rockstaryuzu

Only?

Somewhere in there, there's got to be people who can figure out how to vote for Yuzu early and often.

I have faith that somewhere among the 500,000 or more Chinese fanyus, not to mention the rest of us, there will be enough votes come in to sway the results in Yuzu's favour. However, the part where they have a jury making the final decisions takes away my optimism somewhat.

I regret I have but one like to give each of these.

All right then - it is tough to figure out tone in forum posts sometimes so i was wondering. And yes, Toronto real estate prices have become untenable. Halifax would actually be a decent candidate for ACI. Its biggest rink is right downtown sandwiched between several hotels, prices are still reasonable, and although the airport is a fair distance out of town, you only have to take one bus to get to the part of town where the rink is. Plus it's scenic as all get out on the shores of Halifax Harbour. And if the Metro Centre is too big of a facility, the Dartmouth Sportsplex on the other side of the bridge would do nicely, and is also across the street from hotels. I suspect that where ACI ends up has a lot to do with the skating club at the hosting rink because it seems like Skate Oakville does an awful lot of the work in running ACI. So my guess is the local clubs have to be willing to pitch in and support the event.

I voted way back when they first started polling, and I was able to vote for Yuzu no problem. But i remember thinking at the time that their website for the awards was pretty rinky-dink and could probably be easily hacked. What they're trying to get out of this awards show...from what I've seen and read, my guess is they're trying to increase market share in the US. They could use the ice dancers for that (making skating more popular). Anyone who could watch Jean-Luc Baker wear a dead black swan and prance around with Kaitlyn Hawayek's lovely ballerina and remain untouched by the charm of skating has no heart anyway.

Re Brian's comments: what I understood from what he said was that he was a bit shocked by the amount of abuse he got over the GPF situation when it was something that happened through no fault or intention of his own. And he brought it up as an example of how easy it is to get crucified on social media. I'm not going to speculate on how such a situation ( i.e. GPF) came about, since I can picture several scenarios. No doubt all three of them found it exceedingly awkward and embarrassing.

It doesn't have to be in or around GTA at all, you know. Or even in Ontario. And there is nothing inherently wrong with hoping for a better location, so why are you hitting me with such a broadside of sarcasm?

This is the crux of the matter. A skater may or may not flutz, depending on their abilities and any given circumstance of the moment. That doesn't make them a bad skater. But the judges have a clear and present responsibility to correctly score said flutz, and not just give it a bye because of extraneous reasons like the country the skater is from. The issue is the failures happening on the judges bench, not on the ice.

@Umebachi , @vd_turnan : Sparkles or no sparkles?

Great translation, thanks for doing that!

Just want to add that the taste was light but distinct, delightfully refreshing, and entirely different from other beers, with no off-notes or undue bitterness to linger on the tongue and ruin the experience. Very yuzuish.

So I was out for drinks with my coworkers tonight and found this: https://godspeedbrewery.com/yuzu which was listed in the menu as 'Godspeed Yuzu'. I had two. Godspeed at Worlds, Yuzu, may you have the skate you've always wanted, and amaze us all. Again.

Yes, but it's a sunuvabish for anyone coming from any distance away at all, especially those who can't afford to rent a car. I was hoping they'd switch it to somewhere more scenic with an airport/mass transit close by and hotels closer to the rink.

Yes, me too, @Geo1. I was looking forward to it being somewhere else. On other topics, take a look at this video of wee mushroom Yuzu doing The Firebird and tell me if that opening position and choreo doesn't seem awfully familiar: When Yuzu said last year that he was going back to his origins in skating, I didn't think he meant it literally, but there it is.

Look, if it's officially Oakville again, we need to organize ourselves and get some sightseeing going so that satellites can get a chance to learn there's more to T.O. than powerlines, Tim Horton's and gas stations...

That's because the info is only on the 'Volunteer Opportunities' page of the Skate Canada site so far (they're looking for volunteers for next year). So it may or may not be official yet. Be nice if SC could get that competition away from the suburban wastelands of west Toronto and back to somewhere hotels are within walking distance of the rink.

Whatever's easiest, or DM me

But Vertigo has shy baby hip roll!

Pitting LGC against Vertigo was horribly unfair! How can I chose?!!

The pins arrived sooner than I thought. They look great! These will be distributed at Worlds. If you're not attending Worlds and still want one, DM me and I can make arrangements to send you one. A couple points: 1. Names still to be added. Since these arrived early, I can start adding names now, using a labeller and by request, or it can be hand-lettered by marker by you. 2. These are intended for use at Planet-only gatherings. Otherwise use at your own risk. 3. Numbers are limited. I have 50 of the green Seimei and 25 of snow. Therefore, 1 per satellite please. Is anyone interested in having these embellished a bit? I was thinking along the lines of adding something sparkly like crystals or glitter tape.

Your hubby is a joy forever...He's seen Yuzu skate in person and still thinks it's makeup? LOL. You need to bring him to another competition so he can verify for himself.

There's something to that - if I sit on an office chair and spin it, I only get dizzy if I tilt my head back or stick it forward. If I keep it aligned with my spine, I'm okay.

I thought I saw some video of him applying a lip balm or something like it while he was waiting for the press conference to start, right after the Sendai victory parade in April 2018. It was impossible to tell what he used but he definitely quickly applied something to his lips. My guess is was a softer lip balm, maybe like EOS brand or the Japanese equivalent? Because his lips seemed just a little shiny afterward. Anyway, it was part of a nearly two-hour-long live feed so finding it back is a task... nothing popped up on Youtube, but if you're looking, I recall it was right before he entered and took the seat at the front of the room to start the presscon. The live feed cameras followed him all the way in so they caught it.

Found a super-interesting article talking about brain adaptations in elite athletes. They had this to say about figure skating: Shutting Out the Sploshing Defying gravity and embodying grace while balanced on two thin, steel blades is hard enough; figure skating also requires skaters to sabotage their own sense of balance. Take a triple axel, whose 1,260 degrees of rotation is already enough to make the average person dizzy. Then there are spins, with a minimum of eight rotations each. Elite skaters usually do them in combination, one after another, easily wracking up dozens of revolutions in one vertiginous blur. All that spinning sends the tiny pools of fluid in the inner ears sloshing. This is the vestibular system, which uses the movement of this fluid to keep track of the head’s movement and maintain coordination. In figure skaters, the vestibular system is sent into such overdrive that they—and their brains—learn to ignore its signals. Figure skaters just don’t get as dizzy. Most athletic skills require sharper, faster reflexes, but adapting to dizziness actually requires a weaker one. When your head rotates in one direction, your eyes instinctively shift in the other; this vestibulo-ocular reflex happens even in the dark and even when you’re unconscious. But sports physiologists have found that this basic reflex is weakened in figure skaters.7 A study in ballet dancers, also expert spinners, provides some insight into what’s going on in the brain.8 A group of 29 ballet dancers were spun on a chair in a dark room and asked to turn a handle in time with their perceived rotation. Unsurprisingly, their vestibulo-ocular reflexes were slower and their perceived rotations shorter. When neuroscientists peered into the dancers’ brains with MRI, they found less gray matter in the very areas of the cerebellum that get input from the vestibular system. The cerebellum is a fist-sized bundle of nerves at the nape of the neck that processes sensory feedback and uses it to fine-tune physical movements. The cerebellums of pirouetting ballet dancers and spinning figure skaters have likely adapted to ignore what is, for them, the counterproductive feeling of dizziness. I'm guessing figure skaters don't see the point of the Tilt-a-Whirl ride, then... The whole article can be found here and it's really, really intriguing reading: https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-jocks-and-mathletes-are-alike?utm_source=pocket-newtab