EisElle

1 hour ago, akaokitty said:

Btw somehow I can't play twitter links anymore... I wonder what's going on.

yesterday I had the same problem and a couple of weeks ago too, but today everything is working just fine so it kinda resolved by itself... I haven't touched any setting nor updated anything, so I guess you'll just have to be patient and have faith

(I'm watching all the saved links now)

12 minutes ago, Altie said:

 

Why does Yuzu look so much taller than Javi here ?

I was just asking myself the same

I loved the finale!

And Zuzu!!!! His smile! he is so precious

Omg he looks so gorgeous

Yuzuru's kuyashiiii face at the end...don't be so hard on yourself  bb cute though

the camerawork ..how can you cut those hands in the spins?

The stream just froze. ..I'm risking heart attak here 

Now gimme Yuzu!

This aerial without safety net was a bit scary tbh

When ghana cm with Yuzu suddenly popped I almost choked on my breakfast 

Please asahi  tv, next time a warning would be nice

Zuzu on my screen kyaaaaaa! 

Brief but worth it

Sex bomb again  a pity no Yuzuru fanboying on the ice

Shizuka is so elegant  and graceful 

Sorry Stephane but those Joker trousers are kinda hurting my eyes...but you are gorgeous so I forgive you

Nooo this song makes me so Sad. ..it's in one of yuzu's fan vids too...Boston. 

This is totally random but those Yuzu's longish uneven bangs strangely suit the chocker thing. And the cat thing.

Ohhhh the Swan parody

Omg Johnny's costume is really something ..

too little yuzu

cameraman, where were you looking at?

When you set your alarm clock, you turn it off and doze again...and wake up ten minutes before the stream!!!

Sorry Yuzu, I'm here now

Gorgeous artworks! Blessed them! Sketched!Yuzu is better than nothing

Artworks and faith will sustain us till monday...hope so.

If the streaming will even think of freezing though...(btw in the last one I am the shark)

dum dum du dum! Carmina Burana! (joking...or maybe not)

I'd prefer Seimei 2.0

9 minutes ago, Yatagarasu said:

 

One of the problems is the mindset of the old 6.0 system.
This is why you'd have Yuzuru's scores being depressed in Helsinki when he went on first in his group, because they were leaving 'room' for Shoma and Javier. The thing is under CoP there's no real need for that, if they're better, they're better but there's still this mindset from how it used to be under 6.0 so it's not even always purposeful/nefarious but just habit. 
Not denying there is fudging because politicking is alive and well but it's a bit of a mix of things. 

I wasn't around when 6.0 was still used, and I think it was a blessing for me because I would have hated it.

Still, in my opinion is dumb to give a score on the expectation that later there could be better performances. This sport is quite unpredictable, and (again) judges should know this more than anyone else.

What I wonder is, CoP has already been used for more than 10 years, hasn't it? Just how long it takes people to shake it off the old habits? It can't be that hard! In any other working environment such slowness in adjusting to new rules or procedures would be laughed at! If skaters and coaches can adapt to the requirements of the CoP, why judges can't?

It is different for a casual fan, who doesn't have to do any actual judging and can just enjoy whatever he wants and rank the performances as it pleases him.

This is why I get annoyed, because I do expect judges to be good at what they have to do, just like I would expect a soccer referee to apply the current rules in a soccer match.

Anyway, if I really had to choose, I'd prefer old habits playing a bigger role than politicking. At least there is hope than bad habits can be fixed and that a new  generation of judges, bred into the CoPsystem, can be more efficient in applying the actual rules.

Politicking though...

As always, deepest thanks @gladi for your translation

Ok long rambling to come, be warned

19 hours ago, gladi said:

Upon expressing our opinions to each other, [we realized] the goal we were aiming for was the same.

 

“Succeed on all the quads and, on top of that, produce a sublime performance.”

 

It was just that Yuzuru gave more weight to the importance of jumps. Because that didn’t align with my opinion, he had kept quiet about his own. But this time, Yuzuru insisted with resolve and an understanding that it might turn into an argument, “Jumps are not a part of technique, but a part of performance.” He told me that, with this train of thought in mind, he’d started from practicing jumps in order to hone his performance.

I find really interesting that there can be such different approaches – start from the big elements first and then weave them into a whole vs getting the "background" first and then fit in the other things–. Tbh before reading this I would have thought getting the jumps first is the more common route, not because as Yuzu thinks "jumps are part of the performance"(this is so Yuzu!) but more cynically because a jump is worth a lot more than other elements. In a way what we've seen in this last season was that, more often than not, prioritizing the jumps is indeed the road to big scores, the rest kinda followed from landing them. So it's interesting that Brian thought otherwise.

19 hours ago, gladi said:

By getting down to our real intentions, we made our purpose clear, and I also felt mentally refreshed. It has been the fifth year since we formed a team with Yuzuru. I knew he trusted me and I also saw Yuzuru as the best partner from the bottom of my heart. There are many things in a relationship between the coach and the athlete––misunderstanding each other, disagreeing in opinions, and then going hand in hand once more. In this kind of relationship, we learn from each other.

this is the part that I liked the most.

All in all, it was good that Yuzuru persisted (resilience is his defining trait, after all) and it is also good that Brian honestly expressed his thoughts. They needed to talk, to hear one the thoughts of the other. It sounds like a cliché, but I believe dialogue is the base of a healthy relationship. Trusting someone doesn't mean blind accepting everything, but rather to have the certainty that the other has your best interests in mind even if he disagrees with you, and also having the courage to speak your mind and stand your point if you feel it's right.

Because us faithful (and hungry) fans read every single snippet of interview, sometimes we take for granted that Yuzuru’s philosophy is universally known. Language is still a barrier to him when it comes to express the depth and complexity of his analyses and maybe he didn’t even thought it was necessary to explain his actions. Maybe he thought they were obivious, or maybe he was super-focused in his pursuit and he didn’t realized he had to address Brian’s worries. Maybe he avoided openly voicing his disagreement with his coach because he hoped things would smooth out  once he finally tackled the jump and could back up his own vision with some concrete result. 

It looks like there was a certain lack of communication in the earlier months of the season (which of course could also be a trail from Boston and all that gloom). But Yuzu and the team felt they needed to sit down and talk, which means they wanted to overcome that “barrier”.

Yuzuru has heaps of talent and has very strong opinions, too. I think that if he doesn't believe wholeheartedly in something he can't truly put his heart into it. So in this sense he isn't "easy" to manage. Yet he isn't perfect (very close though). Sometimes he needs another perspective. What Brian said about the higher risk of strain and injury when Yuzu gets tired is certainly true. Glad that someone is there to remind Yuzu of that! It took years to our alien to finally understand he can’t always rely on his monstrous willpower!

I'm sure Yuzu was indeed burning from desire to land that first ratified 4Lo, too (maybe he had already in mind Dick Button's accomplishments). And he hates losing, so of course he wanted to "catch up" with the 4 quads, especially after having faced ugly months of struggles, which were not only physical but emotional too. Plus there was the external pressure: we fans got annoyed whenever people sounded like dismissing Yuzu as "past news", I can't even imagine how Yuzuru may have felt about that, on top of his own doubts.

That he managed to overcome all of these is truly amazing and a credit to both his strength and the support he had. He and his team talked, they understood each other and worked together.

Yuzu's FS at Worlds was a proof of character, it was his redemption in the eyes of those who wanted to write him off, his overcoming of all the past hardships (sweet that it was thanks to his underestimated LP.... the SP though). It was heroic and legendary.

In Italy there is a saying: "chi la dura la vince", it literally means "the one who persists wins" (but try to say it with pride and a lot of smugness). It applies very well to Yuzuru (quite a lot and quite often I'd say!).

So I'm glad that his team is the kind of team that doesn’t forces its view. Neither one too lax nor one too strict, I think, would have allowed him to develop his full potential. “Constructive criticism” is the way with Yuzu-the skating-geek. Make him use that big brain of his! 

(and being Yuzu the epitome of Challenge, I can totally believe Brian has learned a lot from coaching him too)

1 hour ago, b138oo said:

1 hour ago, KatjaThera said:

To be quite a bit mean, he doesn't actually have to be able to sing to be an idol Although it does help lol But I do expect he can sing. (Haven't watched that video yet, but it's downloading )

 

Sorry not sorry, but at least 80% (generous number from me lol) of idols can't sing, so he will be fine even if he's super tone deaf that his singing irritates your ear 

Well yuzu

• has good looks
• is funny-a little dorky-charming-smart (aka the ultimate combination)
• oozes charisma even after falling on his butt on the ice
• knows how to perform (hell yeah!)

so definitely idol material. He doesn't even need to sing. All he has to do is show up and make the audience go craaazy!!!   (plus he's a master at lyp-sync so...)

8 hours ago, xeyra said:

GOE tab

Tbh to see in that tab what has happened in this last season is quite jarring to me. Of course I’m happy that Yuzuru still got the highest average despite the issues he had, but when I look at the single elements there are some things which are just puzzling.

I guess Yuzu's "fault" is that he makes look too easy all the insane things he does. The jumps, the transitions, the spins so accurately matched to the music (how much work behind a simple hand gesture on the music beat!)... when he does them well they look effortless. Yet, quoting Ambesi from ESP ITA (and to me he sounded a bit annoyed in saying so) “a judge should know". He was talking about the backcounter vs. spread eagle before 3A, but it can be applied to every element. The judges should know, because they have to, you know,  judge. A competition, not some tv-show. They should be able to recognize difficulty even when it looks easy. They should be able to discern that "effortless" is a plus (what the heck, it's even in the GOEs bullets!), and if one doesn't know the sport cannot (should not) be allowed to judge it. Period.

I can resign myself that mistakes in the short put Yuzuru in a position to be "held down" in the long (which is still wrong per se, and honestly quite disconcerting when it comes to a skater who should really have nothing more to prove to anyone), and yes, judges are only humans and have a limited amount of time for giving their scores (e.g. I think it's quite realistic that their GOEs may be mere degreed of "good" and "bad" without thought for actual rules), but it's really saddening that quality hasn't been rewarded as it should have been. Even more so when I see unequal treatment.

Yuzuru took years of perfect 3As to get those bloody +3s. Now it looks they are barely good enough compared to the rest of the field. Years of perfect 4Ts, too. Quoting Ambesi again, iirc from 2013-2014 about a 3A or a 4T: “If you don’t give +3 to this, when do you give it?”

Yuzuru always kept polishing all the other elements, too. He's never slacked off at anything. He's been not only delivering quality consistently on everything but also constantly increasing difficulty.

Now, suddenly it’s enough to land a jump to get high scores, who cares for set-ups and transitions and all that should warrant a +.  Who cares about complexity and difficulty. Apparently some judges can’t recognise/don’t care for all of that!

Before, maybe,  judges were too stingy. But once someone (Yuzuru) managed to get (earn) the highest scores in GOE and PCS, suddenly they became all so eager to give those candies (to everyone else).

So yes, I claim the right to feel extremely annoyed for a while(runs to watch H&L in loop to make peace with the world)

(sorry for this long gloomy thing, I'm in dire need of FaoI extra!Yuzu)

Thank you @Fay for this beautiful post!

It never ceases to amaze me and move me to see how Yuzu is able to inspire such deep, heartfelt emotions in so many people. We may be different for background, nationality, age and so on, but he touched us all the same.

Yuzuru really is something special