rockstaryuzu

There's enough figure skaters in Ireland to hold a national championships? I'm not trying to slag Ireland here, but I do know it's a nation with less than a handful of skating rinks so how many skaters could there be?

Of interest, perhaps - I think Brian was rinkside for Corey's and Conrad's skates. I could hear someone clapping every time they completed an element and it sounded exactly like Brian's clapping always does when you watch other competitions. And yes, Brian does have a clapping pattern that is recognizable. I watched the final 4: Corey: Hmm. He shows lots of promise, but compared to his SP I find this FS program a little bland. Looking forward to seeing how he improves Conrad: His planned content included 4Lz, 4S and 4T, with 3As singly and in combo...very ambitious. It's nice that he's so ambitious. He couldn't quite make it work in this skate, and once one thing went wrong it seemed to snowball a bit and the wheels came off progressively more the whole program, which to me says he hasn't yet mastered his mental game. Still, lots of promise here as well. Nam: I love the music and this program is a beautiful departure from his usual style. That being said, once again the skate had a practice session vibe to it. It was a little too relaxed. It would have been nice to see it done in costume and with a bit more emoting and performance going on. I have a feeling that if he'd been doing this in front of a regular crowd, this would have been an emotional high point and a thing of beauty...alas we only get to see what might have been, instead. Roman: Wow. This skate was wonderful and I watched it with such a fond smile on my face. Roman is pure beauty on the ice and watching him move is a pleasure. Shaky combos cost him TES points...but did anyone see the GOE on that opening 4S? 3.23! wow. A PCS score of 90.1 is nothing to sneeze at either. Overall, I think Ted is right - Roman is carrying himself with greater confidence as Canadian champion, and it shows. Also, I loved Ted reading out the comments sent in by the viewers. People were saying such nice things. Good for Roman. Caught a little of the free dance so far. Going to watch more later but Zachary & Marjorie really are impressing me with their creativity and daring.

Plush did. NOT! Read the rest of the interview, and I see that he did. Wow. He has a point though, about how aggressive the commentary about skating on social media has become.

I watched Conrad, Corey, Nam, and Roman, and I have to say that I was impressed with all of them. Compared to last year, Conrad has really matured and settled down on the ice. He gave a very confident skate and I think he's coming along nicely as a skater. I am looking forward to seeing him in years to come because he's one of those guys that's just going to get better and better over time. Corey - at first I didn't recognize him. I'm not 100% sure, but I think he's grown quite a lot and is now another tall and willowy skater. He has great presence on the ice, although his jumps looked a little tight to me. Nam - a fluid and expressive performance. Another skater who seems to be maturing into a fine performer right before my eyes. He kept Blues for Klook from last year and this performance is almost as good as he did at SCI in Kelowna. You can tell that he suffers without having audience energy to feed off of, though. This skate felt a little like a practice run through. Roman, doing Exogenesis - maybe there's something about the Exogenesis music that is magic, because every skater who does it turns in enthralling performances - first Zhenya last year, and now Roman this year. Just wow. This might be the best I've seen Roman skate yet. It felt like an Olympic caliber performance to me. There was no hesitancy or shakiness - the jumps were smooth and assured, the skating like silk. He has the knack of performing well even without a physical audience present, which makes his skating come across well even in a situation like this. I really love this skate and it makes me sad that this is probably the only time we'll get to see it this year. I hope all the skaters can hold onto or improve on this form going into Olympic season. Also, does Canada now have the tallest senior men's singles line? Out of these four, I think Nam is the short one and he's, what, 5'10"?

Roman's reaction to Nationals being canceled. He also explains why it got canceled in more detail

He's definitely high risk. I wish him a speedy recovery.

This virtually guarantees Team Canada won't be going to Worlds either. What would be the point? Most if the team have barely been able to compete in even one competition this year.

At least the app finally got it right with the LMEY photo. How many hundreds or thousands of times has Yuzu's photo been uploaded into that thing and this is the very first time it's gotten both the age and the gender right.

100% agree, especially after what I saw a certain pairs-skater-turned-coach-turned-judge post on Twitter one time about Yuzu's StSeqs sometimes being 'messy'.... It dawned on me after watching him live a few times that the judges must be mistaking Yuzu's high complexity of skating as something else. So I personally think it's very much to Yuzu's advantage to pull back a little. But it grinds my gears that his full brilliance doesn't get appreciated...

And now I'm hungry.

As regards the content of H&E: on first watch, I also thought that Yuzu wasn't doing as much in the program as we're used to seeing him do. I don't want to use the term 'empty' , but there is definitely space in it. Breathing room. After reading what others have said about this and reflecting on it, I think the reason why it looks kind of sparse might be because, for the last umpteen seasons, Yuzu has been using programs that are absolutely packed to the brim with SO MUCH stuff that they're literally breathless. Origin had him doing something literally every beat of the music. 4CC Seimei was a jam-packed 4min 30sec program condensed down to an even more dense 4min. Even H&L is full. Yuzu hasn't done a free skate program with breathing room in it for a long, long time. It doesn't mean the program is lacking in any way. It just means there's space in it.

Seems like no one's noticed this? There's a Skate Canada competition going on this weekend and next using pre-recorded skates but live judging: https://skatecanada.ca/events/2021-skate-canada-challenge/ It's the competition that Roman was filming for

Somehow today this verse seems especially apropos.

I wasn't the one who first suggested it... @Umebachi was opining that he'd have more mobility in a tighter but stretchier and shinier pair ... and my brain just went there after the fact.

....trying to imagine the Gleaming Pants of Ascension any tighter than they already are and...

He's more of a fool than he seems, then. How can anyone predict a 'favorite' for Beijing in the middle of a non-season such as this one? We don't even know if there will be an Olympics then

Considering how all his male competitors either say they find him intimidating or refer to him as 'king', I'm not at all surprised.

My understanding is that in almost all cases 'omae' is so casual as to be nearly rude and only to be used with those who you are most familiar with. Pooh must be close to Yuzu's heart indeed

There's still 4 and a half hours to go til midnight where I am, but I'll send my wishes now: Happy New Year! My wish is for health, happiness, and peace in all our hearts, no matter what tribulations come our way. Let's keep keeping on, until the miseries are over and happier days have come. Love you all but especially Yuzu.

Thanks for the reminder to buy some soba! The Dutch (I'm half-Dutch on my dad's side) New Year's tradition is oliebollen, which are a kind of currant donut made at home. Although they're delicious, soba is LOT easier to make so soba it is! I think it's great that Hanyuconomy has come to Nagano. And has anyone else noticed that Yuzu always seems to inspire a lot of shrine visits, too?

In the first image in your photoshop, the one you made into your avatar, he could possibly be performing a rising uppercut (similar to #3 here, but these are badly done examples ) , which is done with the tsuka at the top and the hands in a similar position to the one here. But he could just as easily be imagining another weapon in use. Samurai were by no means limited to only using the sword. Tbh, I didn't get an image of a battle from that step sequence - at least not like a hand-to-hand one. More like a commander directing the troops with arm gestures, or the overall impression of two armies colliding on the battlefield

I've studied kenjutsu a very tiny amount, and the katana is a blade where both hands grip the tsuka (i.e. the handle) most of the time. If you think about that, Yuzu's 'battle' moves might become clearer to see in that StpSeq.

I probably read a poorly-translated piece, because it literally said they were in the same program, but the writer could easily have meant just the distance-learning aspect is the same, not the subject matter. In any case, I have been well corrected for my misconception now, thank you.