6 minutes ago, quadaxelwin said:

 

 

P.S. As for warhorses, that doesn't count I believe. A skater choosing a warhorse is not an excuse for marking down their PCS, because every skater can express a warhorse, for example Carmen in their own unique and different new way etc. 

I would love to see Yuzu's own version of Nessun dorma. And I think some judges won't mind Yuzu doing a warhorse program. I myself would want to see Yuzu do a warhorse next season. But I don't want to see it twice. This is what I mean by not recycling. Warhorses have nothing to do with recycling, because what I meant by recycling is a skater recycling their own music and program and choreography from previous seasons.  

 

 

But when a skater repeats THEIR OWN same program, then it becomes a recycling disadvantage.

Because most likely it is the same choreography, same spins, same step sequences with the same music cut, with maybe a changed jump layout with maybe a different costume. There may be subtle changes, but they are small changes that not many people notice on the spot

The judges know it, the fans know it, we know what's coming next too well because we've seen it for a whole season. 

 

Why else do you think skaters in all disciplines try to bring new music and new programs every year, if not for PCS score boosting?

- This comment is kind of too vague. But let me explain. 

Imagine if Yuzu repeated Chopin 4 times, but it gets better every season. He perfects it every season. Would you still want to see it for 4 seasons, and miss out on all the new music, choreo that he could have tried in replacement? Would you still want to see the upgraded perfect chopin even if you had to see it for 4 whole seasons?

I think the majority would answer no. It's just the human psychology. We naturally prefer change, variety, something new to see. 

 

The "But Yuzu recycles BOTH his programs, and he does it way too often, and it gets so boring to watch the same program again and again, there is nothing fresh or exciting or new to see" discussion always comes up among Yuzu haters, antis, fans of Nathan, US fans because it is an excuse yes.

It is an excuse to mark Yuzu's PCS down. I think it is an excuse to also over evaluate Nathan in comparison. Is it fair? No. 

Is it understandable? Yes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think you’re putting a lot of your own interpretation in these things. Shizuka and many others repeat their programs 3 times, but no one saw a drop in PCS. Alina repeated her junior program for Olympics yet her PCS shot up like crazy. The “excuse” for the current penalty is just politicking. No judges takes PCS seriously anymore, you can look at the skatingscores data and see how obvious the “coalitions” was. The Italian judge this GPF too, it’s just a tool for them to prop up their favourites without having to justify it like BV. If Yuzu was American, Russian or Canadian I bet you his PCS will shot through the roof regardless of what he does

15 minutes ago, KatjaThera said:

If judges are incapable of seeing the differences between this year's Otonal and Origin and last year's Otonal and Origin, there is absolutely nothing Yuzu can do to get the points he deserves. He UPGRADED the content of his programs, which, frankly, is more than most of the field has done, new programs or not.

 

Even if he had new programs, they would find other ways to excuse the low PCS. It would probably be "well, the program is new to him, so he's not fully used to it, so of course he won't get high PCS off the bat!"

 

Also, judges don't love new stuff. Fans do. Judges are happy to sit there listening to same old warhorses they've been listening to for ages. If judges were open to new they wouldn't think USBs are the antichrist. They would be open to using technology to make THEIR life easier. And they would really really hate warhorses, which they don't. And seriously, how many Schindler's Lists are there in the field this year? Do all of them get docked on PCS? What about Blues for Klook? Why would any skater choose to do music that has been skated to before if this were a known fact? Yuzu is skating to music that has been used twice in recent history, as far as I know, at least. Otonal, which was used by Yuzu and Johnny, and Origin, which was used by Yuzu and Plush. That, IMO, beats all the other stuff that's been done a gazillion times.

 

At Olys, Yuzu still had the PCS advantage. Which is why he knew he could win. Yes, a clean Nathan in the SP would have probably forced him to bring in the Loop, but the PCS advantage still existed. When Yuzu did LGC and H&L, his scores dropped. The funny thing is, the justification then was that LGC was too modern for the judges who liked classical stuff, and H&L was too quiet and people couldn't get into it. Now, he's doing classical stuff that only two people have done before, but it's outdated. Maybe he should do classical+modern bad mashups like Daniil's stuff to win. That certainly seems to be popular with the judges.

 

Oh and another thing. If judges would get tired of programs, then PCS would be dropping as the season goes. Which is not what happens. Most skaters' PCS increases towards the end of the season, even when for many of them, the programs get emptier. Except Yuzu, his programs generally got richer as the season progressed. Maybe there are others, too, but Nathan is not one of them. At least not so far.

 

Lastly, I'm one of the people who were praying for new programs even as I went into Toronto. And yes, I was vaguely disappointed, until I saw how he further developed those programs. I'm also one of those people who was really upset when he chose to do Chopin for Oly season. And I don't even like that program. But I now think the Oly Chopin is probably the most amazing SP ever, simply because every single gesture, element, movement fits the music perfectly. And you don't reach that level of perfection over one season. I would rather see beautiful, perfected programs than random skating and jumps and hey, it's a new record, what more do you want?

 

And at the end of the day, I want Yuzu to do what he wants and he feels fits his philosophy better. And if that means he will continue doing Otonal and Origin for the rest of his life, while personally disappointed, I will fiercely defend his right to do so. He doesn't owe anyone anything anymore.

Yes. I have to say that each program he repeats gets upgraded a LOT in terms of transitions and his connection to the music. I believe he cut down the crossovers in Chopin from 20? to 11 when he did Chopin 3.0. Otonal and Origin got very obvious composition and transition upgrades too, which his skating skills even improved visibly to someone like me who is not good at recognising steps. If I can see the difference but the judges can’t, they need to do retraining. Sometimes I wonder if they can actually read the step sequence maps the fans made or are they just marking based on “feelings”, which does seem like the case for the Italian judge this Men’s GPF

It saddens me that these skating skills are not appreciated as much as before. In the past you have to be Patrick Chan to get 9 in components. Now quadsters with simplified layouts can get 9.75 easily. It’s becoming more like a reputation and consistency score, something’s thats very obvious if you compare Nathan and Yuzu’s GOE on 4Lz. Judges are not used to seeing Yuzu doing 4Lz so they immediately have a bias to apply lower marks, even though they shouldn’t. Which criteria didn’t hit at least +4 GOE? Yet a few judges have +3. Did Nate have steps and unexpected entries? Yet he easily gets +5 because of consistency

Isabella Boylston, American Ballet Theatre (one of the most famous in the world?) wanting to be like Yuzu 

Artistic swimming Bronze medalist 

ToshI, the singer who worked with Yuzu for FaOI 

US Ice Dancer 

US Olympic pair skating coach and choreographer

US Ballet instructor and choreographer 

34 minutes ago, Paskud said:

And I don't. I have enough of them being smug of themselves while not able to teach their skaters how to properly do RD pattern.

BTW, public can't vote for best coach nominee.

wow just checked the rules, that's awesome lmao. The media vote looks silly though, how many journalists cover ice dance compared to singles skating? Bold of ISU to assume that they're more knowledgeable than the fans 

I'd say let's still try to crush them in the most valuable and best costume category though haha, maybe even most entertaining program too! Even though public scores only 1/3 of the total score. From the FAQ it seems like they're trying to put about 5 skaters/pairs for each discipline to put up for voting in each category, but only 3 nominees in total will remain in the end

Saw this article by Mags a while ago, seems like ISU tried to emulate other sports awards but made it turn out like a joke. I mean none of the awards are technical related? How are they going to get prestige like the hockey and basketball awards like this. 

https://sportymags.wordpress.com/2019/06/19/fs-figure-skating-awards-an-idea-for-the-isu/?fbclid=IwAR31CNcveQVEU-hzV-S8uzEgLiZ410-uA8MlqFmbdrvn2oSquBFmZvVTYh8 

13 hours ago, Cynthia said:

Hi there, I know I haven't written since late September but I have some questions. First off is that I already sent him some fan mail in the skater's gift box (a letter with a translated copy, stickers, some pictures and a self addressed envelope) at ACI 2019. Just hearing that it would take a few years to hear back from him, I wonder that amount of time has changed or if it has stayed the same? Would like to hear if anyone in the forum has heard from him though. 

Brian once said Yuzu's fanmails often stack up from the floor to his shoulders. I seriously doubt he can reply to all of them now, his fandom probably exploded more than 100x since 2012, after two high profile Olympics and all. You should see the charts where they keep track of new members of Yuzu fan groups on Weibo and FB etc, the spike after Olympics are insane. Each time he breaks a record they experience a spike as well. Weibo went from like 200k to 640k followers (~2015-2019)? FB went from like 7k to 20k members (2016-2018). It makes more sense for him to reply to earlier fanmails before 2014 since there's not much of them yet comparatively. Nonchan is a well-known translator of Aoi Hono among the fandom too, not sure if Yuzu knows about that, but considering how much he lurks, maybe. 

5 hours ago, Cynthia said:

 That's actually a great idea. It sounds much easier than the stress of sending him fan mail and worrying about it constantly. Do you know where I can find out about these message gathering campaigns and where to find one near me?

I believe most of them are held during the off-season? The last one I remember was by P&G where he ended up with a book this thick lol. Most fan initiatives will occur near his birthday? Not sure if there's one this year, anyone knows about it? 

But for real I'd say really don't worry about it, I've sent a couple of stuff myself and I don't expect him to reply. What's important is that he knows he is loved, and whether he replies or not is secondary to me imo. It's hard not to expect anything, but I've accepted that going through his fanmails and replying them will probably need a full time job. Maybe he'll go through like... 8 years of backlog after he retires? lmao. I hope he doesn't though, it sounds exhausting, and it's not my intention to exhaust him when I send him stuff.

It's just difficult to devote individual attention when there's so many of us. We can have faith that if we send things through the right channels it'll definitely reach him, and that's enough for me. Brian is a very responsible fanmail collector haha, so is JSF! 

8 hours ago, Paskud said:

Public votes only for nominees. Winners are dicided by jury anyway.

And coach award will go to Gadbois. Bookmark me, if you want.

Hope so. I'd love to see the Eteri fans' faces when they see the results. Interacted with a bunch of them on reddit and they're not the nicest of persons 

I don’t even want to give them the satisfaction of winning the nominee votes though, that’s why I registered

13 minutes ago, Paskud said:

I refuse to take part in this circus.

Then Eteri will win everything lol. It's like people refusing to participate in elections and giving disproportionate voices to the minority of the country? Not participating will not stop them from taking it seriously, it'll just give them the wrong idea when others won't hesitate to participate 

Remember to register and vote! 

I used to have a list here, with all the online links to the official sources (best I can find) https://yuzuruspoohsan.tumblr.com/post/179912359613/yuzurus-music-list 

Here I've downloaded all the songs that he indicated he liked a lot in that particular list. Also included music that he gave during interviews, and lip-synced music. And EX + competition music. Haven't updated since 2017 though, there's a couple more new Yowamushi Pedal songs he lip synced to recently. I even put in all the relevant pictures as the album pic lol, and tried my best to include accurate singer's info. There's also the meme music where I loved the MAD haha 

https://mega.nz/#F!r3JDiApB!UKFdR943qEiwiNF_rmpHqQ

Here are some of my favourites 

Pop songs

世界の終り 

戦いは終わらない(ギター)

StaRt by Mrs Green Apple (available on spotify), apparently he really liked this one for a while, good taste lol 

僕の声 (lipsynced in competition) 

Soundtrack songs 

戦場のメリークリスマス

Requiem of Heaven and Earth

Meme music 

僕とヴィーナス  https://www.bilibili.com/video/av8010942/ (toggle off on screen comment at bottom of video)

I like the H&L with lyrics version (旅立ちの時), HYK with lyrics too (春よ，来い, available on spotify). 

Just curious, if we are to have a PH banner, would it be nice if we have something like a word cloud? Basically varying sizes according to rough frequency (might have to scale down the larger ones lol), for better visibility, so it's not like a laundry list of words. With horizontal words too, so it's easier to read 

So an example could be an image of Yuzu with the background edited out, and filled with word clouds instead, as well as the words "Love from around the world" or something. Or similar to the existing design but have varying sizes for the words and horizontal so it can be read from afar. The original photo for the right one is here， someone might be able to access a larger version here

I've compiled some data from the twitter page and PH's demographics group, here's the rough numbers based on twitter's demographics %. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vS_0F0yEhRxzF2zj-ruAInRjsR-XES7R. Or maybe we can export the data from PH 

On 10/21/2019 at 2:37 AM, Salior said:

Made this demographics map, spent too much time on it to not share

 

Full zoomable map here: https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/NZJim/13/ 

 

   

 

Sources: 

Here's the demographic for twitter,

Here's the demographic for FB, 

Here's some more countries from Youtube, done during the birthday project in 2016.

Here's a survey from the 2019 fan book 

Here's the PH one. 

 

The largest Chinese Yuzu fan group on Weibo has 619k members (Yuzuru Infostation), 72k subscribers on their bilibili channel.

Second largest Weibo is Yuzurink at 232k followers and 75k subscribers on bilibili 

 

wow 

wow, if this happened it must be really bad, I thought Nobu was quite non-confrontational 

Good for him for sticking up for himself. I can only hope there'll be no backlash on him

Does anyone have a good quality video or photo of: 

this

this (without the weird edit in) 

And Yuzuru helping a mascot back to his feet? The one where domo or something got stuck lying on the ground.

If anyone knows a collection of hydroblade gifs or videos that'd be amazing too, I've searched around but a lot of the gifs are quite short, would love to make longer gifs

Thank you! 

Yes. If Yuzu is intending to land 4A this season, there’s no reason not to go to 4CC 

1 hour ago, tafattsbarn said:

 

Yep, i think i saw at least two posts with it trending on reddit (with like 25k upvotes and hundreds of comments) so it's no wonder. Actually, there has been a bunch of figure skating videos or moments that have gone viral on reddit lately (ladies podium mishap at IDF, anna's dress change, keegan holding the japanese flag etc), so i'm thinking of posting more Yuzu things to big reddit communities to try the luck, even though i'm a bit shy and nervous about posting content and not just commenting... (this is me asking others to participate and post more yuzu on reddit themselves if they see it fit in a community since i'm not sure i'll get around to it if you didn't get it lmao...). 

 

 

 

Adding on eng sub in video form c: 

I love you

As a redditor, for reddit, I guess you can have a look around at the top posts and figure out which subreddit to best post the content, and what title would be suitable. Upload as video too for auto-play haha. Tbh you'll never know what'll take off if you never try. Good luck! 

55 minutes ago, sallycinnamon said:

 

We talked about earlier, the interviews with Lakernik was posted on the Hungarian Skating Federation's site last year and this year so I summarized them:

 

Lakernik seems optimistic that the congress would vote for the changes so to me it sounds as if it was already half-decided...

Thanks! 

55 minutes ago, sallycinnamon said:

These big changes would be after Beijing.

Well it'll probably be too late for Yuzu and many others. But better late than never

Boyang should've gotten +5 GOE. Everyone gets bullet 6 anyway, the technical panels even think that little girls should get higher GOE because it's so "difficult". 

F. Looks like Zhenya's mum Zhanna brought a fan in to TCC and caused controversy

2 hours ago, TallyT said:

950?? Do you mean 95? Trusova's SC has 126k and though I don;t like her, I think she is going to be the breakout from the trio popwise... still way behind our boy.

yea I think her costume change attracted some attention outside of fs

12 minutes ago, TallyT said:

A quick cheer... exactly two weeks after it was uploaded, the official video Yuzu's free skate at SC has hit 200,000 views.  Abd I believe by adding up that the various uploads of his three programs is over a million....

 

ISU, listen to the people!!!

Also telling how Anna's video have 950k views with 4k likes and Yuzu's has 200k views with 10k likes lmao. If we add that 350k fancam views it would be the second most popular vid of ISU skating. Pity they didn't upload all those 2015 GPF vids, iirc they had a few million views and it wasn't even OG 

Oh god I didn't know the circumstances that led to Gracie Gold's condition. The only other fellow female runner sponsored under the same Nike program as Gracie spoke out recently, and it's terrifying.

There's a pay wall so I've reproduced the text as below. Original article here.

Quote

I Was the Fastest Girl in America, Until I Joined Nike

By Mary Cain

Nov. 7, 2019

 

“Equal Play” is an Opinion video series showcasing the insurgent athletes who are dragging women’s sports into the 21st century. The article below is by Lindsay Crouse.

 

 

This article has been updated with responses from Nike, Mary Cain and other athletes.

 

At 17, Mary Cain was already a record-breaking phenom: the fastest girl in a generation, and the youngest American track and field athlete to make a World Championships team. In 2013, she was signed by the best track team in the world, Nike’s Oregon Project, run by its star coach Alberto Salazar.

 

Then everything collapsed. Her fall was just as spectacular as her rise, and she shares that story for the first time in the Video Op-Ed above.

Instead of becoming a symbol of girls’ unlimited potential in sports, Cainbecame yet another standout young athlete who got beaten down by a win-at-all-costs culture. Girls like Cain become damaged goods and fade away. We rarely hear what happened to them. We move on.

 

The problem is so common it affected the only other female athlete featured in the last Nike video ad Cain appeared in, the figure skater Gracie Gold. When the ad came out in 2014, Gold, like Cain, was a prodigy considered talented enough to win a gold medal at the next Olympics. And, like Cain, Gold got caught in a system where she was compelled to become thinner and thinner. Gold developed disordered eating to the point of imagining taking her life.

 

Nike has come under fire in recent months for doping charges involving Salazar. He is now banned from the sport for four years, and his elite Nike team has been dismantled. In October, Nike’s chief executive resigned. (In an email, Salazar denied many of Cain’s claims, and said he had supported her health and welfare. Nike did not respond to a request for comment.)

 

The culture that created Salazar remains.

 

Kara Goucher, an Olympic distance runner who trained with the same program under Salazar until 2011, said she experienced a similar environment, with teammates weighed in front of one another.

 

“When you’re training in a program like this, you’re constantly reminded how lucky you are to be there, how anyone would want to be there, and it’s this weird feeling of, ‘Well, then, I can’t leave it. Who am I without it?’” Goucher said. “When someone proposes something you don’t want to do, whether it’s weight loss or drugs, you wonder, ‘Is this what it takes? Maybe it is, and I don’t want to have regrets.’ Your careers are so short. You are desperate. You want to capitalize on your career, but you’re not sure at what cost.”

 

She said that after being cooked meager meals by an assistant coach, she often had to eat more in the privacy of her condo room, nervous he would hear her open the wrappers of the energy bars she had there.

 

A big part of this problem is that women and girls are being forced to meet athletic standards that are based on how men and boys develop. If you try to make a girl fit a boy’s development timeline, her body is at risk of breaking down. That is what happened to Cain.

 

After months of dieting and frustration, Cain found herself choosing between training with the best team in the world, or potentially developing osteoporosis or even infertility. She lost her period for three years and broke five bones. She went from being a once-in-a-generation Olympic hopeful to having suicidal thoughts.

 

“America loves a good child prodigy story, and business is ready and waiting to exploit that story, especially when it comes to girls,” said Lauren Fleshman, who ran for Nike until 2012. “When you have these kinds of good girls, girls who are good at following directions to the point of excelling, you’ll find a system that’s happy to take them. And it’s rife with abuse.”

 

We don’t typically hear from the casualties of these systems — the girls who tried to make their way in this system until their bodies broke down and they left the sport. It’s easier to focus on bright new stars, while forgetting about those who faded away. We fetishize the rising athletes, but we don’t protect them. And if they fail to pull off what we expect them to, we abandon them.

 

Mary Cain is 23, and her story certainly isn’t over. By speaking out, she’s making sure of that.

 

On Thursday, Nike released this statement: 

These are deeply troubling allegations which have not been raised by Mary or her parents before. Mary was seeking to rejoin the Oregon Project and Alberto’s team as recently as April of this year and had not raised these concerns as part of that process. We take the allegations extremely seriously and will launch an immediate investigation to hear from former Oregon Project athletes. At Nike we seek to always put the athlete at the center of everything we do, and these allegations are completely inconsistent with our values.

On Friday, Mary Cain responded to Nike’s statement: 

For many years, the only thing I wanted in the world was the approval of Alberto Salazar. I still loved him. Alberto was like a father to me, or even like a god.

 

Last spring, I told Alberto I wanted to work with him again — only him — because when we let people emotionally break us, we crave their approval more than anything.

 

I was the victim of an abusive system, an abusive man. I was constantly tormented by the conflict of wanting to be free from him and wanting to go back to the way things used to be, when I was his favorite.

 

Last month, after the doping report dropped that led to his suspension, I felt this quick and sudden release. That helped me understand that this system is not O.K. That’s why I decided to speak up now.

 

People should never have to fear coming forward. I hope this Nike investigation centers on the culture that created Alberto. Nike has the chance to make a change and protect its athletes going forward.

The video led to an outpouring of stories and eyewitness accounts from other athletes. 

 

Shalane Flanagan, Olympic medalist, New York City Marathon champion and Nike coach. 

Cam Levins, Olympian and former Nike athlete. 

Amy Begley, Olympian and former Nike athlete. 

Steve Magness, former Nike coach.

It's really terrible... what they could've been if they were never subjected to this... These "coaches" should really be prosecuted for abuse, how can they be let free like that when people suffer for a lifetime and have their future ruined because of them. 

this sounds huge 

That guy was the one who previewed the +5/-5 system 

you can read the comment chain here

7 hours ago, mercedes said:

Just out of curioisty do you guys know what can change the abilty to land a jump?apart from obvious things like growing,being havier and taller which of course it doesn't seem Nathan case...so what is it?lack of proper training ?injuries we don't know about?

 

Well some people pointed out that 4Lo could be harder than 4Lz, also Nate has always been a toe jumper rather than edge jumper, so I'm not surprised about that. Quads pushes the physical limits so much that landing them is one thing, and landing them consistently is another. Yuzu could land 5S, but it'll be a while before he can put it in competition 

14 hours ago, Pika said:

 

Well, ISU drastically reduced the accreditations for the press at all events without a tangible reason... Denying themselves actual promotion of the sport. As always, it's one step forward with the Youtube streaming, and then two steps back...

What can we say, the president of ISU is a 75 year old politician

At least International Gymnastic Federation had a Japanese president who pushed for AI judging for the benefit of their gymnasts... Honestly his words are inspiring, he cares so much about the gymnasts. He's so resourceful too, to conduct the AI program like that.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/10/sports/olympics/gymnastics-robot-judges.html 

Japan is indeed the land of technologies. I mean, they even have this underground bike parking system 

http://i.imgur.com/A6bypye.gifv 

On the other hand, we have Ari pushing to replace gala with the awards when there's so many judging issues. Ugh. At least gymnastics got their priorities right. 

13 hours ago, rockstaryuzu said:

This. I foolishly did not realize that you can download videos from twitter and so did not download. 

 

It was such a glorious moment, too! Yuzu was perfect. If ever you wanted a video to sell the non-FS world on figure skating, that would be the one. 

 

WTF, ISU. WTF. 

 

Well, at least we know it happened, and the footage is still somewhere safe with Jordan. And we all got to see it, so there's that. 

 

 

Same! It was so easy to download the original file on twitter, yet I thought it'd be left alone. Sucks! Even those circulating online didn't seem to be of the same quality...

16 hours ago, Figure_Frenzy said:

Hiya folks apologies for taking the topic  a few pages back but apparently a representative(?) from ISU forced Jordan (On Ice Perspective) to take down the gala practice videos he posted on instagram

 

 

 I just hope he can still post his videos (the full version of all the EX he recorded, not just Yuzu's) someplace else, seriously at this point ISU is really a bunch of dinosaurs... 

Although I don't get it... What's the downside of working for them? Won't that pay for his expenses and even let him earn an income? Isn't that what freelance photographers do? His Patreon page sets $3,000 per month as minimum to cover expenses, and $6,000 per month to make a minimum wage, and we're at like, $2,000 per month now. Forgive me but I don't think he can expect to be supported by Patreons alone if he's serious about making his work known... 

https://www.patreon.com/oniceperspectives