Old Cat Lady

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.

I was being an obsessive compulsive weirdo and counting crossovers from worlds and I actually see the argument for giving Uno lower skating skills scores. He had by far the most crossovers of the top men. It's difficult because he might have the best knees and glide of all the skaters, but how can you give credit for skating skills when you're doing so little to actually display them? In this sense, I can see the argument for transitions and skating skills to be closely tied - but what do you do about skaters that have a huge gap between ability and content? Nate got 9.5, Kolyada 9, and Jin got 8.5. They all had crossovers in the low to mid 20's. Uno had around 35 and scored around 9.04. Judging by video, I'd probably put them 1. Kolyada... big gap... 2. Uno 3. Nate 4. Jin. Of course scores were also affected by Uno making the most major mistakes. For those who've seen them all live, do you think Nate and Jin are a full point apart? To me, they look pretty close - Nate currently has more polish but I would think that goes more toward the performance score. Upon closer inspection, Nate's transitions aren't quite as bad as I thought they were - I can see the argument for ranking him second of the top men, though I'd score him at LEAST a full point below Hanyu. It's just that the preps for the jumps are so long and so stark that it completely disrupts the program and it becomes what's the most noticeable thing about the program. However, this should be reflected in GOE's, choreography, performance, and interpretation, and as far as I can tell, he isn't getting penalized on ANY of those scores. And this is another question of quantity vs. quality. I'd still rank Kolyada higher because his are higher quality in spite of having slightly less. Nate doesn't finish any of his moves - it's very obvious that he's just doing the moves because that's what he's supposed to do rather than connecting them to a cohesive whole. I'd rank Uno the worst of the top men - I actually think his are the most beautiful, but once again, how do you give credit when there's so little there? I do appreciate Jin's program more that I took another look at it. It still has the second most crossovers and the movements are choppy and unfinished, but everything is improved and it does try to create a whole picture and set a mood.

On the bright side, Kazuki looks great. The movements are so sharp. I just wish his 4 Continents Riverdance was cleaner - the performance aspect was incredible. I hope he's able to keep up his tech enough to stay on the world stage - he's looking like he has so much potential as a show skater.

Seems like such a waste of time. Some of the comments are saying that it's rival companies trying to cut down Yuzu's promotional power.

I actually love Carmina Burana. This is the one Orser suggestion that I wished he took. However, for next year I'm hoping he does something edgier with a lot of tension but still has the big crescendos that he can use to highlight his natural glide. I loved the regal, confident dark Yuzu that you see in Origin. I don't listen to a ton of different music but I'm thinking something like Disturbed version of "Sound of Silence". Very raw and powerful but I can picture Ina Bauers and spirals skated to a lot of the long held notes. It's also a slow enough tempo that he could conserve energy while still building intensity. I imagine it being structured like Otonal - starting slowly with jumps in the beginning and exploding at the end.

It's the sum of the BV. Here's a link to the worksheets I use for a short cut - most of the credit goes to Shanshani. I just modified them for my needs. "Reverse GOE" is used to find the raw GOE marks of the judges. I also use it to figure out scores if a skater didn't make mistakes. Enter the factored GOE into the light pink GOEP box and it will calculate the raw GOE into the light blue GOE box. "Layout" is the original protocol that Shanshani made. I pretty much use it to see bv and the effects of the different GOE scores. "Scorecard" is what I use when I want to rescore events. The green boxes represent each bullet. The red is the total number of reductions. Sometimes you have to hand change the final GOE because the math doesn't end right. This is view only so you'll need to save it to your Drive before you can use it. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AgOJKPfj4YBcymwA8yx-wjo-9-RXFYFDkMMID_IuVFI/edit?usp=sharing

Judging by the protocols, everything was a mess that day. Lost levels everywhere and GOE's well below his normal. Of course, I don't trust protocols anymore and I hate that program too much to check. I tried it with him getting -3 on 4s< (let's be honest, that thing is just a bluff at this point so that's probably the best we can hope for), hitting all his levels, same PCS as SP 92.3, and he ended up with 284.05 combined, putting him 2.89 ahead of Vincent. I was okay with the men's results at first but then I actually did a re-score and now I'm pissed. I was going to go through and break down exactly what was all in the programs (crossovers, seconds of prep, transition elements, possibly air time though I don't know how to use any sophisticated software so probably not) as that's the only objective measure. Anyone happen to do anything like this already before I put myself through this misery?

I know he'll do his self effacing diplomatic thing but I hope he doesn't outright say that the score was fair. Let the fire burn as long as possible

I think one of the problems with the Fanyu reaction is that they're coming off as emotional with very little explaining why they think the scoring was bad. It's easy to write such reactions off as just crazy fans being sore losers. I'm thinking of replying with a series of tweets explaining all the ways the judging GOE's were wrong to show that there is legitimate logic behind the statements but doesn't seem worth it if they don't read the comments. Even if they do, likely that it still isn't worth it but at least I can feel like I did something. I wish I could post that video someone here made showing the difference in transitions between the two but the ISU will probably just get it taken down. I was just thinking that his blogs are so bland that they're bizarre. He can't possibly think he's saying anything worth writing, especially when he's so eloquent in interviews. I love how we all know he's trolling us and we're just thirsty for more.

If you mentally block the orange ruffles, the costume is quite flattering. Hugs his body almost as well as the ppos. Just looked at the ISU Twitter. What do you think are the chances that ISU actually reads the comments?

Just had a random thought. If you have original articles on the site, couldn't you guys get a press pass for the site? I was just thinking about this because TSL and Goldenskate have press passes, why couldn't the Planet? I'm sure members would volunteer to help with the article writing.

I wonder if Yuzu is better off getting creative with combos rather than trying to learn new jumps. We've seen that clip of him doing 2s/e/4s. Maybe he'd be able to do 4t on the back end. SP: 4lo, 3a, 4t/3t* LP: 4lo, 4s, 4t, 3lz, 3f/4t*, 3a/e/3s, 3a/3t BV: 143.45 GOE 3: 179.93 SP: 4lo, 3a, 4t/3t* LP: 4lo, 4s, 4t, 3lz, 3f/4t*, 3a/2t*, 3a/3t/3lo* BV: 144.99 GOE 3: 181.47 If he's able to do the 3 triple combo, he'd be better off with LP: 4lo, 4s, 4t, 3a, 3f/4t*, 3a/2t*, 3lz/3t/3lo* He's much more likely to get a 4+ GOE on a 3a than a 3lz, more than making up for the slight loss in BV.

I wouldn't seriously suggest it. Unfortunately one of the big competitive disadvantages for Yuzu is that he actually has an artistic vision whereas Nathan prioritizes the tech and is fine just doing what he's told choreographically - these are things that Nate and Raf have said themselves. From a competitive standpoint, Yuzu's programs are terribly structured because he loses so much more than he gains. But one of the things people often like to claim is that Nathan's isn't less artistic, just has a different style or hold Yuzu's music against him. You can't do that if they're skating to the same thing. One of the things I liked about the older style original dance is that it truly separated the artists from the rest. Yes, you could get lucky and have a type of dance that happened to suit your style, but only those who have a true talent for interpreting music will do well year after year. What I'd really like for Yuzu to do is declare his immediate retirement, spend a year or two healing, then do Ciontu while worlds is going on. There's probably some rule against that, but I am really curious about how ticket sales will be without him - previous to this, we never knew because most tickets would have already been sold by the time people knew he wasn't going to be there. If he's fit and able after healing, then he can commit to Beijing. I know Yuzu is worried because after Patrick took a year off he wasn't very competitive anymore but Patrick didn't fall behind because he took time off; he fell behind because he half assed his come back. Unlike Patrick, Yuzu has always kept close tabs on his competitors and worked to stay ahead of the game. btw, if Yuzu decides on a 5 quad layout next year, these are the base values as well as the scores if everything got a GOE of 3 SP - 4lo, 3a, 4t/3t* (using same layout for all calculations) LP - 4lz, 4lo, 4s, 4t, 4t/2t*, 3a/e/3s*, 3a/3t * BV: 144.65 GOE 3: 182.81 LP - 4lz, 4lo, 4s, 4t, 4t/3t, 3a/e/3s, 3f/3a seq BV: 146.12 GOE 3: 184.28 LP - 4lz, 4lo, 4s, 4t, 4t/3a seq, 3f/3t/2lo, 3a/3t BV: 146.41 GOE 3: 183.76 LP - 4lz, 4lo, 4s, 4t, 4t/2t, 3f/3a seq, 3a/3t/3lo (I only include this because I saw that clip of him doing 4t/3t/3lo) BV: 147.66 GOE 3: 185.82 Previously I stated that it wasn't worth it to do 4lo in the short because of the lower GOE but I believe I was wrong. He still gets more points for a 3 GOE 4lo than a 4 GOE 4s. And in the old system, he got equal or higher GOE for the loop than the salchow. I kept the 4t/3t because it's so consistent and the difference in value from 4s and 4t is only .02. I didn't include any layouts with 3 lo as the second jump in the combo as I imagine the motion is different with the greater impact so being able to do it on a 3 jump combo doesn't necessarily mean he can do it on a 2 jump combo. In comparison, Chen's layout SP: 3a, 4lz, 4t/3t* LP: 4lz, 4f, 4t, 3a, 4t/3t*, 3f/e/3s*, 3lz/3t* BV: 142.56 GOE 3: 179.28 SP: 3a, 4lz, 4t/3t* LP: 4lz, 4f, 4s, 3a, 4t/3t*, 4t/3t*, 3f/e/3s* BV: 146.72 GOE 3: 184.58

The main reason I think the 4 & 5 buttons should be disabled upon not reaching the designated height is because the rules say that any jump without height & distance shouldn't get higher than 3. Overcoming the first 3 bullets makes a huge difference in the score so judges ignoring that part of the guidelines is the biggest influencer of the outcome. Unfortunately too many of the bullets are subjective to ever completely replace human judges but the ISU can do a lot to reduce corruption/human error by removing a lot of the control from the judges hands. I don't think it would be that hard for skaters to attach sensors to their skates. It could be made part of the warm up. Some of the most impactful aspects on scoring can be objectively measured. The 4 most ignored aspects of the GOE judging seems to be "height and distance" for greater than 3 GOE and reductions for "lacking rotation, no sign", "small jump", and "long prep". The ISU could determine how many seconds of prep deserves how much deduction and the technology could automatically take a 2 or 3 GOE deduction depending on seconds of glide. Same with certain reduction for falling below a predetermined height and deductions for "lacking rotation". Also, I don't see why an 89 degree ur jump should be worth so much less than a 90 degree ur jump. It's especially detrimental when a < jump gets the double whammy of GOE and BV reduction while judges don't take any deduction at all for a slightly ur jump. It would also help a lot for the ISU to have their own judging staff. I realize that they're trying to keep costs down but why couldn't they pull from the same pool of people they're already paying as the technical panel for judging? and they're paying judges anyway. There's plenty of places to cut costs where it doesn't hurt the fairness of the competition. a lot of people like to try to invalidate people's observations with "judges know more than you" but the reality is that judges are pulled from the tiny pool of people who can afford to make judging figure skating their hobby, not necessarily people who are most passionate about the sport or even spend the most time studying the rules. the reality is that it's in the judges best interests to be corrupt - if they don't prop their own skaters up the federation probably will quit sending them to events.

But they're not portraying his sleep shirt! I'm imagining something like this

Thank you for being so receptive. I totally understand your frustration. I feel it too. I really liked the system in theory and I felt positive about the fact that I generally agreed with the GOE judging in the old system but after worlds, I'm losing hope. Lol, part of the reason I put so much work into it is because I get really annoyed at people (not you, other forums) who try to claim that Nathan is unbeatable and use the point gap to try to claim that he's surpassed Yuzu. That's why I focus so much on letting people know that the difference in score would have been made up by the Salchow mistakes. However, even disregarding the bad joke that the judges made of the PCS score, Yuzu should have won if GOE bullets were properly applied. Geez, if Nathan doesn't deserve the "long prep" or "small jump" deductions, then who does? The judges have shown that you might as well just eliminate that bullet since they won't apply it anyways. I don't think clean Nathan will ever get higher PCS than clean Yuzu because there's just too much to overlook, but judges will make it irrelevant the way they did at worlds. Essentially just making it a tie breaker. I certainly see the day when clean Nathan will get higher PCS than a slightly flawed Yuzu. The thing that drives me crazy is that the Nathan stans like to tout his consistency but it's so much easier to be consistent when you're gliding into tiny jumps for 2 seconds and not expending energy on transitions. That's why I was thinking that Yuzu should water down his jump layout at the beginning of the season - to make sure he can be consistent and build up that PCS baseline but his mind just doesn't work that way and that strategy might actually backfire (remember the 2017 Autumn Classic). I forgot to mention one thing in my original post about way to maximize posts. Part of me wants Yuzu to just spend the summer working on his jumps during the summer and wait until Nathan announces his music choices. Then use the same music to make it undeniable who's actually interpreting the music. I know that's douchey and Yuzu would never do that, but a small part of me wishes Yuzu would be more cutthroat since the judges/media/fans will look for any excuse to deny giving him proper credit. I wish the SP was more like the original dance from the 90's, so you could compare skaters on a level a playing field as possible. Unfortunately it's moot whether a clean Yuzu would have beaten Nate this year because by next year or the year after, that won't be true anyways. If Yuzu does plan to compete for a few more years, he is making the right decision by upgrading the tech. Even with that in mind, I don't think it's necessarily the right decision to work on the 4f, though I understand that he wants to avoid being hurt as much by ice conditions. It seems that it's best to work on only the jumps absolutely necessary for competition so that he can work on consistency.

The 4f was on the border for the quarter mark. Yuzu's was clearly at or past the quarter. And I've already acknowledged TWICE that the judging was ridiculous. Whether Nate's flip deserved the call or not, Yuzu should have won. The point I was making, and stated explicitly, was that without those mistakes, Yuzu would have won in spite of the terrible judging. I didn't say anything on your previous post because I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, but now it's two posts in a row. There's no need to be so rude. It's certainly possible for clean Nate to win against clean Yuzu and probably will happen in the future. But in this particular competition, scoring patterns indicate a clean Yuzu would have won.