shanshani

well, I can't imagine that the super PR 4Lzs are any harder than 3As, given that they're the same amount of rotations. other than that, it might be personal preference. Nate is also worse at 3A than he is at many quads. also I think a lot of people find jumps that take off backward less scary than jumps that take off forward.

We should do our own skating podcast, so people will have something to listen to besides that drama-filled gossipy dreck.

He says he’s skating the ACI layout clean with very high frequency in practice, which I hadn’t heard about. That’s great to hear. I’m guessing ice conditions + competition nerves account for the difference. Hopefully we’ll get to see squeaky clean Origin soon. And then we’ll probably see a BV upgrade...

I ran a t-test on her judging record for US skaters v other skaters and got back p < 0.01, so...yeah

so she was promoted? ...well that's great, she provably favors American skaters, on a level similar to how Russian judges favor Russian skaters. ugh

I'm not sure I understand. Some of these judges have definitely judged internationally previously. For instance, Laurie Johnson (USA) has an extensive judging record from last season which shows very strong evidence of national bias. Did she get removed at some point and re-instated?

hearing some consternation about Zhenya's jump at Shanghai Trophy being called 3Lz!< instead of 3Lze. anyone have or seen good footage? guess the point difference isn't that much, but apparently the TP is seeing non-existent URs again but failing to see a blatant inside edge.

this is cursed

This is getting really yikes. Hope everything turns out okay, that Nobu is in a better place now, and whatever vicious dynamic is happening stops.

Figure skating just isn't that popular in America any more, I guess. A lot of the country doesn't have a tradition of ice sports, and they haven't had a ladies star in forever (which is why they gotta push Alysa Liu so hard, I guess). And I feel like American gender norms prevent men's from getting that popular even when they have Nathan, and it doesn't help that a lot of the population is still kind of racist towards Asians and Asian Americans.

haha, I just feel sorry for Samarin because it seems no one roots for him in the English speaking skating world, although I guess he does seem to have a lot of fed support. plus he does have some good qualities, even if he...has a lot of development to do on the PCS front. I mean, he jumps huge, gotta give him that.

poor Misha feels like the men's field is constantly plagued with health issues of various kinds. which russian guy will I root for now? maybe I'll be contrarian and root for Samarin

I don't know if the ISU even cares about their bottom line that much, otherwise they'd be rolling the red carpet out for Yuzu the way other sporting organizations do for their big stars... tbh when I imagine the ISU, I picture a group of stodgy old fuddy-duddies who hate the idea of change and don't care about anything except keeping things the way they used to be. I mean, think about their reaction to the cutting edge technology of the USB drive (of course, no offense to the older people of this forum--you guys are cool!)

at GPF there were some team russia skaters sitting behind me that were so loud and repetitious it did genuinely get a bit annoying. but at the end of the day it's only mild annoyance, plus it was cool for them to be there and support their teammates. also, though it's not figure skating, remember that gif of Scott Moir heckling the hockey refs at the Olympics? again, there is no great harm being done by cheering too loudly, and even though we might sometimes think some people around us are a bit over the top, we have to remember there's a lot of subjectivity and cultural conditioning that goes into that judgment. I think we should remember that FS fans come from all kinds of backgrounds, and what is normal audience behavior for them may differ significantly based on where they're from and their past experiences. So I think a bit of forbearance is in order for our fellow fans, and of course fans of other figure skaters as well.

eh, depends on the opera house. it's normal for the audience to heckle the stars at La Scala, and led to a few walk-outs. that opera house is pretty legendary for its, uh, loud and opinionated patrons, actually. anyway, I think people are wringing their hands too much over people just having some fun. idk, I think people get way too worked up over supposed fan bad behavior in FS. other sports like hockey and football literally cause riots. figure skating fans being a bit extra rowdy? doesn't really strike me as a serious issue. plus, I think it's pretty ungenerous to impute onto rowdy fans motives like “they were trying to making it about themselves,” any more than it would be right for them to say things like “you're complaining about us because it gives you a feeling of superiority.” a bit of silliness, rowdiness, and over-passion is just part of being human, and part of following a sport. let us be the ridiculous creatures that we are! anyway, if Yuzu dislikes it, then let him make that clearly known, and fans will either respect his wishes or get fairly criticized for not doing so. he's an adult and fully capable of expressing himself, and should do so if he has strong feelings and preferences about this. he's not a child in need of coddling, we don't have to protect him from every little thing that could plausibly cause him the tiniest bit of unease. trust him to speak up if he feels the need. meanwhile, we shouldn't jump to conclusions about his inner life based on stray expressions either. impressions of other people's thoughts and feelings can often be wrong, and even though we feel like we may know Yuzu, of course, we really don't. (And people misread the feelings of people they know well all the time too.)

if you think about a sit-spin, it essentially requires holding a one legged squat. my thighs burn thinking about it I don't think it's difficult getting a spin going from a stand still. Even a scrub like me can do it, you just apply some edge pressure and swing your upper body around. It might be hard to get a fast spin going though, or for certain positions.

no kidding, I'm still working on holding a right back outside edge out of a spin because they still make me dizzy.

someone has 4As on the mind if Yuzu had jumped a 4A+3A, that would certainly be something to react to

Isn't the lady usually the focus of attention in ID/pairs, while the man plays more of a supporting role? It'll be interesting to see that dynamic reverse for Dai...also the reason why it's hard to see Yuzu in a traditional ID team. He would definitely have to play the lady

what are his shots at qualifying? An understanding of ice dance scoring still eludes me

okay I'm super down for this tbh a couple of other team Japan skaters should probably consider switching to dance. it's just too crowded in singles, and Japan needs more depth in pairs/ID

hmm...someone figure out and write down what he's doing. I wanna try. I mean, it looks like I can most of those things, except with terrible posture, poor edge control, bad lines and jerky transitions between movements

use some of that worlds money to invest in better technology. I would feel better about paying out the nose for tickets if it led to improved judging

The scoring system already drops the highest and lowest scores for each element/PCS category. It actually doesn't make that much of a difference to scores.