rockstaryuzu

Including him offering me a job? 'Cuz that'd be awesome...

That's irrelevant if they're not the ones who foot the bill for competition costs, which are usually recouped from ticket sales and TV rights, as far as I know. Also, are you talking specifically ISU Figure Skating, or the ISU as a whole, which has other sports to look after, namely speed skating and short track, which have different financial considerations altogether. I mean, there's only one country in the entire world where speed skating could even remotely make money, and that'd be Holland.

First time ever in the history of academia, possibly. Another record. It occurs to me that if Yuzu were in physics, this thesis would only be part one of a trilogy. He'd expand upon it in his Master's and also his Ph.D, especially if no one else is doing this kind of research in his field. The bachelor's thesis would be like the feasibility study of the technology, to see if it did offer promise to solve the problem he's looking to solve (i.e. Can I use this stuff to get data on skating performance?). The master's would be about translating the technology from the lab to the ice and trying to get viable data from 'real world' situations. And the doctoral dissertation would be all about using the on-ice 3-D motion capture system to analyse competition programs and grab data from them that could be used for training or scoring or whatever. And the post-doc would be scoring a whole competition using 3-D motion capture and AI for the technical score. But now I'm just talking nutty-bananas, utterly whackadoodle crazy fanyu talk, ja?* *sarcasm. This is sarcasm. Also, Yuzu, if you do decide to do a doctorate or post-doc, and need a research associate who's used to painstakingly measuring tedious amounts of data in minute detail, I'm your woman. I already count electrons for a living, I have the necessary skill set.

Most masters theses get published by the university the student is attached too, if the thesis is accepted by them. Normally only to put a copy in the university's library though. I wonder if Waseda makes their students' published theses available for reference online. I'm so pleased for Yuzu. Getting a thesis done is a major accomplishment. And really, what better way to use your time during a situation like this?

that is very intriguing...I wonder what that might lead to... *Cough* 4A training *cough*

Can't get the stream to work, and I missed it anyway. Hopefully there'll be video uploaded soon

That's simple enough. The difference is audience size, which of course equates to money, and (this is my opinionated guess) the perception of figure skating as a sport only women care about. If figure skating had a mainly male audience, there would be a lot more invested in it, full stop.

"White Wall-kun, who always has Yuzu's back, protecting our boy's privacy like only a blank wall can..."

both are wildly overrated. Life is about watching Yuzu, isn't it?

Funny coda to this: Quite by coincidence, today was the day my trainer decided I should go from 30 seconds of plank to 60 seconds of plank, so I had him distract me by talking about figure skating. It worked, too. My trainer is a hockey player. I'm sure he finds my Yuzu blather silly but he goes along with it, and he was pretty amused by the plank competition idea. He wanted to know if other skaters had ever done anything similar.

Doesn't surprise me. Anytime there's close-up video of his hands, it's easy to see that his hands are strong.

several months later: So how many people wouldn't have even dreamed of ever doing a plank until Citizen (C-chan) initiated the contest, prompted by Yuzu's confession that he's doing planks to keep in shape right now? Edit: I'm referring to this: Which translated, says that Citizen will be holding a contest in China, on weibo, where the person who submits video of them doing a plank the longest , will win an autographed Yuzu photo.

If so, C-chan has no idea what they've let themselves in for... because I'm sure there's somebody in the vast Chinese fandom who can plank for at least ten minutes or more...maybe more than one. We can discuss terms. Actually, it might be fun to do it along with Yuzu's programs. See who can plank for the length of LGC, like that. Maybe if we're sufficiently distracted by the PPOS, we won't even notice that we're planking.

Or we could do it as a Zoom meeting and have a couple of adjudicators watch everyone. And to level the playing field a bit, we could award prizes for things like 'most creative fail', etc

Yes. I feel sorry for the Guinness people who have to travel the world over witnessing stuff like that. It must get very routine after a while

You say that like it would be a bad thing... ...what if we did our own planking contest on the Planet? It'd give us something to do while pining for Yuzu and I'm sure we could rustle up some kind of prizes...

The Chinese version of 'here, just take my money please'. LOL! I actually wonder what's going to come of this. The world record for holding a plank is 8 hours, 15 minutes, and 15 seconds, by a 62 year old former US Marine.

So here's Yuzu starting a whole fitness craze without intending to...

Yes, the thing he does at the very end is what I was talking about.

Oh Lord. I struggle to accomplish even one of those...

Have to agree...those abs weren't built by planks alone. I have seen video of him doing rotational-type exercises with something like a resistance band (or a pulley and weights) as well, from one of the FaOI news vids.

Eh, depends on which ones. Side planks are evil like the devil but a regular plank isn't too bad.

never mind Brian. I'm steeling myself to hear 'well I've landed it (4A) but kuyashii desu it's not perfect yet...'

About Roman's video: the most important thing he said, IMO, was 1. "The ISU can't force us to compete" and that the GP competitions for this year don't count for world standings, so there's no pressure to do them, and 2. "if I don't think it's safe, I won't go" - which he then elaborated on, essentially saying that most skaters are able to weigh the risks and make an informed choice. He also pointed out that the plan to hold GP events is just that - a plan - and can easily be dropped or changed if needed. And he's right: if no standings come out of GP this year, then the only incentive pushing skaters to go is their own motivation.