sweetwater

ETA: Happy birthday, Roman!

Sorry for taking too much time. So...It is essentially irrelevant to Yuzu and not a fun topic so I put the explanation in a spoiler.

@Geo1, @rockstaryuzu, could you hold on for a moment? You guys are mislead by the tweet which quoted an old article out of context. I am writing an explanation now.

At JNats, the winner of the previous year has to sit in the front row to return the trophy smoothly but there seems to be no rule for international competitions. I think Yuzu sits there to make it easier for photographers and TV crew to film him, or he just likes to sit in the front row and with his friends or teammates. In this footage filmed at NHK2016, Ryuju and Keiji went to a back row but Yuzu called them back. Thank you for sharing! He was fun to listen to! I like the way he rates each Stsq. I never expected "the solid 3 musketeers" or "one hundred Pooh bears and Tiger" It says, "Thank you for your support! I will continue to work toward the strongest version of myself!"

All-event tickets for Worlds 2014 were only for SP and FS but all-event for last year included the gala as well. If they are going to hold the award show in the future Worlds, they should at least announce it from the beginning and sell the seats with obstructed views at a suitable price with advance notice, but I wonder if such a plan will survive under this situation. Nobody knows when the next international competition will happen and how. We don't know how many people will be able to travel for the Worlds next spring, or how many people will be able to sit in the arena. (In my country, re-opened movie theaters are blocking seats like this to keep the distance between the audience. We will see if this is effective or not...) Also, companies that have been supporting FS events as sponsors are suffering economic blows. ISU will have to adjust their plan for both short-term and long-term. If I were them, I would freeze the costly award first, but if I were them, I wouldn't have considered holding it in the first place...

Fuji aired a video interview with Yuma Kagiyama and Shun Sato last night: In part 1, they briefly explained that Worlds this year was canceled as WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11. Then they introduced Yuma and Shun mentioning their success in the last season and their backgrounds, such as Yuma's relationship with his father who represented Japan in two Olympics, and the relationship between Shun and Yuzu. They then explained how they were affected by this situation. Spring and early summer normally are the time for them to create the foundation to compete in the next season, but this year, they haven't been able to get on the ice since the government declared a state of emergency on April 7. In part 2, they asked Yuma and Shun how things were going in the figure skating world while in some other sports, people were gradually resuming training. Yuma said that in other places such as Kansai where the government lifted a state of emergency, people might have gotten back on the ice for a bit, but Kanagawa, his training base was still under the state of emergency and his home rink had been closed. Shun said in Saitama, where he lived, people were not sure when they would be able to re-open the rink. He said that as much as he wanted to resume training, he also felt that he still needed to maintain self-restriction. While staying at home, Shun is taking ballet lessons online, three times a week to be able to stretch his free leg. He often practices plié as well. Yuma has been doing jump rope every other day. Now, he can do quadruple jumps as a maximum while Shun can not even do a double jump. Yuma thinks that doing jump rope and figure skating jumps required the same sort of instantaneous power, so he could strengthen the muscles for figure skating by doing jump ropes. In part 3, Yuma said that he was also watching the videos of his performances and doing imagery training to maintain motivation. Shun said that it was sad that they could not compete in this situation, but he would wait to train on the ice to his heart's content once the state of emergency gets lifted. In relation to this, Hyogo-Nishinomiya Ice Arena, the home rink for Keiji Tanaka, Kaori Sakamoto, Mai Mihara is now in preparation for re-opening.

This one has been uploaded a month ago but looks like this is the short film with which Roman took part in a film festival he mentioned in one of his videos or somewhere else? The situation has changed a bit since then and skaters in Canada may be able to get back on the ice in the near future. I really hope their patience during this quarantine period will be rewarded and their experiences will help them in the future.

I wonder if Nathan has forgotten that there is a rule that skaters can repeat only one type of quad in the free skating or he wants another rule that would benefit him.

Satoko's fans donated faceguards to the hospital her parents are working for. Satoko updated her blog today with a message from her parents. https://ameblo.jp/satoko-miyahara/ "Faceguards Hi, everyone! I imagine that in Japan, you feel the summer is already arriving as it gets hotter. The weather is finally beginning to get warmer here in Toronto, and the colorful flowers are starting to bloom. By the way, recently, the hospital my parents are working received donations of faceguards accompanied by a heartwarming letter/heartwarming letters. My parents sent me a message and said, "We will make good use of the faceguards with gratitude towards people who kindly volunteered to donate them." All I can do is just to maintain self-restraint and to pray for the situation to settle down quickly. I am very grateful to all the healthcare workers including my parents. I can only send messages of support and gratitude this way, but I hope sharing this news will help them even a little. Although there is a sign of improvement in the situation, I am going to stay vigilant. Satoko Miyahara" ETA: Fixed some grammatical errors. Sorry!

PJ has interviewed Nam as well. This one's uploaded earlier than those with Piper/Paul or Javi so some of you may have already listened to it, but I put this in here anyway because it is a nice interview.

Wow, James has a nice, soothing voice and is pretty good at controlling it!

I could identify Yuzu, Daisuke, Shun, and Ryuju, but detected multiple Keijis and Kazukis. Yeah, the softness of Yuzu's voice stands out among the older and taller guys here... By the way, Shae can do hydro in both ways. I was thinking the same as Fay but I've just found this video while randomly watching Bourne/Kraatz videos I love hydro with legs crossed. I wonder if it is more difficult than doing it in the other way or it just depends on one's physique.

Yuna is cute and brave By the way, Mitsuhiro Nakamura, who often does play-by-play announcer for competitions covered by Fuji, did Q&A on @online_on_ice IGS and commented on Mai answering a question from a follower. According to Nakamura, when he met coach Nakano at 4CC in February, she said that at that time, Mai was back on the ice and giving her kohais advice. He finished his comment saying, "I hope that she will get healed step by step."

These are "Arigato gozaimashita" from Japanese men's skaters at JNats last December. Can you tell which "Arigato gozaimashita" is Yuzu's? Answer

I got Javi's costume too, probably because, in my mind, uncle Sergei Voronov is the only hot Sergei... but I kind of like that costume so I am fine.

Or this one...

I've never read this comment on Korean fans so this could be new. Other comments were probably given in the mixed-zone interviews and press conferences, but I think there may be some mistranslations and paraphrasing here and there. For example, he says, "I could jump higher and with more perfection" about his jumps in the SP here, but in Japanese articles, he didn't mention the height of the jumps. Instead, he said, "More than anything, I feel that it was because of this program that I could land high-quality jumps while feeling the music to the full." ("何より、やっぱり曲をすごく感じることをしながらも、すごくクオリティの高いジャンプを跳べたっていうのは、なんかやっぱり、このプログラムならではなのかなっていう感じもしています") The comment on his own experience as a flower kid can be found in the press conference video as well, and he acknowledged that it was probably his best Chopin in other articles too. At 4CC, the interpreter wasn't a figure skating expert, so I guess non-Japanese media had some difficulties understanding his comments even though Yuzu did his best in interpreting his own comments.

But every skater has to skate to Je Suis Malade at least once? I thought it was mandatory?

I think next time you click on the IGS of Skate Canada, the videos you haven't watched yet will be automatically played, and you will be able to follow how the story has gone.

Saw some of the videos but they were basically Romsky videos Is he going to continue this all day? Gambatte, Roman! I will be watching!