utsukushii3A

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, YUZU!!!

We're supposed to practice in Basic Skills 1, but I tested out of it, so I never did. I rarely fall on anything but hydroblading, but no coach has ever said anything about needing to practice. You can and probably should ask about it, but you might not need to practice. I don't know, I looked it up out of curiosity, and all it said was things like "try to fall on somewhere more padded like your butt or thigh" and "put your arms out to break your fall," and I was just thinking, "Doesn't everyone do that?" I guess some people go limp when they fall or something? And yes, rental skates hurt.

I got to learn camel spins at my lesson today! I had no idea that they were even safe to try at my level. And I was pretty good at them for a first try! I'm getting pretty good at the entries to all the spins I've learned. I just have to work on, you know, actually revolving more than once or twice.

Does anyone know of any European sites that ship European Under Armour to the USA? The US sizes wouldn't fit me.

I can't rank them either. There are some that have special meaning to me either because of what he overcame to perform them or because of personal reasons, and some that I watch more than others, but they all pretty much coagulate into an amorphous blob of amazing-ness that I can't really extract anything specific from. My favorite of all used to be Seimei, but I think Otonal and Origin have both tied with it. Only time will tell if it stays that way. And of course, Olympic PW will always be very, very special to me, because that was the first time I ever laid eyes on Yuzu, and it was skating love at first sight. That being said, the ones I keep going back to are Olympic Seimei, Notte Stellata and PW, WTT and GPF POTO, and Hana ni Nare, but that's only due to time constraints. Once this stretch of endless (insert potentially identifying work stuff here) is over, there will definitely be additions to that.

Well, I guess the sword cuts both ways with how I always feel like I'm bending my knees more and hydroblading much lower than I really am. I also always feel like I'm leaning forward too much on cross rolls and inside Ina Bauers and spread eagles. Well... I'm not. At all. I'm almost perfectly straight, and it looks so much better than I thought it would. Also, my jump landings have gotten so pretty, OMG, I can't believe that's me in the videos. Now I just need to get the rest of the jump to the same quality. And stop two-footing and nearly underrotating my loops and prerotating my toe loops and Salchows. And bend my !#@%$@^# knees. And whatever that thing is called where Yuzu bends low on one knee and folds his other leg on top of the knee? I can totally do that. ...Yeah, if you can't tell, a large part of my practice sessions consist of just copying Yuzu. (The rest consists of refining my edge control and depth and jump technique so I can... copy Yuzu's technical and skating skills as well as his moves. ) But I do have some of my own little trademarks, too. Those are a secret, in case anyone I might compete against in the future is reading this.

Aww, that's sweet how he says "we" instead of "he" sometimes. They're all in it together. GOOOOOOOOO YUZU!

I don't know what kind of translations are floating around the internet, but I think I watched all the post-Worlds interviews, and really, there was nothing scary in them. He said he's all motivated and excited about having a strong rival he wants to beat and new things to try out. We should be more worried for Brian's hair than for Yuzu. As for a project, he already told us what he needs: just to support and believe in him.

Okay, now that Yuzu's season is over, I'm taking a semi-hiatus from forums (i.e. basically just looking at pictures and fangirling and occasional translating, no discussions or anything) to catch up on some work stuff I've been putting off due to Worlds and some annoying life distractions. There will be no more talk of scores or Nathan Chen from me unless Nathan takes a cute picture with Yuzu or I figure out which former classmate or coworker of mine it was that his hairstyle reminded me of at the gala or he decides to take a hiatus from skating to focus on school or something. Yuzu asked us to believe in him and support him, and that's what I'll do. He's far from stupid, I'm sure he'll make the right decisions, and I hope people keep in mind that the right decisions for him could very well be decisions they disagree with or would never make for themselves, but that doesn't make them any less right for him. He still beat world records with two programs that weren't even designed for maximum points. He's still the first to score 200+ and 300+ under the new system, and that it only lasted 5 minutes can never change that he was indeed the first. Honestly, I never said it because I didn't think it was realistic for him to do safely, but if he thinks it might be, I won't second guess that and will just say that I've wanted to see him do all the types of quads for a very, very long time. If he can, it will be glorious. If he can't, he's still Yuzu. No scores can change, "There are good skaters, there are great skaters, and then there's Yuzuru Hanyu."

@micaelis, Happy Belated Birthday!

And speaking of parents and Yuzu, I finally got my mom to take a break and watch HYK! The notification noise from the forum kept going off, so I paused the video to close the window, and she was like, "Nooo, how dare you interrupt him!?" She said she understands now why it was so important to me to be up at 4 in the morning watching live, too. And now I'm wondering just how long my dad watched figure skating. I wonder if he was a lifelong fan like I am. (He's probably up in Heaven glad that an American won but begrudgingly admitting that Yuzu was robbed of, if not the gold medal, at least of some more points. He had this peculiar way of rooting for the Americans right up until the very end but then changing his mind at the last minute if someone else really did skate better. Now that I think about it, the last time we ever talked about figure skating, he begrudgingly admitted that Yuzu deserved his Sochi gold. )

My mom and I see it, too. Speaking of signs, I saw some swans on the way to work the other day and was sure hoping they'd be a sign of Yuzu winning gold, but I guess they were just swans.

Handsome lads. Dima's suit looks like it's made out of a similar material to Yuzu's costume pants. I wonder if Yuzu saw it and wished he'd thought of that.

Translation: 4Lo: We are always completely, 4S (actually 4T, but reversed for grammar): firmly within 4T (actually 4S): your mind and body, 3A: so yeah, 1Eu: believe!!

Wow, my mom is busy and can't watch Yuzu with me right now, and just having to wait a few hours is making me sad. My heart goes out to all of you whose families won't watch with you at all! It's only a few minutes, what's the big deal?

I just keep coming up with new things for this thread. He's such a good role model. New as of a few weeks ago! I never would have learned to stand up for myself about my vision problems. I don't know if it's where I live or just bad luck with the people I've encountered, but it seems like no one around here cares about anyone's medical problems unless there's enough emotion along with it. Like, never mind that everything is blurring in and out and I feel like my eyes are going to fall out of my head if I read one more sentence, I'm not crying or anything, so it can't be that bad! So, I'd keep pushing myself until I got a splitting headache and ended up so frustrated with how much I wanted to keep working but couldn't that I'd cry because of that. Then people would cut me some slack. Yeah, pretty sure if anyone pulled that on Yuzu about his asthma, they'd get his best murderface. So if anyone pulls that on me about my plethora of vision problems, I'll just think of said murderface and refuse to back down.

I'm pretty sure what he meant by muscle loss is just that he lost muscle mass when he was resting and had to build it back up again. That happens to any athlete who stops/reduces training.

People seem to have misunderstood what I was saying about right-of-way. I was saying that to defend both of them: Mariah because it looked accident from the video and we don't know why she didn't stop, and Eunsoo because even if she could have backed up or something, she shouldn't have been expected to.

Oh dear again. And again not saying anything about the bullying, but as a skater, I can tell this from the clearer video: it is definitely an unaltered part of Mariah's choreography that she approaches the boards at that part of the program and turns in a way that would be very dangerous to be in her way. Eunsoo was fully behind her at that time, and Mariah had her head up and back. Any skater rehearsing a program has the 100% right-of-way, and if I had been injured from behind by an elite skater practicing a program, my coach would far more likely than not be scolding me for being in the way and risking hurting her. That being said, Eunsoo is a 16-year-old girl at her first Worlds and can't be expected to have the focus and instincts of a seasoned veteran at all times, or even the focus and instincts she has when training normally at her usual rink. Regardless of whether or not it was a breach of skating protocol for her to be standing there, everyone makes honest mistakes, especially under such enormous pressure. IF Mariah had been bullying her, I'm sure it would have seemed intentional, and for all anyone knows, it still could have been. But given the dynamics of skating, that would basically require Mariah to be a ninja or have eyes in her blades. Even if the bullying allegations are true, someone can be a bully and have an accident, just like a thief can steal someone's handbag and then accidentally spill coffee her in the courtroom. I'm not psychic and can't know what was going on in Mariah's head in that time, but this absolutely, 100%, beyond the shadow of a doubt could have been an accident. Not saying that it was, but such an accident is completely plausible no matter who is involved.

Oh dear. That is definitely Mariah's usual choreography. It looks like Eunsoo was standing at a part where Mariah gets close to the boards and her blade gets even closer. While neither I nor anyone who doesn't train with them knows what their relationship is like otherwise, it does seem like the ISU's assessment was correct that at least from the video, there is nothing indicating that this was intentional. Indeed, this article shows that Mariah's eyes were almost closed and she was not facing Eunsoo before whatever happened: https://www.allkpop.com/article/2019/03/photos-of-lim-eun-soos-injury-revealed-mariah-bell-officially-apologizes But I suppose none of that matters in the court of public opinion. As for Mariah going to check on Eunsoo, wouldn't Eunsoo have been somewhere else getting medical attention by the time Mariah was finished with her program? She might not have seen her again to have a chance to apologize, or even known she had cut her to try to find her and apologize. I'm not saying that's what happened, but no one speculating about it knows for sure whether it is or isn't.

Keep watching his performances and watching/reading his interviews, and it might just rub off on you. It sure did with me. It amazes me on a regular basis how someone who probably doesn't know I exist has stomped so many bad habits out of me!

OMG, that is hilarious. I was thinking, "What!? How could anyone think it was totally off and the worst of his... oh. "

Pray. And maybe watch everything after the pop. It's glorious. The pop is just a blip in an otherwise stunning performance.

I was neither at this practice nor at their home rink and know absolutely nothing about these skaters other than that I like their skating. There is very little evidence of anything, certainly not enough to condemn either skater at this point. That being said, this absolutely could have been an accident. I once got a big blade cut on my leg, and get this, I never saw or felt a thing, let alone did whoever did it. IF anyone did it. Maybe I did it to myself, although I highly doubt that. Maybe an invisible skating gnome knifed me. If it were another skater, she's most likely been walking around for two decades with no idea that she sliced my leg open. She probably doesn't even remember me at all. It's possible we never even so much as made eye contact with each other, let alone had any conflicts. That being said, if it were intentional, or if Eunsoo misinterpreted it as such due to prior mistreatment by Mariah, I really hope that isn't swept under the rug.