EisElle

late to the party to comment on the Lotte CM, and pretty much all the gushing has been done altready but I wanted to remark on this hydroblade, since I haven't seen gifs or discussion about this I'm mesmerized by how Yuzu exits that hydro: he gets a little push with his hand, stands up, switches from inside to outside and then just holds that edge(and quite deep too)... everything done so casually. His free leg just barely grazes the ice for a moment, his weight stays on his right foot the whole time I mean, ok, for someone who can go from hydro in a flying entry into spin, or into 3A (tho that one wasn't landed well) or into a gigantic leap, this probably doesn't require as big an effort, but still, it looks sooooo smooooooooth and satisfying to watch endlessly I'm kinda wondering if Zuzu could lift his left leggy up in a fan spiral after the hydroblade, it would make for such a coooool move also, time to bring back this other beauty of a hydroblade exit at one of CiONTU finale Also, I'm the first one to complain when cameramen don't film whole body of the skater during stsq, but GOSH, THAT Origin stsq? If they film Yuzu's footwork like that, I'll take all the feet-focused footagebut gimme another comera angle with full body too plz That stsq is really INSANE! It makes me sad that comp footage often doesn't translate the awesomess of it (and why I love fancams too) thank you for these pics, the cover looks truly gorgeous pirateYuzu was one of his rare appearances in a (semi)comedic role, in a group number for The ICE 2011. Thanks to @kaeryth's media compilation for making it so easy to find all the links direct link ETA: LMAO @IceWings beat me to it In general, digging in The Ice 2011 and 2012 group numbers and fluff, it's possible to find a few great gems. Sadly, back then, Yuzu-focused cam wasn't a thing yet, so we need to deploy all our "spot the tiny Zu in the background" skills Also, @Marie-E , if you still haven't seen it and you want to see some former skaters of the era of Gwendal Peizerat on the same ice of Yuzu, there's the ice show Heroes & Future 2018 in Nagano. It was held to celebrate 20 years from Nagano Olympics and they invited some skaters from Nagano Olympics, many medallists from OWG2018 and many young Jpn skaters, too. Yuzu was in the middle of recovering his jumps after the famous ankle injury he got before OWG18, and it was the first time he performed to an exhibition version of H&L. Since he was doing his jumps rehab during iceshows, he wasn't on top of his form, but we were getting emotional over every little progress! We were delighted at his 3F(stepout) in H&L, since it meant his right ankle was well enough to pick with his right foot and stsq always a beauty, no matter what Asian dream song (one of the two pieces used for H&L) is linked to Nagano Paralympics 1998, so Yuzuru's choice to skate to Hope&Legacy as a two-times OGM in Nagano was meaningful for many different reasons. Yuzuru's choices for which EX to skate are always like that: when he doesn't have one fixed EX for the whole season, he usually picks one that has some kind of connection with the event/place where he's skating. And that's the reason why many of us predicted he would skate to H&L for Heroes&Future in Nagano, after having been freshly crowned two-times OGM Another popular bet was on Seimei: NHK15, when he broke 200 and 300 points with that program, had been held in the venue for Nagano OWG, and after ending his free skate, back then, Yuzuru pointed to the Olympic rings still there. It's entirely possible he was already planning back then that he'd bring Seimei to PyeongChang2018 All according to his plans Here Kaeryth compiled the video sources for Heroes&Future 2018, full broadcast included: I highly recommend also watching the finale to Never Enough, with the short but lovely Plushenko-Yuzu side by side choreo (tho Zuzu >> Plushy, sorrynotsorry ) and the final rounds of greetings. Many super sweet and wholesome interactions, it always fills me with joy

Thank you!

Stress chewing? Kuyashii chewing? (Refraining from chewing judges's heads instead?) Way too optimistic to me😅 a pity it didn't work that way, it would have been pretty epic on the other hand, maybe now we can hope in another epic Yuzu CM? (tho maybe I should just settle for hoping there will be Olympics)

WAIT! How is it possibile he's 30yo already? Happy bday!

I confess I wasn't optimistic about Mai returning back to comps at all, so learning that she is skating again and even got her jumps till 3Lo is great news to me. But I especially loved how even from pics you could see how happy she was to be on the ice Wishing her to further get back to health and form, so we can see her skating again In the meanwhile, I take Kaori is kinda wilding, Wakababy recyling (which I love, both her programs are LIT and hope to see them shine, hopefully in int comps too if/when there will be int comps), Tomoe keeping her FS (wouldn't mind if she chose to keep her old SP too), Yuhana being sunshine (looking forward to he FS) and Rika ninja-ed her way to Champery. But the Axel lady is a more generous ninja than the Axel lord, so she gave us actual footage Wonder what's Satoko doing tho, I take she's still in Canada, right?

So we were right about the Origin vibes Aww, Mr perfectionist in action But what was he doing with that camera? Also, why do I miss Zuzu even more now I've seen this footage? it's as if I had forgotten how amazing he is on the ice and suddenly I can keenly feel just how much I miss his skating 😭 (Gosh even him tying his boots is making me nostalgic, reminds me of good old media days)

the people asking Matteo if he would change his short program made a typo short-->shirt and since PW was a short program and the one where Yuzu also wore a simple shirt, @SitTwizzle was making a joke (tho Matteo usually wears shirts as costumes, so we might as well say he has many shirt programs )

new pics? new content? (even if it might just be a bit of those hoarded old footage they hide?) GIMME GIMME!!! the day suddenly looks brighter this look very interesting! do you think it's ok to add the glossary too? maybe not all, but some parts more about Yuzuru? thank you for bringing this wow, those are some pretty inspiring stories on their own and always heartwarming when fans are that considerate otwards Yuzuur. It reminds me of how we barely had any info about Yuzu staying in Japan, Sendai people and the rest of Japan seem to be doing well in leaving him his privacy

they didn't even try at all tbh, just did basic lip service amidst social outrage and then the pandemic came and stole the public focus. I still had hope that change could be real (or half real) this time, that the new leadership could act differently, but nope. In true FS & ISU fashion, things changed so they could stay the same. I wonder if things would have gone in a different way, if government had taken a more radical step, shut down the fed and rebuild from zero as Peizerat wanted. Now waiting to see how long it will take this time before DidierG is reinstated. Again. (not that he is the supreme demon lord or something, he is obviously in good company in French Fed and inside ISU)

Some of her words echo those of Elliana Pogrebinsky from just a few days ago. Not surpising, sadly, that at a point, looking around, her younger self started believing that the abuses were just strictness and something necessary to succed. I watched her skate in that Nebelhorn2017 she mentions: this sport is such that it's really hard to see beyond the appearance. Just like skaters are taught to shrug off hard falls that would make any other person sit stunned for several moments (when not yelping in pain), they are also taught to accept a great deal of things with the promise of success. And why should they doubt their coaches, the adults they trust, when everyone goes along with those methods and beahviours? Jessica is right when she says it's something that isn't just limited to one Country. Abusive coaching methods are that dirty little secret everyone in FS knows but it's rarely talked about on media... for some it isn't even a "dirty" secret, but just how things ought to be. There are far too many apologizers around (heck, there are people who look at Nini punching the ice in frustration and from that deduct she is ill-tempered and use that to downplay her mom's abuses). Even when it is talked about, it often degenerates into a "haters vs fanatics of coach X" or in a "holier than thou" attitude towards certain nations. This is why Jessica's post is even more significant - she has experienced abuses under Chinese system, but she was empowered to talk thanks to stories from other places and even different sports. It feels that lately more and more stories are coming to light - off the top of my head, also France, Sweden, USA, Russia. Possibly the reckoning that's happening in gymnastics is empowering skaters (mostly retired skaters, at this point), but ISU is still there turning one or two blind eyes and making things even harder for those who are still competing. Hoping FS won't need a big scandal for this matter to become a hot topic I still haven't watched the Netflix doc, hope I'll get to see it, but in the meanwhile, I wanted to share this subbed documentary, it's about rhythmic gymnastics and OGM Margarita Mamun it really looks like FS a LOOOOOOOOONG way to go to properly address abuses What the heck of a statement is that? No evidence submitted? Just say that J/C is your best pairs team (and the only hope for a potential 2022 team medal) The revolution of Feb is being proved to be nothing more than facade. How (not)nice.

That Otonal pic would do for an amazing cover... but why are we assuming he won't have another blue costume for a brand new program and he will put that one on the cover? (or..he can have another blue costume for an old program, too LOL don't know how Satomi can come up with all those costumes) I want Aoi Hono 3 too, we were left kind of hanging after season 2015-16 and Yume wo Ikiru (that was more of a collection of some of his interviews than a proper biography) stopped at OWG18 I'm sure he could fill another book already with everything that's happened behind the scenes in these past 2 years (also, Zu, about time to reveal details about that quints training last season👀) Re: Yuzu and Sekkisei, didn't he himself candidly admit that he doesn't uses their products (or has any skincare routine) in his "beauty blog" or the Sekkisei talk they held last season? Tho it's pretty clear that Sekkisei doesn't mind Yuzu's unorthodox way to promote their products Edit: LOL someone brought the source as I was writing this I guess that his secrets are just good sleep, healthy diet and lots of exercise (+good genes and Sendai positive vibes that keep their OGMs forever young, apparently). As for the rest of us, chronically sleep deprived because of too much Zuzu rewatching...well, our skin is probably gonna need help, instead

somehow Sekkisei recycling comp pics feels so on brand with Yuzu on the other hand, he looks so otherwordly in pics (seriously, he has no right to look that good during a compettition), why should one even bother with a new photoshoot? It turns out even more useful when one needs to do social distancing I'm torn, I wish I could have the pretty too, but also, thankful that my wallet is spared LMAO I almost wish he did that just for the entertainment of watching certain journos' brains explode still, from his words at 4CC it felt he wanted to start anew and in these months he's had quite some time to munch over what to do (and pick music). Additionally, getting new programs now and recycling them next season does sound like a good strategy, too. Hoping he'll drop some more hints about his plans before his first comp tho especially since it looks like his first comp might not be in the foreseeable future Yuzuru, probably, side eyeing that ３位 next to his name:

awwww thanks and happy to have helped (mmmh the max number of emojis is...72 or 75... I forgot LOL but I'll find out as soon as I'll edit the glossary again)

to stir more drama? was it a draft that was sent the wrong recipients again? Or did they just want people to talk more about them so they can get more "impressions"?

Gosh we're swinging in the gloomy phase of Drought, missing Zuzu and with no oasis in sight Anything sunshine-y to chat about? (edited out some quotes that happened 'cause firefox saves old drafts sorry)

OUCH x1000 (Will I arrive to 1 million buy the end of the year?) Not surprising, and entirely understandable, and finally a good call form ISU. Still sucks, and I'm not even the one who's gettin her career messed up I'm especially sorry for Kao who was unlucky (not only by his own faut) last JGP and won't get a chance now. Wondering how Shun is going to go sr too... and I guess UtaShn will keep training in Japan I'm sure they'll get coaching in Japan too, but it won't be the same as training under direct supervision of their TCC team. I guess Rika will postpone whatever agreement she had with TCC too, Jun will stay in Korea and Zhenya will keep working in CSKA rink... I guess Katya Kurakova is still in Poland too, right? And I hope Zuzu isn't wilding too much. I trust him to keep training in a fruitful way(Brian repeatedly said he was mostly doing the plans himself anyway, and he kinda managed those GPF practice, even with the Nessi wildin'), but I'm sure he misses the atmosphere of his training base On a lighter note, I hope he remembers to also train his spins, sometimes (and that he remembered to check the spin level changes) I hope young skaters get a chance to compete domestically at least, and always crossing fingers that 2021 won't suck and some of them will be able to join the jr division of some events in January/Feb/.... for small feds skaters, things will be so difficult... though I guess small feds in Europe might still manage better than most, between higher chances for travelling within Europe and the many small int comps that are hosted here now let's wait for the next announcement...

RE: COC, under spoiler in case someone wants to skip this discussion It's stated somewhere in the ISU regulations, so skaters and paramedics "had" to follow that protocol. The rationale is that skaters might not know how to act and might actually make things worse, so they should just clear the ice as soon as they are told so by the referee AND THEN personnel can get on the ice and help the injured (I guess that they do not trust bystanding skaters not to skate into the paramedics...) That's the reason why they took that long to enter the rink to help Yuzuru. well, he did say tht his ankle just wouldn't move otherwise I fear he would have skated... and possibly made the injury so bad he would have missed out on OWG (I guess we should thank the skating gods for preventing him from skating there on half ankle, however terrible it was for him to WD )

I still think the main problem is money tho I've read this yesterday among other things, it mentions that Speed Skating had failed to secure some sponsors even before covid. As for FS, if the sponsors for WC2021 are really "only" those listed (there's still a little chance they'll add more, tho for how things look now for FS and the world, not very likely companies are willing to invest on comps that might never happen) then there are very meager times ahead. No wonder that ISU would rather cross their fingers and pray for comps to happen, rather than cancel them, when there's still a glimmer of a chance some host nation will deem things safe enough. They really need those revenues from sponsors and possibly broadcasts too (why on earth did they had to waste so much on those awards?) even for that, some kind of standardized equipment for every recording would be needed to guarantee some kind of common ground for all skaters. Also, things like standard camera angles, since those can change a lot things like the the perception of the size of a jump, make it harder to spot wrong edge etc... not even starting about things to be judged for components, like ice coverage, speed and use of the whole surface. And how many tries does a skater get? Who vigilates about that? Also, the problem stays of how to make sure that judges score in autonomy (only good thing of judging happening on prerecorded material could be that judges *could* maybe get multiple camera angles + more time to judge, so they could detail which bullets they assign and submit a written report to justify their components scores. That would probably be the closest thing for the audience to know if judges were applying same standard to all skaters. Not that ISU would ever think about something like this, if virtual judging happened) this feels way too optimistic to me wow, COC2014 as the first Yuzu vid... it's a literal trial by fire @Kikooo welcome!!! And welcome to all new satellites those of you still lurking too, I know you're there hope you all have fun here and feel safe sharing your voice whenever you feel like doing that

That's awful

I really hope this collab can happen! Even a virtual one, with Yuzu skating on one of Ikuko's pieces, would be AWESOME And we know Yuzu can make awesome programs even getting choreo through vids (or it might be the chance for working again with jpn choreographers!) ETA: do we know anything about 24hTV? I know Yuzu partecipating is just a hope at the moment, but were other performers/partecipants announced?

thank you @sweetwater for clarifying Though, looking at how things are going in the USA, I woulnd't be surprised if GP just didn't happen. Or if at least it won't have the usual format. I wonder when USFSA will accept that they cannot possibly hold an international comp in 3 months, no matter how good things might be in Las Vegas...(are they? I've mostly heard about neighboring California pedalling back on reopenings, but checking Nevada it doesn't seem they ever reached a plateau, either)

I've just learned about Katya I remember her and her partner Harley from Nebelhorn2017. It was one of the first comps I livestreamed, and I was immediately captured by them. The future looked long and bright ahead of them. Something to take for granted. My thoughts are for her family and all those who loved her dearly. Hope they'll get all the possible support

(from where did they take those millions "impressions" tho? Did they count all the enraged comments or something?) Not that they would have ever admitted any possible flaw anyway, not after Ari had already been busy rewriting history before they even took place. Of course the "response" would have been AweSoMe anyway. Still, I'm pissed that the stupid thing got more views than ISU broadcasts of comps and galas. They played their trump card spectacularly well. I like to think that if people hadn't been literally starved for any kind of content and there had been some other sport to follow, numbers would have been different. Sadly, the merry ISU&Ari company just got ammunition for the next farce.

I hadn't even thought about what would happen to the Oly village after the games Well, then it's understandable, they'll try to save what can be saved. It will still suck for all the athletes, so truly crossing fingers that it won't come to that

I remember they said they'd cancel if they couldn't hold them as planned within summer 2021, but I don't remember if it was Japan requesting this or if it was IOC. Honestly, I have no idea about how all the behind-the-scenes and investment stuff would work in this kind of events. To me it looks counterintuitive that Japan would prefer to just give up on the Games rather than postponing further, but I could be wrong.