river

Yes please. Preferably at Worlds where I’ll see it live...

Interesting that some people are worried - personally, after Skate Canada, I'm feeling really good about this season. Yuzu was looking stronger at SCI than he ever has since I started following him at PC - he scored 322 with several obvious places for improvement without changing his layout (hitting all his StSq levels, cleaning up the landing on the 4Lo) and has plans to further increase his BV later in the season. With the addition of the 4Lz (which we've seen clean recently, it's just a question of whether Yuzu feels like it's ready for competition) or the 4A... well. Compare that with Nate at his strongest, which would be Worlds 2019. He scored 323, but is basically at his ceiling - I don't remember any major errors that he made there, and he had at least all positive GOEs on all elements. He does have a few ways he could increase his BV, but switching his SP combo to a 4Lz+3T (and maybe backloading it), repeating his 4Lz or 4F instead of his 4T in the FS, or moving his new 4T+1Eu+3F to the back half of his FS are about all I can find. His PCS shouldn't go up any higher than they were at Worlds, so Yuzu has regained some of that advantage as well.

Hahahahaha I don't think I've ever actually come in last before. Oops. Also, if the pattern holds... well, sorry Shoma, but apparently my men's silver medalist predictions are cursed this season.

Unless you count when Swanyu went crazy at WTT, it was HILY. Who do I need to bribe to make it happen again?

Vaguely off-topic and pedantic: he actually can't unless he makes it a flying layback spin, because the spin in a single position has to be either a CCSp or CSSp for the senior men.

Uh oh. Upon checking the NBC website, the gala isn't listed on the schedule for either SA or SC. Now to send some emails to see if they'll allow US fans to at least watch the ISU stream of the galas... Edit: heard back from NBC, no galas for the US this year. Guess I'll still need to either get a VPN or hope QQLive or a Russian stream is available...

Let's hope that either NBC streams the galas this season or the ISU doesn't geoblock US fans from the gala livestream. There's no reason for people who pay to access their country's broadcast to still be relying on VPNs or random Russian streams to watch any part of an event. (No, I did not enjoy frantically searching for a stream to watch Yuzu's galas at the last minute.)

I think he’ll do HYK, because he already has a lot on his plate this season with training his new technical content. But if he were to change his mind and do Masquerade (or LGC), I’d be fine with that... and also maybe slightly dead after the SCI gala. (Seriously. I’m sitting on the short side. If he glares at me and throws a glove, it’ll be fatal.) Realistically, I think it’ll be either HYK or Crystal Memories.

I landed a loop! Although looking at the takeoff and landing tracings, it travelled about 6 inches... or 15 cm for those of you who use metric. More of a loop hop than a loop jump, really. Also, my coach may have discovered the depths of my Yuzu obsession tonight - I was talking to another skater while waiting on the Zamboni and she rather loudly pointed out that the home screen of my phone is a picture I took at ACI. My coach overheard and (correctly) assumed that her skater who started in 2018, has Yuzu as her phone's background, and is going to ACI, SCI, and Worlds this season just miiiiight be a fanyu.

I definitely would have had an easier time with musculoskeletal anatomy in med school if this particular study method had been available then.

Thanks for setting this up, @Old Cat Lady! It was fun last season seeing how bad my predictions always were. 1. List the top 3 of each discipline. (+ extra in case someone withdraws) Men Ladies Pairs Dance Bonus Questions 2. In ladies, will there be more clean (positive GOE) 3 axels or quads? 3. Who will have the highest PCS before factoring? 4. Who will receive the highest GOE on a single element? 5. In ice dance, will anyone who was not top 3 after the rhythm dance end up with a medal? 6. Which disciplines will have a new season’s best? Grand Prix Finals Qualification - to be scored after NHK https://www.isu.org/figure-skating/events/grand-prix-of-figure-skating 1.Who will qualify for the finals. *Optional - list alternates in case of withdrawal 2.Who will be the top qualifier in each discipline? If there is a tie in points for placement, I will use highest total score as a tie breaker. 3. Which disciplines will have a new world record by the end of the series?

Sadly, no. All we have is the magazine article talking about it. https://tadakixd.tumblr.com/post/170868143805/kateigaho-snippets-the-natural-side-of-yuzuru

Well, this is the same man who once showed up to a photoshoot, took a shower, and then showed off his abs to the photographers before they started shooting. Guess we shouldn't be too surprised this is what he did once he got some upper body muscle definition...

Sadly, the new costumes (lest we forget the pink old lady pajamas) have made me think even White Xylitol wasn't that bad... Maybe that was the idea all along...?

The neck is definitely Yuzu's as well. Unfortunately I think the hands are his too, so even though the whole thing just looks off, I think it's actually him and not a bad Photoshop job. If they'd had the top even close to fitting it wouldn't look quite as weird, but since there's no taper to The Waist my brain just doesn't want to accept that it's Yuzu. But to know for sure, I'd have to spend more time looking at that picture, and that's not something I particularly want to do. Congratulations Lotte, you've managed to come up with a picture of Yuzu I don't want to stare at. Pretty sure that's a first. All I can say is that I hope he's being compensated extremely well to appear in that outfit in public.

I can start working on Euros.

Oh good, it’s not just me.

Wow.

Someone tell me to snap out of it - it's too early to be looking up hotels in Beijing after he's said he'll go if he thinks he can win...

4A 3A 4Lz-3T is a perfectly valid (if crazy) SP jump layout. The 4A is the solo jump and the 3A fulfills the requirements to have either a 2A or 3A. Edit: WAIT. He said he wanted to maybe add Nessie in the SP????? That's risky unless he's really confident about it...

Yeah, I'm learning my singles right alongside the kids at my rink and we're all being taught to pre-rotate our toe jumps 180 degrees...

Hi and welcome back! Yuzu’s doing Skate Canada and NHK this season. According to his team, his ankle is fine (but they always say that and I don’t trust them.) Yuzu jumped 4T (which was NOT underrotated), 4S, and 4Lo today and is considering adding 4Lz into the program as well. Yuzu says he has landed some very nice 4A in harness and according to Ghislain he did a 5T where the harness guy “didn’t do anything” so there may be some veeeeeery interesting jumps coming. As for combining the Japanese flag with another, I think it’s best to not. Something about it seems disrespectful and especially given how much respect Yuzu has for the Japanese flag, I very much doubt he would be impressed. I don’t think he would even like side-by-side very much (especially if the Japanese flag is lower).

You’re limited to one jumping pass for the second half bonus. (Although last year at ACI he didn’t have any jumps in the second half). As for 4Lo vs. 4S, the penalty for missing the solo triple or quad is so harsh in the short (pop and you get nothing) that he may just feel that he’s safer leaving it as is, if he thinks 4S is a more stable jump.

There are no sweepers here, so we aren’t allowed to throw gifts.

Hello and welcome! You've picked a good time to join us with ACI coming up later this week.