utsukushii3A

By all means take it and buy me one that doesn't make me look like a white colored pencil with eyes.

I think it's the angle and lighting. (knocks wood) The camera usually subtracts 10 lbs and 3 foundation shades from me.

Happy Anniversary to our double Olympic gold medalist with a heart of gold! I celebrated by doing lots and lots of cross rolls and hydroblading!

I guess the drought has me so desperate for anything new about Yuzu that my brain is really grasping at straws. See... one of my cats likes to get my attention by coming up to the side of my chair, putting one paw on the seat, and then grabbing my waist with the other paw (with her claws out for good measure). She's a tiny, tiny cat, and it would be so much easier for her to go for my leg or something, but noooo, always the waist. She's been doing it for years, but this time, I thought, "She's like a clumsy, female, feline Javi who must never be allowed near Yuzu."

WHY ISN'T THIS A REAL T-SHIRT????

Wow, I can't believe it was less than a year ago that I was still a fairly casual fan and hadn't skated in over a decade. I mean, Yuzu was definitely my unequivocal favorite, but I hadn't laid eyes on him in almost four years! I'd never hydrobladed! I didn't even know what a cross roll was! I could still stand to wear tops that were four inches too big in the waist! And things were just... overall duller and less sparkly. Time sure flies.

Oh gosh, I was laughing so hard at Shoma's extremely-obvious-to-those-who-follow-him sleepiness that I could barely concentrate on what Yuzu was saying at the beginning. It was early in the morning, Shoma might still have been jet-lagged, and knowing him, he was probably up late playing video games.

In the mean time, I have my nails done in Origin-inspired colors and designs. Excellent for relief from missing Yuzu and for motivation to keep persevering when I feel like being a lazy brat.

And some people would rather be a little uncomfortable than embarrass someone who can't read their cues, like me, and probably Yuzu on that podium. I hope no one is mad at Roman for that! Also, somewhat off topic, his vlogs are hilarious.

The original tweet said (s)he saw that story somewhere on Twitter, so sadly it might not be true. If it is though, that is seriously impressive, not just how kind it is, but that he had the patience at that age! There's noooo way I could have been on the ice during school hours in grade 3 without getting all excited and zooming around doing waltz jumps and spirals.

I've said it before elsewhere, I'll say it again here (and probably be run off with pitchforks): I LOVE A-SPINS. Seriously, they look really hard to do. Very impressive athletically.

I wish I knew. I think maybe more people find snowplow easier, but a significant minority if not a majority find t-stop easier. I ended up learning t-stops earlier than usual because I was so horrible at snowplow stops. I could do them well enough to pass the test but still preferred stopping by crashing into the wall until I learned t-stops.

That has got to be the most frustrating thing about knowing multiple languages. I wish I could explain how Yuzu says some things in Japanese and just how he sounds overall, but there's just no way to do it 100% accurately (as evidenced by how a kabillion fans of Japanese skaters know the word "kuyashii" despite it being a fairly advanced word!).

Yeah, my coworkers would say the exact same thing about me that Ando-san said about Yuzu. I see absolutely nothing offensive about it. A little bit later, Yuzu says he's grateful to Akko-chan for talking for him. I think he's just not very social other than about skating. (shrug) Nothing wrong with that, and I didn't see anyone in the video implying otherwise.

I might have missed something, but I think the mental block thing might have come from a translation of an interview where he said he had some 不安 over the Lutz. It was translated as something like "I have some anxiety over the Lutz", but in that context, it would have been much more accurate in English as "I have some concerns about the Lutz". Unlike in English, where the word "anxiety" is very often assumed to refer to some psychological problem, I'm pretty sure it's still very common in Japanese to use the dictionary definition, which is, "a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome". Unlike any other jump, Lutzes take off from the opposite edge as the landing, meaning that you have to jump in the opposite direction that you're traveling. From a physics standpoint, a 4Lz could be much more taxing on a previously injured ankle than any other jump, including the 4A. I think his "anxiety" about it was more along the lines of whether or not he can do it without destroying his ankle, not that he had deemed it perfectly safe but was too scared to try.

Thank you! Yeah, the next Olympics being in 2022 means he'd be the first in over a century. It could just be wishful thinking, but I can't see him being able to resist at least trying, assuming all goes well. (more praying and wood-knocking)

I'm too much of a superstitious Russian to actually type out my whole theory without feeling like I'm going to jinx Yuzu, but God willing that he's able to physically/health-wise, I really don't think he'll be able to resist the prospect of a third Olympic gold in a row. (crossing self and knocking wood and making spitting noises over shoulder frantically) Has anyone done that in figure skating? We all know how much he loves doing things that have never been done. Yes, he's skating for himself now, but what's more himself than a third Olympic gold?

So sweet! For those who don't know, a red thread (or scarf, in this case) represents fate in Japanese culture. I spent far longer than I had time for trying to come up with an equation to model that. I didn't have time to finish it (mostly because I started going into a ton of detail), but it definitely involved an ex and some function composition. Yes, those of us who can understand him in Japanese are so lucky. He's so eloquent and expressive. I think the brightness of the face is one of the biggest influences on the age guess for that program. The more shadows on the face, the older it'll guess the age. I've taken different pictures on the same day and gotten 13 on the one in bright sunlight and 35 on the one in a dark hallway. As for the gender, I have no guesses for the problem there.

You're welcome! Pain, significant slowing of progress, and losing skills can be signs of boots breaking down (or just not being a high enough level).

That could be a blade alignment problem. I don't know if big toe pinching can be normal in some cases, but I had that when I tried on a pair of stock Jacksons just to check the fit. They were too narrow. I ended up getting them in the same size but a wide width, and nothing pinched anywhere.

A custom-made designer tux when there are still places in Sendai that need rebuilding, and people would have to go out of their way for him, and he'd have to take time off from practice to get fitted and meet with the designer? I think there's only slightly less of a chance that he'd show up in a potato sack.

Oh, Lord. That is a very good point. I don't remember all the details, but a friend or ex-boyfriend or something of a friend had a few of what could be considered antis in high school. They spent inordinate amounts of time following him around trying to make his life a living hell. Like, just insane amounts of time to focus on someone they supposedly couldn't stand. They all had criminal records before he finished college/uni. (No crimes against him, thank God. I think mostly drugs and theft and stuff.) It's especially ironic that so many of Yuzu's antis are Daisuke Takahashi fans. Takahashi seems like the last person who would want anyone hating other skaters because of him. Well, tied for the last with... pretty much all of them. I can really only imagine maybe one or two enjoying hatred of their rivals. Big maybe. Seconding, and cloning myself to third, fourth, and fifth this!! On a more positive note, Yuzu is getting lots of social media attention in favor of him winning the Laureus Award. A lot of fans want to see him in a fancy designer tuxedo. ...but all I can think is... how will he find one that fits?

Yeah, that definitely makes it even more pointless. There's a decent chance that whomever someone's bashing is friends with one of their favorites.

Also, about that 10 year challenge: Yuzu and Shoma then and now.

Also jealousy. Anyone successful enough to threaten insecure people can end up with antis. It can be even worse for really good people like Yuzu. If he were a jerk, they could point to that. Since he's not, they have to pick on stupid things that might or might not even exist, due to lack of anything real.