rockstaryuzu

Hey well, at least he knows himself!

Have you ever watched ballet live? Especially the men? You try doing some of these and then tell me how much athletics are in ballet. Don't forget that ballet dancers don't have the benefits of the speed and momentum that figure skaters can gather. A lot of these jumps are executed mainly from standing or running starts. The dancers are throwing themselves six feet in the air by muscle power alone, no physics to help them along. Let's just say that if it involves moving your body artistically to music, it's athletic, and leave it at that.

I consider things like warhorses and classical music/ballet-ish programs to be universal because they usually translate well across many cultures. I am indeed talking about more ethnic-type dances and music. For example, flamenco and tango are sort of kind of warhorses, but they also have a strong flavour of the cultures they're from. I think it would be interesting to watch Yuzu dive deep into what's beyond that in terms of dance inspiration. Remember he still has to make singles' programs out of it. So, things like Ukrainian dancing where the men leap and twirl from squatting positions, or Irish dancing, or even capoeira might work as inspirations.

Well, ice dance is to some extent a matter of taste, just like dance is, and not everyone likes Irish dancing. The thing about B/K is that, just like the Duchesnays before them, they were big innovators who bucked a lot of the prevailing wisdom ( which was for very 'classic', lyrical dances and/or strictly ballroom) of ice dance at the time, and who should have had that recognized with a medal or two. It's no coincidence that they won Worlds the year after the Salt Lake City judging corruption debacle caused ISU to rethink their scoring systems. But to bring this back on topic, it would be really fun to see what Yuzu would come up with if he tried to interpret another culture's dance forms in his programs. It's something most people are not used to seeing, either - an Asian man basically appropriating a bit of white culture.

That would be very creative! And for the record, I have not forgotten Shae and Victor's Riverdance. They should have won Nagano with it, they only didn't because of corrupt judging.

Yuzu trying to properly Riverdance would be the source of much kuyashi. I think his feet are fast enough but the rhythms would be very different from what he's used to.

I always knew H&L Helsinki was one for the ages. Now it's official. A random thought occurred to me this morning...what if, when he posted that photo of the beer can, Brian was trying to give us a hint for next season? Like maybe he's saying " Don't take your eyes off Yuzu, surprises are in store? " Like, maybe, it'll be a Riverdancing Yuzu in the SP...😝 Followed by. Heavy Metal Yuzu in the FS...🤣

The beginning bit, where he has his white jacket done up, he's doing traditional figures, which skaters were scored on up until the late 80's - early 90's. But he's doing them so fast and smoothly! If you look at old videos of figures being done, you'll see that it's more norm to go quite slowly.

Even so, this is out there.

OMG. Is this a sign that Javi has also succumbed to the media day wait madness? Joking aside, this kind of thing is why Javi pretty well defines the term "good sport"...

What's annoying is that there's so much they could to make the technical scores more objective. PCS is never gonna be.

Sorry for the double post!!!

Can't watch the video, but I love the thumbnail. The fedora suits him so well.

Who knows? I'm going on the assumption that most sponsorship deals do end eventually. Although if Lotte wants to keep this up and start a TV series "Making Chocolate with Yuzu" after he retires, I'd be quite delighted.

Didn't he though? Anyway, the arm hair Twitter post...if you click through, someone in the comments has a link posted to the full video and it's worth a watch. Yuzu is being very cute and extremely extra and also, for some reason, learning how to temper chocolate? (Japanese sponsorship deals seem to be very different from the rest of the world LOL). You can see him trying to memorize the chocolatier's moves as she shows him how.... it's just like choreography. Also, don't miss his adorable mouthful-of-chocolate-cake voice at the end. It instantly made me want to cook for him. What do you mean, I'm gushing? If this video is any indication, by the time his partnership with Lotte ends, he'll know everything he needs to launch a career in the chocolate arts.

If memory serves, that was because it was so bloody blatant and there was actual proof that it happened, not just suspicion. And also, it took place in a country where freedom of the press is pretty near sacred. There's no American journalist who'd be scared to cover a story like that for fear of repercussions or reprisals.

Media backing? I don't know about that. My recollection was the media ( not the commentators who were calling the programs) found proof of corrupt judging and exposed it, after the competition had taken place. Which is actually one of the correct and rightful roles of journalism in the public interest. My point is that judges don't listen to what the commentators are saying during the programs and then use that to arrive at the final score. And the judges are in a far better position to see what's going on on the ice than any of the commentators. So to bring this back to where we started, a jump's not UR until a judge rules it's UR, and all the commentary by sports journalists in the world doesn't change that. Hence the commentary is not worth mentioning. Anyway guys, this is the last I'm going to say on the subject because I feel like we're derailing the thread.

WOW. that's incredible.

This is one particular instance that I don't know much about, since my TV sports channels are TSN, CBC, and CTV. And sometimes NBC. Just looking at what you wrote, I wouldn't call your particular comment an attack, but I'm sure many of the comments directed at the commentator in this instance were attacks. Now I'm not going defend the CBC, because I happen to think that at least two of their female FS commentators are certified idiots. But I've seen them bashed online over really innocuous comments they made that didn't even have much to do with the skating at all, and frankly, it was ridiculous. Bottom line: sports commentary isn't rocket science, and a lot of the people that do it make mistakes, but I don't see the point in setting the bar too high in terms of what one expects of them, given what the nature of the job is. If they're outright lying to the public, that's one thing. But if they're just blabbing away trying to say something sort of related to the skating because that's why they're there, then they can and probably should be ignored. And even if they are biased ( I'm looking at you, American sports channels), in the long term, their words don't change the competition results one bit. So why waste the electrons and pixels it takes to complain about them.

Oh! Now I wanna see Yuzu do Ruroni Kenshin! He'd be perfect! And the story would be perfect for him!

A great idea! And maybe put a link on Yuzu's Wikipedia page? Although I can't volunteer to do it either, I have no time.

No. The actual general public (as in, the man or woman on the street who never watched skating) don't know even that much about figure skating, and even if they happen to watch a competition, they're such casual watchers that they won't retain what the commentators say. The people who watch once and take an interest and do remember the comments will watch more and sooner or later form their own opinions anyway, regardless of what the commentators say. As regards Brian's comment, I saw that in an interview I watched on YouTube, I can't remember which one. He says specifically that when Yuzu came to them in 2012, that he needed to work towards more consistent control of his skating. Bear in mind, you're attacking me right now as if I had said that I think Yuzu is inconsistent (which I don't, by the way). Instead, I was merely pointing out a specific instance where the comments that commentators make don't necessarily come out of nowhere.

Honestly, if FS was commentated like this, I think most of the problems people have with what they say would just go away. The problems all start when they're trying to fill 'dead air' with the first thing that comes to mind. Imagine a play-by-play for Ballade. Or LGC: "And here he comes down the ice....his speed is high...got to be going at a good speed before this next elements...you can see the power in his legs...he's working hard...Mohawk... inside edge... 3turn...crossover...crossover.... aaAANNDD it's a knee slide! Oh, what a display of showmanship! He really nailed that. Great effort by Hanyu, and the crowd goes wild!!!" * Please note I did not actually look at LGC while writing this. The choreography may be slightly off.

The reality is, not one bit of any of those comments ever made a difference to Yuzuru's performance, or Shoma's for that matter. Therefore those comments were irrelevant. The fact that people will pick up on a commentators opinion and perpetuate it just makes it all the more imperative not to give too much weight to what they say. If either fans or antis start giving out online about what some sports reporter says in the heat of the moment, they're giving it far more life than it needs to have. As for whether what they're saying is factually true or not...well, for example, Brian himself has commented that when Yuzu came to him, he was sometimes inconsistent. Sports commentators can hardly be faulted for repeating stuff that came from the coach's own mouth. IMO, the role of the commentator is to say as little as possible anyway. It's better to let people watch and listen to the music. Then make the comments during the replay.

This would come under the heading of "egregiously bad". Most of the commentators in this category , I've noticed, are not specialists in figure skating, but just sports reporters dragged in from other sports because the network needs somebody. You make the comparison with football, but most football commentators are following that sport full time.