shanshani

...great now he can put all his time and energy into mastering 4A

I think people should boycott/walk out on the awards show. they're clearly organizing it with little thought to the safety of the audience/athletes, they did not properly represent the event when they started selling tickets leading to some people having obstructed views/scheduling issues without any forewarning, and it's clearly an excuse to do bs PR stuff while ignoring fans' actual opinions.

these are my feelings about Brian drama: honestly, I don't get why people are so fixated on what he does. must be a sign that we're all going mad due to lack of Yuzu content. I mean, I stayed up until 4am watching juniors. Juniors! I am going insane, I tell you

I've been to Toronto twice and have barely seen any of it because suburban wasteland

update coming soon~

there's some chance that the season may officially end with 4CC too, given the circumstances

Seconding the things that @KatjaThera has said. I feel like the suggestion that strong people don't see therapists can discourage people from getting help, because they don't want to seem "weak." Sometimes strength is recognizing when you need, or would even just benefit from, outside support, and pursuing that instead of just stubbornly trying to go it alone. Obviously none of us know everything that's going on inside of Yuzu's head, and therefore we can't say what he could or could not benefit from, but whether he chooses to go see a therapist or some other kind of mental health professional at some point does not reflect his strength or weakness. Nor would it reflect anyone else's strength or weakness. (I also don't think studying clinical psychology means you can be your own therapist. Lots of mental health professionals go to other mental health professionals. It's like how doctors aren't supposed to treat themselves.)

wow, that's worse than the 2010 interview I've been seeing going around. It's okay if he personally prefers a certain style, but don't try to push that on the rest of us. besides, competitions are boring if everyone skates the same style. plus, going off who the most popular skater is, it's hardly bad for the popularity of the sport for men to skate more "feminine"-coded programs

I feel like Han Yan's free is also a good example of why masculine doesn't have to equal not beautiful. That program has a very masculine vibe to me, but it's also gorgeous. It's definitely one of my favorite FSs this season. Hopefully he'll be able to skate it well at worlds, even though there's been all this trouble I agree with the earlier comment that no one really seems to be doing the aggressive, tbh almost insecure style of masculinity Stojko seems to want though. We can debate whether Nathan has much of a style at all, but whatever it is, it isn't karate, nascar, whatever. Usually when people do that kind of style, it's in a humorous gala program poking fun at it

I feel like ice princess is no longer the cultural zeitgeist in America. Sasha's personality and packaging (if not her actual skating and performance skills) would probably be more marketable these days. But I see your point. US fed would politick even harder for a lady than for anyone else.

yeah it's fortunate that my stronger turns are the more useful ones. I can do LFO 3s in my sleep (just not particularly straight lol) and counterclockwise waltz 3s are now part of my warm up routine. weirdly I also find doing RFO 3 turns a little easier in the context of waltz 3s than by themselves, I guess because you carry angular momentum into the turn lol I remember that I finally achieved a sort of decent 1 foot spin and also managed to do a crappy forward scratch spin before I had to stop training for a while. ugh I'll probably have to work to earn those things back too.

I love reading the comments from some of the really old videos. (Usually reading youtube comments is not advised, but these tend to be good.) for instance, from 8 years ago

yeah, but I'd just like to see some commentators and fans try to argue out of the one side of their mouth that Nathan deserves to go higher than Yuzu because he did one more quad, while arguing out of the other side of their mouth that Jason deserves to go higher than Boyang/whoever because even though Boyang did 5 more quads Jason has superior artistry and skating skills

my LFO 3turn was easy peasy, it only took a session or two and I got it before my two foot turn lol. RFO is a harder but I feel like that has to do with my ongoing boot/blade issues for my right foot, plus I strongly prefer turning counterclockwise to clockwise. but I got both like a month before I got my inside mohawks. I got right to right to left open mohawk first, but left to right didn't take much longer. but it's not as good--I always exit on too deep an inside edge lol. I have a hard time straightening my 3 turns and mohawks in general, my coach kept making me redo my half flip entry because my turn kept being too swingy inside 3 turns are the devil though. at least I have the RFI one down (after literal months of struggle), that one's more useful anyway. before I took a break I still had to psych myself up and warm up my LFI ones up before I could do them. I also did like, several accidental rockers trying to learn them lol

Yeah, I'm skeptical about 4A at worlds this season. would be kind of amazing if he did it though I kind of feel like he should focus on skating Chopin + Seimei clean with the 4Lz. Only do 4 quads in the FS and dare the judges to put him below Nathan just because he jumped one less quad when we see Jason going above skaters who jump like 3+ more quads than him.

Well, Alyona benefits plenty from her present flag too. Unlike many she at least has a legitimate claim to her PCS though. But if she were from Korea or something she'd be in the same position as Rika

I hate left forward inside 3s too! my right ones are okay now, but it was only recently I started getting an okay success rate on them ugh, I want to skate now. but I havent been able to because I've been traveling for the past month and a half and now I'm under quarantine. plus my home rink is shut for the first half of 2020 I'll probably have to relearn left forward inside 3s mohawks took me a while too, I found outside 3s way easier. but my turnout is pretty average

I feel like any excuses you could possibly make for that image are invalidated by the presence of Cipres in it

sad that you can just say that and it's enough of an explanation

yup. the actual scoring system itself emphasizes quality a lot, possibly too much--hence why Jason is competitive with people who jump way more quads than him. but the problem is that judges won't acknowledge quality in skaters without political backing/reputation, and are just completely inconsistent in their standards

I think the ISU realizes there are problems with the judging (for example they put out that video about common errors in PCS judging during the last off season, and they keep trying to change the judging system). But they aren't doing anything to actually hold judges accountable, so nothing changes. Back when the whole backloading controversy was happening, the main argument against backloading was that it produced an unbalanced program that was dull to watch. Well, if so, the judges should have deducted marks from CO, instead of having the ISU step in with another unnecessary rule adjustment. But that would require judges to actually put some thought into PCS, which they are of course loathed to do.

yeah, I guess Yuzu didn't know that. he's falling behind on his lurking game! also of course the ISU has a random glitch with the judging system. so on brand. the entire judging system itself is one giant glitch, really

it was at the K&C when Yuzu was waiting for SP scores. they were taking a long time and he mentioned how it also took P/C a long time to get their scores at Euros in a way that suggested he was nervous about what that might signify (P/C came in second, possibly deservedly, but given how much of judges' pets they were for the first half of the season it was pretty weird from what I gather--didn't watch Euros)

here's the fundamental structure of the problem: either you put more weight on the subjective (GOE and PCS) marks, or more weight on BV. the problem with putting too much weight on BV is that there's not enough reward for anything that isn't landing a hard jump and people who are good at things that aren't landing hard jump can't compete on their strengths the problem with putting to much weight on GOE and PCS is that you give way too much power to determine placements to judges, who are terrible at their jobs and will just give it to whoever is being politicked/whoever has a stronger reputation pre-Pyeongchang, we had the first problem. now we have the second problem. you're either going to have the first or the second problem, unless you fix the judging. in both cases, skaters who are strong at GOE/PCS but don't have political backing are screwed

Yuzu look like a cinnamon roll on the outside most of the time, but inside he's stone cold ruthless. Who can forget his shade at Nathan last worlds, when he said you had to win Olys to be a real champion? Or him making fun of Kenji's axel takeoff during the Kenji no heya interview, and also calling him old and pointing out that his anecdote landed like a rock? tbh commentator Yuzu would probably be a more technical and detail-oriented version of Ted Barton (minus Russian stanning? not actually sure about that) 95% of the time, but the other 5% of the time would be epic, charmingly-delivered shade