the team event or getting additional training time by forgoing the team competition. By getting that official practice time it's kind of like getting into a tub of hot water where one eases oneself down into the water. The official practice comprises that easing down into the water. Another factor that has to me great significance is there is a great deal of difference between training and practice. Training is an overall approach to all the things one has to do as a skater. Practice is the working on a specific program. For Yuzu training is what he's doing right now in Toronto, working to recover the skills he had before the fall and also doing some practices of his programs. Once Canada is left behind, Yuzu's whole focus should be exclusively on practice and there's nothing that makes one feel more like one's in a competition than an 'official practice'. By skating the team event Yuzu would be getting the whole competitive experience, and perhaps twice if he does both SP and FS. We should not forget that the SP and the FS are completely separate events here. There is no combined score so it would actually be for Yuzu like two separate competitions. I think if we are just thinking about what Yuzu is doing in those seven minutes he's on the ice gathering points, it would be difficult doing the singles competition cold turkey. Doing the team event with its formal practice times is the kind of total immersion Yuzu needs to get mentally into competition mode. And having the totality of the team experience, both practice and skate, is precisely what Yuzu needs to psyche himself for those seven minutes when he's out pursuing the dream he's been nurturing these past four years.

I have to agree with you here and perhaps I misrepresented what I was trying to say. 'Dumbing down' was not the term I should have used. What I meant was that Yuzu should have had emphasized to him that it wasn't as important to match quad for quad as to concentrate on the whole program, every aspect of it. I remember some years ago when Brian was telling him to trust his training. I think here Yuzu has to be told to trust the program he initially set forth. If he is as mindful of all the varying elements that make up his program, remembers how he and his choreographer worked out every detail, particularly putting every detail in the perspective of how and what Yuzu was trying to communicate and relating all those details to the music, then things will go fine. Perfection should be his goal, not winning. If he achieves perfection he wins because over the years he has learned that his notion of perfection is superior to that of any other skater. That insight is where his greatness and his genius resides. But part of achieving that perfection is knowing how much you can do and aiming for that 'how much', not trying to alter things if one momentarily feels challenged by what some other skater has done. Yuzu in his mind wants to be the absolute champion, but Yuzu's Achilles heel is that he can at times lose that vision of the absolute champion and become distracted when he focuses on trivial details. That, I feel is the root of Yuzu's inconsistency. When he loses sight of the total picture he loses competitions. When the total picture is programmed into his every step, his every spin, his every jump, his every gesture, when he goes with the 'programming', then he wins. It's a matter of focus and when Yuzu is focused nobody can beat him. He just has to remember that when he takes to the ice.

Brian's had years with Yuzu to hone his skills for dealing with the media, although I'm sure he had no real idea when he first took on coaching Yuzu the sheer phenomenon Yuzu would become, since there is no skater in history who has had such a wide and fierce following as Yuzu has had. Just look at the tonnage that has to be removed from the ice after each Yuzu skate. In an earlier post I coined the term 'Poohvalanche' to describe what follows each time Yuzu takes to the ice (in formal competition) and I think it's interesting to see the changing ratio of Poohs to bouquets over the years. Poohs now definitely constitute the majority of what descends onto the ice at the completion of Yuzu's skates. Be that as it may, Brian's skills have definitely been challenged this season. Things started off well enough with ACI (a disappointing silver in the end but also a new SP record), were somewhat disappointing in Moscow and then came the fall. Even there, though, Brian had his experience with the 2014 collision in Shanghai to guide him what to do this time around. The new element here, though, was the very long time Yuzu was not only out of competition but off the ice. Essentially Yuzu is starting a new season in PC and I think for Brian the challenge here is to keep Yuzu from having his usual early season jitters this time around. What's going on here, I feel, is much more psychological than physical. Brian has to get Yuzu to the point where, had the season not been interrupted, Yuzu would be peaking. That, I think, constitutes the greatest challenge Brian has ever had as a coach. How has he gone about doing this? I'm not sure, but perhaps he might have had some mock competitions between Yuzu and Javi, though that would have been very risky, not so much for Yuzu's sake but for Javi's. Javi so far has had a fairly successful season, with some disappointments in the GP series but with a resounding win at Europeans (for the sixth straight time). How else to have Yuzu cycle through an imaginary season to get himself not only into competitive mode but peaking mode? I cannot say. I'm sure that Yuzu and his team now know who the major challengers will be in PC. At the season's beginning I thought Shoma would be the greatest danger for a repeat gold for Yuzu, but now I feel strongly it's going to be Nathan, who has had a very good season this year and can fairly be seen as the dominant men's skater this time around. I only hope that Nathan has peaked too soon, but it's very likely his coach has seen the same danger, thus explaining Nathan's non-appearance at FCC. He wants Nathan's focus to be entirely on PC. Perhaps Brian has basically concluded that there is no contrivance he could utilize to get Yuzu in psychological shape for what's coming up. I know one issue he's having to deal with must be Yuzu's desire to load his FS with quads, since Nathan's got five quads in his FS. Brian should simply point out (probably repeatedly) the SP Yuzu skated at ACI, where because of some knee issues then he 'dumbed down' his program yet still managed to set a new SP record, the point here being that Yuzu should not be blinded by the number of quads. As Johnny Weir pointed out one time, with Yuzu it's 'not just the quads but the quality of the quads' Yuzu performs. The thing is, as Brian probably points out, Yuzu's competitive edge is in the 'completeness' of his skating skills and that's probably the argument Brian is using to have Yuzu go easy on the quads and simply work for perfection in every aspect of his performance. That's what has consistently worked for him in the past. Just look at the records Yuzu just keeps setting and resetting. It's not just the quads that are getting those records and everyone should recognize that the last time anybody else has broken a Yuzu-set record was way back in 2013 when Patrick broke Yuzu's record in the SP, but only to have Yuzu reclaim the record two weeks later. Ever since then it's been Yuzu's name only in the record books. He owns the record books and he does so because he has consistently high PCS scores and high GOEs on the spins, the step sequences and all the other elements that make for high TES scores. There's where Yuzu's advantage is and that's what Brian has to do to get Yuzu ready to strut his stuff in PC. I think however the best way to get Yuzu to skate at peak ability come PC is to have Yuzu skate against himself and not some other competitor. As one of the British Eurosport commentators remarked when Yuzu was in the process of breaking for the second time in two weeks the SP, FS and combined records, 'it's no longer the competition but the program itself' that was driving Yuzu onward. Johnny Weir on another occasion remarked about Yuzu, 'he's skating against himself - What's harder than that?' Nothing is harder because Yuzu himself is the greatest competitive challenge he'll ever have to face. If Yuzu skates against himself in PC the gold will be his. For Brian the best way to have Yuzu achieve that mental stance is to cocoon him as much as possible from the outside world, the media especially. Yuzu right now is a caterpillar in a cocoon ready to break out and one should remember that a newborn butterfly is always at its most beautiful just after its emergence, when the elements have not yet had a chance to batter it about. The challenge here is to have the Yuzu butterfly emerging on the Olympic ice for all the world to see its unfolding splendors.

I'm not sure there, although it would be possible since what is involved is pelvic flexibility, which we already know Yuzu has. It's a matter of strength training in the thigh to raise the leg into the position required. Ages ago I read an anecdote, (no names were given so it might be apocryphal) where a teen-aged lad involved in intense ballet training was razzed by some fellows at his high school, saying ballet was sissy stuff. He calmly dared any of them to do what he was about to do. He SLOWLY raised one leg in front of him, leg straight, to the point where he was in a full vertical split, then kissed his knee before SLOWLY lowering his leg. According to the account I read he was never teased again. He'd made his point. The point here is that while one might have the genetically-inherited pelvis that allows one to do splits and ballet turnout, to raise and lower the leg in the matter described requires strength-training in the thigh muscles. With thigh muscle development like that ballet student had, he would have been a killer in wrestling, particularly with the flexibility he obviously had also. I think Yuzu would have the ability to grasp his leg rather than his skate but whether he had the muscle strength to do it, with the training necessary to do the vertical split, I would have to think he and his coaches opted for the 'easier' option, figuring that a male skater doing the Bielmann was enough of a statement. I have said in other posts that if Yuzu were a couple inches taller, with his obvious talent for handling very dense and detailed choreography, he could be a world-class ballet-dancer. The talent and the genetic ability is there, plus the requisite sensitivity to music. It would simply be a matter of a different training regimen. When all is said, however, Yuzu's ability to combine and balance the athletic with the aesthetic, and his willingness to adopt moves that are traditionally allocated to the ladies, is probably the major reason he's rated number one in the world.

Actually I think Yuzu's flexibility, particularly in relation to the hips, is not dependent on fat/muscle ratio. It should be noted that in the 'fall heard round the world' last autumn Yuzu fell into a virtually perfect split and there was no mention of problems in his pelvic region. It looks like he has that pelvic variant that enables ballet dancers to have perfect turnout. With that advantage he can do a lot of things other skaters can't do. I will go along on the matter of flexibility in the knees and ankles, although Yuzu would not have achieved what he has and continues to achieve were he not above the norm in flexibility in those joints, despite his leanness there. As for the Bielmann, Johnny Weir once made the remark that the Bielmann actually depends more on flexibility in the shoulders than elsewhere. What I think we have to deal with as far as Yuzu, and indeed other skaters, is that all those jumps are having an impact (pun intended) on the joints of the knees and ankles. You just can't keep bashing them and expect to get away with it. It reminds me of a young man I knew some years back who was involved with the training of special forces in the US Army. He finally had to retire from the military because all the parachute jumps he'd been involved with over the years had wrecked his knees. The same goes for skaters. I think Yuzu is less affected than many other skaters because of the nature of his landings, which are as much about moving horizontally immediately as his blades hit the ice as actually making the landing. The landing, as such, is cushioned somewhat. Much of the impact is deflected by the immediate motion across the ice that is so distinctive in his landings and gains him all those GOEs. We do have to remember that flexibility in the joints is at first a product of heredity and only then increased through special training regimens. Look at gymnasts, particularly the ladies. They have very little body-fat. If we look at Yuzu, what we see is that he has much greater flexibility than other skaters almost everywhere, despite his low body-fat ratio. He's just built better to bend better.

Talking about Bielmann and Donut spins, I've sometimes wondered if it would be possible to go directly from a Bielmann to a Donut or vice versa. It would certainly make an impact and if it was possible for any skater to do it, Yuzu would be the one because of his flexibility. I remember this one video of him doing a really good-looking Bielmann when he was competing in the novice class back when he was just nine years old. This highlights one aspect of Yuzu's skating that is often overlooked when everybody's concentrating on the jumps, and that is Yuzu racks up a lot of points with his spins, which are always complex and centered. There are few out there who can match him on his spins. Going back to the Bielmann and Donut, I really would like Yuzu to attempt a combination spin with those two directly linked. I wonder what the point value might be. If he did it successfully it would certainly rack up some GOEs and some extra points on the PCS side of the scoreboard also.

It might be unintended for his fans but it's almost certainly intended for his opponents. Consider us just collateral damage.

Now that nationals all over are pretty much done I decided go review how those who are viewed as the closest contenders in PC did. LIke the GPF, there were two significant absences, Yuzu and Boyang. On the basis of their performances I have to say right now that I think Nathan is the biggest threat to Yuzu, even if you take into account the score inflation that frequently happens at the nationals (probably the major reason that record scores there are not recognized as official by the ISU). My reasoning is that Nathan's victory at US nationals was a blowout by any definition. More importantly, his combined score of just over 315 points was the only one of the five to hit the 300 mark. Patrick's was the lowest - 272 - and the other three (Mikhail, Shoma and Javi) were in the 280s. It's Nathan's margin over the silver medalist, though, that is most impressive. Nearly 41 points divide them. Nathan's victory there highlights the fact that he has been the most successful of the major skaters this season. Quite simply he hasn't lost any of the four international competitions in which he was entered. In short, hesitate before you criticize US media if they are blowing Nathan's horn. He is as good as they say he is, which for me is rather chastening. Going into the season I was seeing Shoma as Yuzu's principal challenger, and while I still think Shoma poses a significant threat to Yuzu I don't think it is now as great as Nathan's. Boyang remains an enigma since, like Yuzu, he's missed a portion of the season (including Chinese nationals) and I don't know whether he'll be at 4CC or not. At least in 4CC we'll be able to see (maybe) four of the major contenders for medals at PC - Shoma, Boyang, Nathan and Patrick. Javi and Mikhail will be possible entrants at Europeans, although one can't be certain whether Mikhail will skate it or not. Javi will definitely be there, as he's taken the European Championship for the last five years straight. I'm sure he'd like to make it six in a row. In fact, I think Javi's record at Europeans is sufficient to have these years known as the Javier Fernandez years when the history of the European championships are written. His victory at Spanish nationals this year was a foregone conclusion, particularly as there were only three men entered in the men's competition, meaning all three were guaranteed podium places. By and large, then, I feel that heading into PC Nathan must be seen as the skater leading the charge against Yuzu who, despite his long absence this season, must still be seen as the heavy favorite for gold. A lot will be revealed if he participates in the team competition, IF he participates, since I'm not certain he will decide to do so. There are both pluses and minuses on that issue. One certainty we have as PC approaches (it's hard to think it's less than a month away) is that Yuzu's path to gold is not going to be a slam-dunk. Whereas in Sochi his victory was largely a combination of his world-record SP and the fact he made less mistakes in the FS than others, this time around he's going to have to skate better than clean in both programs because right now in Nathan Chen Yuzu is facing a challenger who's been peaking the entire season.

I have mentioned this previously but I think it needs repeating, that while Yuzu was well taught by his parents the restraint he shows in his private life (with the exception of earphones) I feel it also should not be underestimated the impact the 2011 earthquake had on him. He was literally fleeing for his life (at least he felt so threatened) from the ice of his rink when the earthquake hit and then spent three days with his family in an evacuation center. He has mentioned in interviews that he almost quit skating then and for quite a while felt guilty that he was off training and competing when he felt he should be back home helping in the recovery. I really feel that Yuzu probably sees his life as before the quake and after the quake because that was the single most important event in his life that he shares with his family and so many of his countrymen. Also the effect on any individual, particularly one with the depth of feelings Yuzu has, the effect on one when faced with the very real possibility of death, well, that necessarily has a sobering effect. I doubt that Yuzu spends a great deal of time thinking about that episode now, some seven years ago, but if you are ever wondering why Yuzu can be so ebullient at times and also so serious other times but always genuine with no affectations or arrogance, I'd place much of that at the doorstep of the 2011 earthquake.

On the basis of precedent I have to respectfully disagree. The basis of my disagreement - Yuzu's habit of doing above expectations when the big things are on the line - ie, GPF 2014, and World Championships last year. In both cases more than just a competition was on the line. At the GPF Yuzu was entering with his season in tatters due to the collision in Shanghai and its aftermath. At the GPF he was not simply skating to win a competition, he was skating to salvage a season and to retain credibility as the number one male skater in the world. He turned in what I consider his greatest performance ever, even despite the fall he had in that FS. At Helsinki he was again skating to salvage his reputation. He was trailing badly coming out of the SP and if he were to lose there he would start being seen as a skater who didn't have it in him to win the big ones, since that would be three years in a row he'd silvered at Worlds. In short, he was skating to maintain his reputation and not simply to win the title. In the first skate he came in just short of setting a new scoring record for the FS. In the second he actually did set a new FS record. In both cases he not only won the title but reasserted his claim as number one in the world. That is the case here. Because of his long absence from competition his claim on world's number one ranking is very shaky. That is something I'm fairly certain is very, very important to Yuzu. I think Yuzu is determined not only to win at PC but to do it spectacularly, to prove wrong all those who doubt him. There are two possible scenarios I can see playing out here. One is like Helsinki last year where he enters the FS trailing, trailing where he's not even in podium position before the skate starts. He broke his own FS record and made the men's competition last year as one of the most dramatic ever. The second is a replay of GPF 2014, where he did very well in the SP and entered the FS with a comfortable lead and then went on to skate brilliantly, turning in a performance that quite simply was incredible, adding substantially to the margin he had from the SP (winning by some 35 points). Actually, (it just came to mind) there is another possibility also, one which has precedent, one we saw in those two iconic weeks back in 2015, where at the NHK he set records across the board - SP, FS and Combined - records which many assumed would not be easily repeated but which he did just two weeks later at the GPF. Look at that self-satisfied half-smirk on his face as he glides about waiting to take his formal bows. Behind that expression he seems to be saying 'I showed you'. If he were to do that at PC he would put himself in a solid position to be GOAT. I know that what's most important to him is to keep challenging himself. Actually I've begun to think the records he's setting are a means of keeping score on how well his self-challenges are going, since every time he sets a record he's bettering one he himself set. In any case I think he will defy all expectations at PC because more than just an Olympic gold is on the line. It's not just a title he's salvaging, it's not just a season he's salvaging. It's a career he's salvaging. My faith is in Yuzu because whenever his career is on the line he proves all the doubters wrong.

I'm hoping they'll have Pooh ears, Pooh cloaks, Pooh shirts, Pooh anything, making the stands look like a Pooh version of a Star Trek or Star Wars convention. That would be totally demoralizing for the other skaters.

A Brief History of the Poohvalanche They’re lurking in the stands, just waiting for Him to do his skate and then it is time. Time for them to come cascading down to meet the ice and claim it as their own. Hey, World, it’s Pooh Time. It’s time to let Him know just how much we appreciate Him. No, that’s wrong. How much we adore HIM. Yes, it’s Pooh time. Though it wasn’t always like this. There was a time when Pooh wasn’t there, wasn’t there to encourage Him when going out on the ice and wasn’t there to greet Him when leaving the ice to await the judgment of the Gods of the Rink. There was a time when Pooh had yet to make his appearance, was yet to increase his numbers from one competition to another. This is the History of the Poohvalanche. In those first years Pooh is scarce in numbers. He first appears at Yuzuru’s side in the 2011/12 season, making his first appearance on the ice at the short program of the 2011 Nebelhorn Trophy. It is a humble beginning but in the competitions to come and the years to come Pooh would come to reign and rain onto the ice. We next see Pooh on the ice at the 2011 Japanese nationals, and this time there are more than one Pooh gracing the surface of the ice. True, his numbers will increase as competition follows competition, but the pattern is set in that season. The Time of the Pooh is nigh. The next season will grow the tale. Pooh’s numbers are still small as that season begins, but at the GPF we see the first Large Pooh, seeing Pooh on growth hormones. Pooh’s numbers, though, are still limited. But with Pooh at Yuzuru’s side at every kiss and cry scene the message is getting out. Yuzuru loves his Pooh and so Yuzuru’s fans are seeing how they can best reward him after each skate. The word is out. Pooh will prevail. Comes the next season and Pooh is present, though his numbers are yet small. But his presence is consistent. The pattern is being set for Yuzuru’s fans. The greatest sign of their admiration is to cast a Pooh onto the ice. And they will the next season. 2013/14 was the breakout season for Yuzuru the skater. 2014/15 will be the breakout season for the Champions mascot. After the free skate at Yuzuru’s first competition, the Cup of China, we see the first Poohvalanche in history (We also see the disastrous collision and its aftermath – a Yuzuru skating with a large bandage wrapped around his head and a smaller one on his chin). The ice is covered with the many Poohs, some small, some large, all of them yellow. Pooh’s day has arrived. Later in the season we see reduced numbers, but still at the NHK and the GPF Pooh is present, as also at the Japan nationals. It is the World Championships where we see the first MegaPoohvalanches in history. In the short program the Pooh’s are innumerable, with one particular one quite memorable – a Pooh that is fully as large as the flower boy who retrieves him. The free skate is even more spectacular, prompting one commentator to remark they should put a blade on a Zamboni to clear the ice. At the World Team Trophy Pooh’s numbers are considerably less. Perhaps Pooh was to be found only in limited numbers at the stores where they’re bought. The Pooh toy industry had probably never coped with demand on such scale. In the next season (2015/16) at Skate Canada Pooh’s numbers in both the short program and free skate are not overly impressive. The next competition is the NHK, Yuzuru’s home turf and the beginning of the two weeks heard round the skating world, the two weeks that would see Yuzuru break all three scoring records (SP, FS and combined) and then break them all over again two weeks later. The fans in the stands were comparitively restrained. The Poohs were really quite meager when compared with previous Poohvalanches. In fact that NHK’s fan response does not even qualify as a Poohvalanche. In fact, despite the history-making achievement of Yuzuru in those two weeks and the following Japanese national competition, we do not see any legitimate Poohvalanches. The well had run dry. At the World Championships, though, in the FS we do see a Poohvalanche, although it is rather modest when compared to previous events. At least it lets us know that Pooh is still alive and ready to descend. Pooh is to be found right near the beginning of the next (2016/17) season when after the FS at Skate Canada there is a mild Poohvalanche. Rather disappointing though is the response at the NHK when Pooh makes a very meager appearance, not even enough to qualify as a Poohvalanche. At the GPF Pooh is also present, but not in considerable numbers. Not quite a Poohvalanche there, neither in the SP or the FS. Comes the 4CC and Pooh is there bigtime, with definite Poohvalanches after the SP and even moreso after the FS. At the World Championships Pooh also reigns and rains, although he is comparatively absent at the World Team Trophy following to fully end the season. Then comes this season, a season characterized more by Yuzuru’s absence rather than his presence. At the ACI there are no Poohs, no anything since the audience can cast nothing on the ice. That changes however at the next (and last competition he skates at this season), the Rostelecom Cup. At the Rostelecom Pooh declares himself with two consecutive MegaPoohvalanches after both the SP and the FS. So Pooh has declared his supremacy and it is fitting that in the last competition Yuzuru skates before his injury that it is the massive Pooh presence in Moscow that is the memory Yuzuru carries into the Olympics coming up just weeks from now. May we see Poohvalanches to match the Rostelecom in PC, in essence bookending Yuzuru’s long absence from view of his fans everywhere, with gold at the end of the rainbow he has been pursuing for four long years.

Actually, I've been thinking along the same lines. I think back to WWII in the actions leading up to D-Day. There was a great deal of attention to the pre-invasion strategies, with armaments, both real and fabricated, being located in such a way as to deceive the Germans into thinking the invasion would be at locations on the French coast different from the actual target locales. Such strategies are frequently encountered in many different contexts. Here I think Brian is doing just what Floria contemplated - Keep Yuzu under wraps. Even if he was capable of competing, no 4CC. Make Yuzu the big mystery. Javi knows, I'm sure, just what Yuzu is doing, even if they aren't training together right now, although I think Brian might have some training sessions with the two together, since they seem to feed off each other's efforts. I think this is also a means of bringing media attention on the competition - having the world's number one skater off the ice by injury and training back to full form all in secrecy. The great mystery then is - How much has Yuzuru Hanyu recovered from his injury and is he back to skating as excellently as he used to? If he skates in the team competition I can guarantee that the eyes of the skating world will be on that performance.

Well, I've read the NYT article, read it with the same attention to detail I used when years ago I was grading student writing as an English teacher at the University of Nebraska. What I found was what others here have found, the writer did not display a real sense of the ambience of men's figure skating today. I found it particularly revealing when he wrote of Yuzu's obsession with guads. The way it was phrased, it seemed that Yuzu was unique in that respect. The writer obviously did not know how quadmania is an obsession embracing all the top male skaters this day, a mania lying at the center of the perennial debate over athleticism vs aestheticism. His concentration on the fans was also revealing, although it has to be said that much of what he said is valid. The Hanyu fans are, in terms of their intensity and loyalty, unique amongst skating fans. Like what was noted by a commentator several years ago, saying 'everywhere he goes it's a hometown crowd', that observation was partially true, the full truth being that his fans come from all over and not just Japan. As such I think the writer was negligent. He should have searched to see the whole breadth of Yuzu's fan base. He didn't, so that's a mark against him. What I do commend him for, however, is that he didn't attempt to refute claims that Yuzu is the greatest male skater ever. He accepted such claims as valid. I should note, however, that his stance does not actually endorse those claims but understands that those claims have good reasons for what they assert. I do feel he was in error, but then he was writing for an American audience, so it's understandable, that he put Nathan Chen as Yuzu's rival for the gold. In that respect he was obviously ignorant of the fact that this Olympics' men's field is one of the deepest ever. There are seven potential claimants for the gold, although based on his record Yuzu is the obvious favorite. By and large, though, I found the article acceptable. I'd give it a C, maybe a C+, primarily on the fact that in general the portrayal of Yuzu was accurate and not overly critical. I certainly think that the portrayal of Yuzu fans as obsessive, while a bit of an overstatement, was fundamentally true. All you have to do is look at the Poohvalanches and the willingness to wait outside all night to get in, the willingness to get up at all hours of the day or night to watch him competing on TV or computer, all these things are true. Some of the fans do almost cross the line, though. I was looking at a Yuzu vid, his 2014 GPF freeskate and I saw a flower boy retrieve a bear (not a Pooh, this was just a plain brown bear) that was almost as big as the flower boy himself. I have to say that that was a bit excessive. On the other hand we Yuzu fans are proud of the fierceness and intensity of our admiration of him, realizing that we are admiring a person who is truly worthy of that admiration. The thing is, the Yuzu fan base, to a great extent fueled by YouTube and Daily Motion, is constantly expanding. Last year at this time I did not know Yuzu existed. If it wasn't for my out of curiosity clicking on his 2017 WC freeskate while looking for bicycle road racing, I would have missed out on one of the great experiences of my life, the discovery of an individual who is truly great and not the product of hype. Yuzu needs no hype. He's great enough to speak for himself.

I don't think 'bombs' is right here. Actually, since his breakout season of 2013/14 Yuzu has won his initial competition (with the exception of this season's ACI, where he came in second). Everybody who's feeling discouraged because of this very lengthy period of uncertainty should remember that Yuzu has battled back from disaster before. He came back after he almost left skating because of the 2011 earthquake. He came back after all the adversity of the crash and the 4th place NHK in 2014 to win the GPF by some 35 points and came in just points short of setting a FS world record. He came back last season after his fifth place SP at Worlds by winning it with a world-record FS. It seems to me that Yuzu, when the chips are down and he is at a real disadvantage, seems to tap into some hidden reservoir and comes out of it better than ever. I remember what this NBC commentator after Yuzu's FS at World's last season said - Just when you think he can't get any better he proves you wrong. Remember that - just when you think he can't get any better he does do better.

I can see your point about Yuzu vs Shoma going into PC. However, and I didn't remark about that in my previous post, I do think the media will embrace the narrative of Yuzu defending his title if, for no other reason, than the fact that Yuzu from the day after he won at Sochi he has been quite public about his determination to repeat the feat at PC. He's handed the media that narrative on a silver platter, letting them know that he was engaged in a four-year long campaign to capture the gold again. There is another factor that could mould the narrative, and that is how Yuzu does in the team competition (if he participates, which I think he should). His SP in the team competition at Sochi was a strong indicator how he would do in the later SP in which he set a new record, breaking his own record he had set just a few weeks before. If he does extraordinarily well in the team event he will definitely set himself up as the one to beat, if only based on his record through that four years long trek to PC. Technically Yuzu is even now solidly ranked as number one in the world, on the strength of his holding both the current Olympic and World Championships, but that position is strengthened by his absolute domination of the record books, not only the three major ones of SP, FS and combined, but also his TES scores and the margins he set over the silver winners in some of the major competitions. Look at GPF 2014, NHK 2015 and GPF 2015 there. There have been closer events I'll grant but as more than one commentator remarked as he broke his own records at the 2015 GPF, if he skates like he was skating then, then 'nobody can touch him'. That factor I think will be decisive in shaping the media narrative, that fact being that when, as Johnny Weir remarked, when Yuzu skates at his best there is nobody in the world that can beat him. Right now Yuzu does not have the sustained dominance to put him in the same league with, for instance, Wayne Gretzky or Michael Jordan to lay a convincing claim to GOAT, but the fact is there is no skater now skating who even comes close to making that claim. If Yuzu should take the Olympics, the World Championship and then, in this coming December, reclaim his GPF crown, then you'll see a lot of the commentariat looking at Yuzu in the light of GOAT, particularly if he resumes his habit of periodically resetting his record scores. So Yuzu, while not having skated since Rostelecom in competition is basically both a dark horse and the obvious favorite. The media have a bit of a dilemma here because both narrative approaches are valid. The idea just came to me right now that they might create buzz by highlighting those two factors, Yuzu the missing and Yuzu the master. In either case there is no doubt that this Olympics will find the men's single skate competition a source of major interest since it is not often one finds a credible candidate for GOAT in the competition. That, I think, will make this year's men's singles competition an event that the sportscasters will frame as one of the major stories this time around. PS - Because of Yuzu's prolonged absence this season I'm pretty confident that there will be on camera speculation as to how many Pooh bears might descend on the ice after Yuzu's skates. After all there haven't been any opportunities for such since Rostelecom and for those at PC who had tickets to earlier events Yuzu missed, there are quite a few Poohs stashed away awaiting the opportunity to grace the ice with their presence. What we will see will be an amber avalanche.

Yes, we will be occupied but I think we will also see a 'drama' being put out by the media - the Jousting of the Japanese titans (although only one of them is a titan, the other is working on it). If you go back to 1988 there was the Battle of the Brians - Orser and Boitano, Canadian and American. The whole narrative was created to generate buzz and interest in a sport which at that time (and even to a certain extent today, but not like it was back then) where the interest was in the ladies and the pairs. The men's competition was often an afterthought. Well, this year we have seven possibles for gold at PC - Yuzu, Shoma, Nathan, Boyang, Javi, Patrick and Mikhail. This is a formidable field, one of the deepest in the men's competition ever. But the media will try to narrow it down to just two - Yuzu and Shoma. Their rationale - the 2.28 points separating the victorious Yuzu over the second place Shoma at the 2017 World Championship. That is a very narrow edge and is truly legitimate grounds to see the two of them as rivals, a rivalry accentuated by the fact that they are from the same country. My take is that the narrative will focus on the supposed rivalry, with the remaining five being portrayed as potential spoilers but not much more than that (except by the media in the athletes' home countries). Adding to the narrative is the fact that Shoma and Yuzu have not met in face to face competition since 2017 Worlds. Thus they are entering the arena with Yuzu essentially unknown (the question being has he recovered his form enough to be truly competitive). This is really a nightmare situation for the bookmakers, a situation where the one has a lock on the position of Number One in the world, but has not really been tested this season, at least not to the degree that Shoma has. For Yuzu fans there is this to think about and take comfort in - We have seen that on two occasions where Yuzu found himself at a real disadvantage - 2014 in the season leading up to the GPF, the season of the collision and the aftermath, and 2017 Worlds, where going into the free skate he was in a situation where it was seen as possible that he might not even make the podium - in those two cases where he was skating not simply to win but to salvage his reputation he came out skating like he has rarely done in his career. We have a situation very much like those this year. Yuzu has to win in order to retain his image as the UNDISPUTED number one in the world. Anything less than gold will have people starting to measure him against others rather than as it has been over these last few years, where Yuzu's only real competition was himself. We have to remember that since the 2013/14 season, with the exception of 2014's NHK where he finished fourth, Yuzu has not finished under silver in any competition. He has dominated the GPF and in those same years has won gold twice and silver twice at Worlds. When you go and add to that record the records he keeps setting and resetting, his hold on first place in the world rankings is undisputed. After this season, though, as it has developed, he is entering PC as very much an unknown quantity, particularly to his fans, who have borne with him through this great absence, having to rely on sketchy news leaking out of Brian's organization about whatever progress Yuzu is making in getting back on the ice and back to serious training. We are like husbands waiting for their wife to give birth and wondering what kind of baby it will be. We are wondering if the Yuzu we will be cheering will be the Yuzu there was before that fall last fall that started all this or will it be a Yuzu who is just another skater amongst many. Remember those two other crises where Yuzu answered his fans and his critics by coming out and winning when it was truly his reputation at stake. Remember also the Yuzu who battled his way back into skating after the nightmare of the earthquake and its aftermath back in 2011. He's a fighter who has fought the good fight before and I really think he has the resources to do it again. As for Shoma there will be the consolation that he hasn't simply lost to a countryman of his. He's lost to the GOAT.

Here's a happy new year to everyone and hopefully you're a lot warmer where you are than we are here. The forecast is for 22 below zero Fahrenheit tonight and that's not the wind chill (I'm in Nebraska, not Alaska, so that can give you some sense of how things are in the eastern half of the US right now). They're expecting the wind chill to be around 35-40 below. Starting out the new year with these conditions means it can only get better. It will definitely be better if Yuzu takes gold at PC and at the WC, and begins a new GPF streak, reminding the world that he's still Number One.