Old Cat Lady

It's in the running for me. Undoubtedly, of all plain entry quads I think it's the best ever but I can't decide how I would rank it next to jumps with the more difficult entries. The only jumps I can think of that can compete are Yuzu's. I agree. If I had to prioritize, I think the depth of edge, smoothness/speed of glide are the most important aspects of a spiral - to the point that I'm hard pressed to pick between Cohen's beautiful flat spiral and Slutskaya's butt ugly fast, deeply curved spiral. I've just always loved Bobek's position and I guess there's a bit of nostalgia factor - that was the first season that I was more than just a casual viewer and Bobek's spiral was probably the single biggest "wow" element for me that year. I wish there was some sort of required element to do a long gliding element that forces them to put the quality of their edge front and center rather than allowing the ones with weaker skills to hide behind choppy choreography. btw, to everyone, if my OCD rearranging of links is annoying you I can wait to collect more of them before posting. It's just easier to link as I come across them and I think they are most interesting when directly compared to like elements but I can see how that might make following the thread harder. I'm also wondering if there will be issues with having so many links on one page - as usual, I'm letting myself get carried away

I also forgot to mention the absolutely perfect takeoff and nice posture.

4 SALCHOW Wow. That air position is perfectly perpendicular.

The video was made and shared by ICeleste SBS of them doing almost the exact step I really like the 2nd part of the video because you see them doing the steps sbs. By itself, I thought Nate's stsq was pretty good but right next to 19 yo Yuzu, all I can see is how shallow all the steps are

Awesome! Thanks. I've been looking for this forever.

QUAD LOOP http://perform-live.com/blog/video-analysis-of-figure-skating/183-how-to-improve-the-quad-loop-of-hanyu.html Ice Scope claims that the one he did at worlds was 220 cm long, 64 cm high. But the giant gap in measurement also doesn't mean much since they're 2 different jumps and Yuzu had more problems with the jump Perform-live used, and the GPF loop was out of a spread eagle. QUAD FLIP http://perform-live.com/our-works/video-analysis-of-figure-skating/164-how-to-do-a-quad-flip-by-shoma-uno-japan.html Shoma's flips look pretty consistently tiny. Earlier this year, TSL was doing GOE instructional videos and Dave kept insisting that he should get the "very good height and distance" bullet. How could I forget about the famous Tom Z facebook vid. My favorite thing about this video is how clearly you can see Vincent's skate bounce as he takes off facing forward. ETA: weird. It was the video but now I see Tom Z's essay and a link to the video that doesn't work.

Hope it's not too annoying but editing my posts to try to keep like elements together. 3 axels Blog post of different Ladies 3 axels http://morozombie.blogspot.com/2015/04/a-comparison-of-ladies-triple-axels.html This video is amazing. The whole thing is good but starting at 3:22, you can see sbs gifs. As expected, Ito's dwarfed the res OMG! sbs of Kihira and Yuzu. I want to see a sbs of Ito and all the men! Frame by frame shots are my new obsession. Still need to find Tuk but here's Rika. The more I look at these, the more impressed I am with Mao's. Hers is so delicate looking but it's a decent sized jump with superior body position. I think it compares favorably with every axel except Ito's Obviously this isn't Nathan's best axel but it's amazing to see it right next to Yuzu's composite photo. Hopefully I can find a more recent one but pretty sure that his axel hasn't gotten any bigger Sept 1, 2016 Obviously this was taken from the Olympics so probably not an example of his typical axel but no wonder he had issues with it. look at all the snow on the takeoff. I don't follow Chan but now I'm curious if his legs are in that air position for other jumps. Also loving these collages people put together - Spirals Don't know who the person in the bottom right corner is but I like hers the best out of these collages. I've never been a fan of the hand assisted spirals and Sasha's edge bothers me. Though when I mentally filter out the hand holding the leg, I think Mao has the best combo of position + edge. I find Yuna's photo somewhat jarring - not her best element. Still think of Bobek when I think of the most beautiful spirals. I prefer the alignment of her body to Michelle's though in these photos it looks like Michelle has a better edge.

Answer Key 1. List the top 3 combined totals for men 1. Chen - 101.95+199.49=301.44 2. Zhou - 100.51+198.5=299.01 3. Uno - 92.78+189.46=282.24 (Nobody guessed this order) 2.List the top 3 combined totals for ladies 1.Tuktamysheva - 80.54+153.89=234.43 2. Tennell - 74.81+150.83=225.64 3.Sakamoto - 76.95+146.70=223.65 (Nobody guessed this order) 3. Which country’s teams will be the gold, silver, and bronze medalists? 1.USA - 117 2.JPN - 104 3.RUS -102 (Nobody guessed this order) 4. List the top 3 combined totals for pairs James/Cipres = 73.48 +152.52=226 Zabiiako/Enbert = 75.8 + 141.32= 217.12 Della Monica/Guarise = 69.77 + 130.85=200.62 5. List the top 3 combined totals for dance 1.Papadakis/Cizeron - 87.31 + 135.82=223.13 2.Sinitsina/Katsalapov - 84.57+130.63=215.2 3.Hubbell/Donohue - 82.86+127.11=209.97 6. Who will earn the most points on each team (remember that points are based on placement in each of the segments rather than score) Japan - Shoma Uno, Rika Kihira, Kaori Sakamoto all with 20 points Russia - Zabiiako/Enbert - 21 points USA - Chen - 24 points Italy - Della Monica/Guarise - 19 France - P/C - 24 points Canada - Moore-Towers/Marinaro - 19 7. Who will receive the highest raw GOE on a jump (includes throws for pairs)? Sakamoto - SP - 3lo - 4.43 (Nobody guessed this correctly though 1 person wished it) 8. Who will receive the highest raw GOE on a non-jump element. If multiple skaters tie, it will be based on who gets the most elements with that GOE. If there is still a tie, choosing any of those skaters will get you the points. P/C - GOE 5 - rhythm dance - CuLi4, free dance - ChLi1, StaLi4, CuLi4. All these elements were unanimous. Their ChSt1 in the free dance also got a final GOE of 5 after trimmed mean. 9. Who will receive the highest raw PCS score? P/C - 49.57 - free dance 10. For those who attended both, whose total score will improve the most from worlds? Keiji Tanaka -20.44 (nobody guessed this) 11. In which disciplines, will there be a new world record? Ladies SP - Rika Kihira - 83.97, Papadakis/Cizeron - FD - 135.82 (nobody guessed this combo though several guessed one or the other or both + men) 12. Which country’s teams will have no falls or pops of greater than 1 rotation (i.e. quad to double, triples to singles)? None. USA was closest with 1 fall. 13. Will there be any singles skaters that have all positive GOE and level 4’s throughout the competition? Yes - Tuktamysheva 1.River - 36 2.LadyLou - 34 3.Airi - 32 3.Old Cat Lady - 32 5.Yume - 31 6.Anski - 27 7.Ralucutzagy - 22 Look at that - I managed to podium. Obviously must have rigged it in my favor. I guess that means I'm ready to be on a skating panel. Since I organized the event then appointed myself judge, does that mean I should move to Canada? I think next year I'll make all the placement predictions be worth the same. I wasn't thinking about the fact that in most competitions the majority of competitors aren't really contenders for the podium so it's not that different in difficulty predicting a field of 6 vs. 12.

I'm not trying to vouch for the accuracy or relevance of any of this stuff. I just have one of those nerd brains that like to collect as much data as possible before drawing conclusions. And for me it's just plain fun to watch. Also, I didn't intend to make this a Yuzu vs. Nathan thing. I just posted the stuff that I happen to have on hand. I'm currently looking for that gif of Javi's 4s superimposed over Yuzu's AC 4s. I would also love a gif of a Tuktamysheva 3axel imposed over a Kihira one. And I'm looking for that Russian article comparing the jump heights - wish I thought of this earlier. So much more work to look for it later than to just save it right away. anyway, until then, here's some ice scope data. Of course, the accuracy of it has been debated quite a bit. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10Gm4Aq6j4py4cQ1Nq-_RpdA0vYhG0kABaVPVRVLsj6k/edit?usp=sharing

apparently can't delete posts. moved video to diff post.

Does anyone have advice on software/instructions on gif and video making for a beginner? I love those videos that overlay elements or show them side by side and want to learn how to make them. if they're already made I was hoping we could collect them here

I wanted to collect videos and articles comparing elements/programs side by side or over layed so you can directly compare them. Lutz This one gives stats on quad lutzes performed by Nathan and Yuzu http://perform-live.com/blog/video-analysis-of-figure-skating/231-quad-lutz-what-else.html Not sure how informative it is since it's so old but this also has these types of pics of Nathan's jumps from the Olympics https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/16/sports/olympics/nathan-chen-mens-figure-skating.html Lutz by Boyang http://perform-live.com/blog/video-analysis-of-figure-skating/216-interactive-advanced-analysis-4lz-jin.html Judging by the videos I've seen so far, I think this might be the greatest quad Lutz ever performed. Huge height and distance and a smooth landing. Seeing these GIFS of Kolyada's makes me so sad. I'm guessing the falls later in the season unnerved him and he was trying to skate cleaner so he dropped it. I don't get how jumps with such perfect looking technique are so inconsistent. Did he just develop the yips and could never overcome them? SBS of Scherbakova and Trusova at the beginning This was already posted in General Yuzuru chat but I wanted to have a thread dedicated to illustrating differences in quality so I hope admins don't mind me reposting here

Anyone have that GIF where Yuzu is hugging Boyang in the kiss and cry at the Olympics and grabs Boyang on the upper thigh?

If the judges actually followed the guidelines, the current system does do a decent job of rewarding height/distance. Being a core bullet, it makes a huge swing in scores. But since people keep pushing the "these are only guidelines, you don't have to follow them" narrative, not only is there no reward, but like the "out of steps/difficult entry" bullet, judges actually punish skaters for things they're supposed to be rewarded for since these things make the jumps so much harder and, therefore, often cause other problems. There's a reason that Nathan and Vincent are so much more consistent and it's not because they're so much more talented - they save a lot of energy with their small jumps and simple entries and those jumps are much easier to control. Frankly, if anything, I'm often impressed that Nate's managed to actually complete the rotations in such small jumps. That's also why I'm not surprised at the lack of correlation between height/distance and GOE's - big jumps are harder to land well so naturally the jumps are likely to have other problems or don't have the extra features. so the judges then deduct for the problems but don't give credit for the height/distance. What I think would be interesting is seeing where the jumps that get greater than 3 GOE are on the list of height/distance ranks since height/distance is supposed to be a core bullet. I think it's fair that if the jump is in the bottom third or half of all jumps in size, then they shouldn't get that bullet.

There's no proof that he can, either. Let me see if I am accurately understanding the points of view throughout this conversation: your argument seems to be: He does these few things well so of course he can do it just as well if there's more My argument: You need to prove it. Your argument: You can tell who has greater ability by simply comparing the few similar things they do My argument: Just because you're good at some aspects doesn't mean you're just as good at others. Shouldn't someone who demonstrates proficiency in many areas get more credit than someone who only shows it in a few? Your argument: The overall skating skills description says the score is for ability, not content. My argument: A key phrase in the main description as well as the wording in the supporting descriptors make it look like they're also marking content - at the very least, they're looking for variety. Though this is not a point I consider worth debating to much extent as the only way to know the intent for sure is to ask the developers. However, as a corollary to this point, I argue complexity shows a greater demonstration of skill. For example, Skater A does 4 crossovers into a spiral Skater B does mohawk, twizzle, 2 crossovers, change edge spiral They both show exceptional speed. They both are getting a lot of power from their crossovers. Both the spirals are on a very deep edge. But I argue that Skater B is demonstrating greater skill. Are we supposed to just assume that because Skater A's crossovers look as good or better than Skater B's, that skater A can do the twizzle and mohawk just as well? Or that he'd be able to have the same control and speed on his spiral if he added the extra steps and edge or had 2 less pushes? Certainly, not doing it doesn't prove he can't. But what matters is what he actually demonstrates. Similarly, if someone is able to do a perfectly centered, beautifully positioned sit spin of 5 revolutions should we just assume he can also do a change foot sit spin with a difficult variation of 10 revolutions just as well? Isn't it possible for one skater to do a single position spin better but another skater to be able to do the more complicated one better? Isn't the second skater showing a greater demonstration of the vocabulary of skills? Heck, let's remove the variations. Doesn't it show greater skill to be able to keep a spin fast and centered while holding a perfect position for 10 revolutions than it would to do the same for 5? How do we know that the skater won't eventually slow down? I'm not "taking away credit" for only rewarding skater A for what he actually does. So, you're arguing Alina Zagitova makes it look good? No one here is trying to argue that Zagitova's skating skills on any level compares favorably to Kostner (I didn't watch much skating during the Kim era). But yes, I do believe that it is much easier for Nathan Chen to make that 1/2 second inside edge spread eagle look better than that wobbly ass 2-3 second back outside spread eagle. Yes, I do think it was much easier for Kostner to make her many, many crossovers look floaty and beautiful than it was for her to make her step sequence look effortless and sharp. Yes, I do think it's easier for Chen to look confident and secure in his crossovers with sexy ballet arms (can't remember if that was you who came up with that but I've always enjoyed that phrase) than it is for Boyang Jin to make turns and steps look smooth. And as you referenced above, I argue that maintaining the quality of even simple turns, steps, and edges throughout the program shows greater skill than doing it in small segments here and there. I rarely find exhibitions worth watching so I didn't watch many of them. I love that Yuzu puts so much effort into his exhibitions. His gala programs are even more nuanced than a lot of his competition programs. I also enjoyed Sui/Han's exhibition but not sure if the program itself was that great or if it's just because Sui/Han are just so good.

Can't do 2 triple axels or sequences in the short and you'd lose more points than you'd gain on the sequence even if you could. I like the comment on the bottom. Someone informed them that they need to print more because foreigners will try to buy them. Finally, people in Japan are thinking of us

And it's not like he's cheap or she's produced extraordinary results with him. Honestly, I'd rather that they just gave some local budding choreographer a chance. At least then there's a CHANCE she'll get something interesting

Considering where Jason's 4s is, I'm taking the news with a giant grain of salt. Perhaps they're trying to build up an image early for the judges. It's going to be really tough for her to get on the team next year even with that quad though.

We wouldn't. That's kind of the point. Not going to give him credit for assumptions

That's hilarious. Pretty sure Yuzu didn't even notice he and Nathan almost bumped into each other. Weird. I didn't notice skates at all I was thinking the same thing. They should have added some wrinkles and gray hair so we had a more realistic timeline of when he might actually be able to grow the beard

I thought about the footwork sequence as well but then I thought, all the factors for the footwork are already credited in the GOE since there are creative bullets like "element matches music" and "originality". It's a similar concept to your PCS going up because you can land quads. You're giving double credit for the same element. I think PCS is more big picture. To be honest, I'm still thinking about this. In the past, I thought like you, but then I re-read the description and it made me reconsider. There's also a GOE mentality to this - it's easier to make things look good when you're doing easier elements. Would the skating look more labored if he had to do more? I think the score is primarily technique, but there is a content factor. For example, Zhou could be doing the most jam packed program in history and I still wouldn't score him higher than Shoma. It's similar to falling on a quad - if you do the element badly you should still get fewer points than a perfectly executed triple. But a mediocre quad is still going to score higher because it's so much more difficult. Part of the disconnect is also how we're interpreting the other components. You think the difficulty of the in betweens are scored in the other components whereas I think even very simple movements are considered in their scores. I also think composition is more about how well all the movements are arranged rather than the difficulty. I don't agree either but I counted it because I thought it was supposed to count? I try my best to judge the skating as I think the rules state it's supposed to be judged rather than how I think it should be judged. I interpret the transition description to mean that you should give some credit for linking movements of any kind simply existing and then you would adjust the score up and down based on difficulty and variety.

Which is why I say "one" of the things to consider. And honestly, not even the most important one. But it is the most concrete one. I would never use quantity of content in itself to judge a program but I do believe that it is a relevant metric. sorry, that comment was a little unclear. When I made that comment it was simply a comment on why I was counting the crossovers not a comment about the Skating Skills score Perhaps the disconnect is in what we're counting as transitions? I could have sworn that I read somewhere that arm movements are counted as transitions. Certainly, Kolyada has much more meaningful transitions (another reason why I gave him higher score) but Nate is doing stuff after the elements. It's just that a note on Kolyada goes like this: Pose. lunge. Twizzle. Steps while Nate's are "turn, co, 4.5 sec prep into 4t - good/small. Simple turns"... choreo sequence - mostly upper body movements with a few simple turns and steps

I'm going by this chart https://www.usfsa.org/content/ISU program-component-chart_sandp-and-id_08-16.pdf The phrase "demonstrated by a command of the skating vocabulary..." and most of the sub bullets all say "use". I'm interpreting that to mean that content of steps and turns is considered in this score. I would say Shoma excels at "Flow and guide" and "Balance, rhythmic knee action" and "varied use of power, speed and acceleration" but they're only 3 of the 6 considerations. It's not so much an obsession with counting crossovers as it is looking for objective measurements as I feel that opinions should be supported with facts whenever possible. PCS wise, I think the only truly objective measurement is to simply list the content of the program (I do recognize that it is one of many factors when evaluating PCS). What I was actually doing was attempting to list every element in the program, but it became tedious to try to identify every step and turn so I just short handed it to crossovers vs. other steps then counted at the end. Yes, I do realize that's still weird. I agree that greater crossovers don't necessarily mean an inferior program. However, IJS is a system of breaking down and quantifying individual pieces. Since PCS is as much technical as artistic, the difficulty of the choreography is one of the many things to consider. (and I actually think Shoma has one of the most beautiful programs of all the singles skaters) By "less" I simply meant that Chen has a higher quantity of non-element movements than Kolyada. But I'd give Kolyada a higher score because he does a better job of actually linking the movements.

I love how they made one of the most beautiful ads I've ever seen using just competition footage. It doesn't look like it got photo shopped to hell like those Ghana ads can be. Honestly, I would prefer not to see something like that because it means he's using his precious little practice time on something that will actually hurt him in competition. I hope if he works on anything it'll be quad or loop on back half.

I wonder if the chances for approval would be better if we had articles on a "sister" site with a more generic name. We could just name it "The Planet" or something so it's still affiliated but less fannish. I already have ideas for articles. Shanshani spends so much time gathering data. It would be great to have that information easily available and an accompanying article drawing conclusions from it. I've spent much of the day commenting on why the GOE's from worlds were so wrong. I've spent so much time explaining how the judging system is SUPPOSED to work to people. We already do play by plays of the big events.