EisElle

But maybe he'll bring some shiny new toys? a Nessie, a beautiful snake (aka Lutzifer) and... how do we call the jump that we hadn't seen coming 'cause seriously the quad flip, Zu?(And still footage to check that edge) (ok I'm not really expecting all of them at once, but, if Yuzu is healthy, at least one of them, yes) @KatjaThera I remember it in a tweet speculating about new programs and talking as if Tarasova gave music again, so it wasn't about NS...but I'm having doubts if that tweet ever existed LMAO was it my own mind conjuring a fanfiction all this time? I guess I'm gonna edit my previous post not to give false hopes to people (Or could it be the tweet was about wishing that Tarasova gave him music again? That would redeem my memory...a little bit😅)

Wait, have I dreamed that? I recently read it in a tweet and thought "oh that's right I had forgotten" but now I'm not sure if it was a fever dream 😱 Does anyone else remember that?

what if he has already told us, one year ago? We can still discuss to death and beyond if no media day means he doesn't want to drag jpn media across the world to announce he's keeping all 3 programs Tho we know Tarasova gave him music (ETA: NEVERMIND I don't have source for this and could be all my fever dream!!!!!!!!) so I'm guessing there might be at least 1 new program....but I think that if he skates to music suggested by other people (people who aren't Jeff, I think he's been the only one who has had a big role in proposing music for Yuzu's SP, while for the free it's been more Yuzu's own choice, starting from rj2) I see it more likely as a ex. Well, the only thing we know about the ex is that it isn't Shae choreo, so could be KuriMemo or something else (the only thing that makes me lean on no KuriMemo is that Yuzuru said it's Masquerade's twin, since for him the image/meaning of a program is important, I'm not sure he'd keep KuriMemo on its own) @KatjaThera re: jgp, I think Alison Shumacher is TCC and she'll be in Jgp Courcheval (eta: the very first one, around Aug the 20th) Adding that one of TCC coaches, Lee Barkell, moved to another rink too, so it also possible they'll need to travel more compared to last season (Alison was with Lee last season and Lee travelled with her)

Sad for no media day. No health update, no influx of news, no footage, nothing 😱 suddenly summer feels way too long Also, LOL at the pages bump😅 when no news is the news Ok technically ACI is real news, happy for all the satellites who'll be there! It was a great bet for you! So accurate I was thinking that maybe he wants to avoid focusing on being in almost-peak mid Aug...after all, the last two seasons he'd been amazing in summer, great condition, and then injured in Nov (and yeah injures were all accidental but maybe he wants to switch gears mentally so he won't go into the season feeling some deja vu) Plus, maybe with ShaeLynn moving(and very busy), there's additional difficulty having all people needed in one place + maybe he'd need to do some traveling himself (if he hasn't got his programs earlier, or if he isn't keeping Origin). Certain kitty: now you've said it, you can't take it back all according to his plan right when I thought I could see the end of the drought, *a certain someone* moved the goalpost of one month😱 (I still love you, Zu! Trollness and all) I guess I can focus on...you now, holydays things like actually relaxing and not worrying about missing updates or moaning because no connection on my phone.. Good point

I think it is for JOC Olympic symbol athletes only, Shoma was among them and Yuzuru wasn't so there can't be stickers (as for the reason or who is a symbol, we discussed that but I don't remember ops) (Also, @freyaminnie I've sent you a pm re:Turin)

nooooooo you quoting the glossary while using "pudding" and "candy" in the same post is a ruthless reminder that I haven't updated with Flowy-DoS and KuriMemo noooooooooooooooo re: bad luck hair I refuse to link Saitama's outcome to Origin hair! Origin hair are good! They are cool! They are blameless! without the mistake in SP maybe even the judging would have been a bit better, so at most the outcome would be fault of Otonal hair...

it feels impossible it's already been one year... so sudden, and still so senseless. May his family and friends get some strenght from all the love and good things he has inspired.

but I'm sure Yuzu would be awesome anyway c'mon, we're stronger than a few warhorses!!! she says, while praying all the skating gods that there won't be any more LLL

guess who's gonna choreograph Matteo Rizzo's SP? can you guess? Can you? be prepared for the biggest SURPRISE of the season 'cause.... well, I can't find the direct source not that I tried hard, so I haven't confirmed that with my own two eyes, but...yeah still, crossing fingers for Matteo!

thank you for everything, @faeline

you know, soon you'll be renamed our powerful&generous streaming overloard

@faeline I've sent request to join the group (as twoxElle), has it worked?

kidding I am starting to wish that Yuzu would go for slow SP and fast-paced crazy FS, just to go agaisnt the trend wait if he keeps both his old programs he'd... kinda do that but it's unlikely, for his stamina following the trend would be much better...and I still think tangoZuzu would be quite refreshing to see tho maybe not Roxanne, too many of them already (and one is in a costume that looks like Masquerade's stepbrother) by the way, honestly, @Paskud, with all the things you've listed that will make you mute skaters, even Yuzu, I fear you might be jinxing it

some more on Satoko from the training camp tbh...I'm not sure about her choice of music for the fs, and I have big doubts on the 3A training, but well, when she sounds so involved I feel that I need to hold my own judgement and wait to see what happens... and while all the 3A talks from so many jpn ladies in the training camp were...well, a bit crazy and out of nowhere, tbh what can they do, if not say that they are going to work on it and up their BV? It's unlikely that, even with fully rotated jumps, a clean jpn lady without 3A will be able to beat a russian or american lady with similar layout... but being really able to bring a 3A, while also being clean, is going to be a challenge. Heck Rika has been training and incorporating 3A in her layout for much longer, and while 3A now can look effortless, it's been a rocky path (also, Rika, please, if in the future if you really need to pop a 3A I hope you'll pop it into a double...please!) I'd have bigger hopes for Wakaba if she hadn't been injured this past season, so for the moment I just hope to see her healthy and landing her jumps with the quality she is capable of... As for Kaori, I'm a bit concerned that the 3A training mainly happens on input of her coaches. I'd honestly feel better is I knew it was her own choice since the start... And Mai... I just hope she healthy enough to do whatever she loves If it's skating, ok, but knowing she's constantly struggling with her disease I'm twice worried about her re: Shoma I'm not sure if this was already shared, but there's a point I particularly want to comment on interesting that he's trained some -Lo combos, if he could stabilize one he could replace a 2T with a 3Lo, quite a BV upgrade even if he doesn't add any new quad (still, he could add new quads, and I'm expecting him to bring the 3A4T) I wonder what, in his mind, could possibly make a song a song ex-like ... (still waiting for him to skate to Kimi no Nawa tho, EX is fine) but the important part was can I say it? FINALLY! I was waiting for this, Shoma! I'm so looking forward to his new programs! (also, I'm guessing he spoke to David during ATS?)

she's back to St Petersburg. This is Nastya's side of the story tbh I'm quite appalled at the way some coaching splits happen, with coaches trashing very young skaters and those young skaters replying to the drama very calmly and sounding way more grown-up than their former coaches... of course it's also in part because skaters don't have established rep and they need to be diplomatic even when they are deeply hurt or angry, but what the heck, aren't some coaches able to be slighlty less petty and mean? Heck, if skaters don't get the expected result maybe it isn't only their fault, some degree of self-critique wouldn't hurt some coaches. If skaters get injured maybe give them a break and try to help them, instead of blaming them and pushing them to do things their body isn't ready for? or maybe try to manage their emotional health a little bit, too? And it's not like Buianova has been doing such an admirable job in these last few seasons... Elena, Maria, Polina...ok, each of them also had their own issues and sometimes different priorities, but still... sorry for the rant

Me, feeling sad and kuyashii that there are no Yuzu-related goods where I live (and that when I can find them online they're crazily overpriced). Also me, feeling grateful that I can save money for those gpf tickets...and more Poohs... wait, I have bought some pooh and yuzu chocolates. But even those things aren't sold exactly within reasonable distance from my place so I don't suffer from constant temptation😅 the only things I shipped from Japan were Yuzuru's bios and some magazines, and even for that I'm postponing to next order for when I can make it big enough to minimize shipping fees (and when I'm not saving for gpf tickets + trip). I'm belatedly realizing a CiONTU tee and bag would have been really awesome beating myself so much for not trying to get them Eta: re: the weibo pics... tbh I'm uncomfortable that they are being shared (NO pics under spoiler, in case you're worrying about that)

@axelnojutsu It is! Veveco updated us in the general chat

I hope Shun will do a good JGP debut so maybe international judges would notice him more than jpn ones and make up for all the time lost in reputation building I love that both Kao and Shun did/are doing RJ program nice tribute. Has Kao any chances to be in JGP? or we'll need to wait till JrNats for (hopefully) some vid? I'm very excited for all the russian boys too there might be interesting head-to-head this season...well, jr boys are always a question mark for consistency, but I'm more excited about jr men this season compared to last one and I can't wait to see the new russian ladies too (also, hoping Anastasia Tarakanova is fine physically and emotionally, I'll be overjoyed to see her in jgp but only if she is healthy and happy... and not risking jumps she doesn't have under control like UR quads) hoping for a luckier season for jpn ladies please ladies, especially you, Tomoe, please don't pop or fall curious to see who'll bring the quads and/or 3As and wait, Alysa is gonna debut too! Hoping her team won't go too hard with the jump content and will work on improving her overall technique And it will be interesting to see the judging... US ladies hope vs Russian wunderkids (with or without quads?) vs Canadian men hope... for ladies the war for 2022 may as well start here, ladies will likely be going sr by then and theorically in pole position to steal the show, if recent trends will be confirmed... tho who knows how the field will look in a couple years...

Re: Sofia It looks like we have another Roxanne And the sp... they'll probably rely mostly on her ability to sell a performance... not really fond of that. Re: Alina's sp Not the change I wanted to see, I hoped she could have something more modern&upbeat and made her be more her age for a change... but glad it isn't warhorse. I can't really envision a program on that music so I'm very curious. And at least there isn't much to worry about for the music cut... I guess? For the fs, I have my reservations about using unrelated music to portray an iconic character, but I like the pieces... Re: Mai's fs One of the pieces of her fs sounds lovely but also very quiet, curious to see what Lori will do but high chances I'm gonna like it Re: Kaori's fs Wow I was surprised but somehow I can really see it working. The evolution of shinobi girl into a brooding leather-clad rebel? 😅 Re: Alyona's twilight I don't like the ex version, plus, that wasn't Bella, that looked like Dracula's daughter 😱 If they wanted to use Supermassive black hole, they could just use it. The song existed before the movies. Well, hopefully it will get better. If they wanted to go for dark&edgy, IMO they lost a HUGE opportunity giving Danse Macabre to Lilbet instead of Alyona... or heck, for a badass Young Adult blockbuster character there was Katniss... why Bella? She was a very ordinary teen without any sense of self preservation (or basic common sense... and author making her kinda powerful in the last book was just the random level up main characters always get in lazy plots... and with this I ruin myself socially, admitting that yes, I've read all the books 🤣) Re: everyone going to two choreographers Y'all forgetting Wakabs's iconic Skyfall as reason for upsurge in the popularity of Shae's choreo I think the combo of Nemesis + Skyfall felt "fresh" and it looked like Shae could "get" different skaters and showcase their strengths (or hide their flaws). Add her inclusive and friendly approach when doing choreo and I can see why one would want to work with her. And she even made work Jun's crazy (iconic) RJ😁 and ngl, I'm more hopeful knowing she is the one making choreo for Zhenya's FS instead of DW... As for Benoit, Kaori has being conquering hearts left and right and it's likely his choreo is seen as part of the reason for her rise despite her being "unrefined" (well a commie had worse words). well Amelie made me take note of her, she had such an unusual distribution of elements and after the awkward miming it really became memorable, and I utterly loved The piano, so at least for Kaori Benoit works amazingly. So IMO what people/skaters see in both Shae and Benoit is that they can take someone and made them look "more appealing" to judges and audience...also, they can take "modern" and make it good. idk why other choreographers didn't benefit in the same way from choreographing winning programs tho (sometimes I jokingly wonder if Zu having too insane stsq for SP actually scares people away from poor Jeff lol well tbh I liked what he tried to do for Vincent). Some other choreographers are 'accused' of making more 'generic' stuff... or maybe they are thought to be more suited to more "traditional" programs... But with all the work Shae and Benoit have, it will be more likely some of their programs will feel "generic" too. Caravan already didn't felt 'fresh' and it's telling that Nate always picked Nemesis as crowd-pleaser, despite Caravan music being great to make people clap and cheer. Well, Wakaba didn't have many chances to skate her new SLB programs (and she was injured), so maybe they would have looked better with more time (Energia had its appeal and Wakaba has lots of innate charisma anyway) In Benoit's choreo for Boyang, I already have a feeling of yes, I can see Benoit's hand. It can still be good, but it starts losing originality. Everyone wants to try what has worked well with judges/audience, but for how much a choreographer wants to bring something different for each skater and choose out of the box music, creativity has its limits Also... I have questions about music choices. It's good that many aren't going for warhorses, but I wonder if some choices are made more to say "look how unconventional I am" e.g. Anna S. Skating to Perfume while portraying the story e.g. Yuna Shirakawa's fs music (idk if she's portraying the story tho) Even if one just wants to skate to a piece without attaching any meaning to it (without referencing the movie, which is a legit choice and imo sometimes better than forcing a narrative/character), I wonder why we see so many pieces from movies with...very heavy themes. Do they really pick music just because they like it or they want the additional shock value of where the music comes from?

Well, not surprising after Shoma had already hinted at that chance. Again, he is not alone, he has his own managment (I'd be surprised if he didn't have some kind of medical support too), he's experienced and he's gonna have Honda in his corner. I doubt that if Shoma will need advise on other things Honda will say "wait, I'm here just for jumps". And he'll be at his usual training base and, again, I bet that his old coaches would be ready to advise too, if needed. I think Shoma felt he needed to take more ownership of his skating and he felt he couldn't do that with the tentation of always leaning on his old coaches, so he decided to "leave". So now he's forcing himself to be more independent while also keeping some kind of safety net by staying one more season in familiar environment, using the time to calmy prepare for the next big step and from what he says, about his programs too, I'm really excited about what he'll bring because it sounds like he's growing so much and there are gonna be big changes I'm curious about where he wants to go next season, there's not many rinks in the world with skaters doing multiple quads... As for Switzerland, he's worked well with Lambiel in the past too, so, while the timing feels a bit late, with Lombardia trophy basically next door mid-September, it makes sense for Shoma to just train there and compete before coming back to Japan for JO (of course I'm assuming he'll go to LT) I'm honestly more worried and puzzled about Marin, who's younger, less experienced and hasn't had, thus far, the senior results she hoped for. If her issue was reverting back to old habits when in Japan, then imo the best solution would have been just not going back to Japan (or like, not for long, so old habits can't kick in and she won't train unsupervised for long). If that wasn't possible, and she is even going to increase her time in Jaoan, it makes me think that she has other commitments that still require quite a lot of her time. Or she misses home, she's very young and that's possible too (I'm assuming there are no frictions with the rink or the coach, in K&C Raf looked supportive). Idk if having two coaches (working on their own) can truly help Marin... especially since Raf has always stressed that a couple years of full training are necessary for results to show... (it looks Takeshi Honda is gonna be busy.. and does this mean Marin will train in Shoma's rink?)

beautiful pic and I love the smiles...BUT! I get it, they wanted it to be a big pic... BUT STILL! (awww the emoji expresses my thoughts while also matching the costumes I swear it wasn't intentional)

Is it true? https://mobile.twitter.com/Iron_Klaus/status/1150285094466281477 I have mild trauma for Boyang's ankles after gp17 series... hoping it was just a 'minor' sprain without much long-lasting consequences It would be nice to know just how many sprains skaters have on average every year so to avoid freaking out at each of them (or to freak out more for their poor ankles)

It looks like Sota plans to upgrade his layout quite a lot (crossing fingeres for him to be able to do so). I liked the little inputs Camerlengo was giving (at least what we've seen), and I look forward to see the programs! unrelated, but wow can't believe Sota is on his way to offical adulthood this season the image I have of him is still the teen from youth olympics and even if he's grown a lot I still have this cognitive dissonance I like Loena's new program, I think she'll make it work (I mean, she made Celine Dion work so...) I kinda see where Boyang wants to go with the SP (tho of course i expect jumps to change) but first half is just uninteresting to me rn (at first I was kinda ?? at the split jump during stsq, I know it's there to show variety in the vertical space but felt like too "loud" for the music, and I still feel that some other type of split jump or leap could look better that...)

always nice to see our fave ninja is well and on the ice what even... is that? so embarassed, I'm so sorry Zu also, it feels so weird when stumbling into Yuzu out of context

yeah throughout the vids when I wasn't thinking about Yuzu being a master at everything they said, I thought "how nice of them to use all his idols" LOL well, Yuzu (and FaOI) have good taste, so it really wasn't hard to pick them... (I was only surprised at them not really going for V/M) RE: the update seminar with my unfamous deareast countryman why do I even share nationality with him Bianchetti couldn't we have Ambesi in his place instead, I'm still puzzled that: if too many UR calls were the issue, why haven't they just gone back to the previous more lenient rule? easy-peasy. were there so many more edge calls to justify a similar BV change for wrong edge too?* last season they had made NO changes to how edges were assessed, so it's very *(well, aside the flip calls madness in the first months of course, but it looeked like they stopped seeing imaginary lips so everything was back to...the usual) why do they insist a mistake like a single fall/step out/whatever is worth a fixed cap in all components? why do they say they affect SS that much? if e.g. a fall happens in stsq or ID, then maybe I can see the rationale, but most of the falls in singles and pairs are out of jumps, and I hope we can all agree that landing a jump isn't necessary condition to say someone has good ss (hello, ice dancers are out there and they aren't landing quads!!!) why do they keep the wording of the cap in PCS if there are mistakes specifically referring to highest achievable PCS only? if you truly want it to be a general rule (and reminder to judges that a fall can affect components and they should keep that in mind when giving their marks), just use a more proper wording, please and thank you. Like, place some bolded warning "serious mistakes must be taken into account for evaluation of all components, especially PE and IN". The wording as it is misleading, and anyway, it's not as if watching a skater fall doesn't at least uncounsciously change how we assess a performance... artificial caps seem lik unnecessary overkill to me, and it all just stems form judges being unable to apply some basic common sense when scoring (I mean, of course you won't give a perfect 10 to a flawed performance, c'mon! a 10 implies it can't be done any better, with a mistake it certainly isn't the case 'cause obviously at least that one skater can do better). I didn't like the cap rule last season, I like it even less now that they've made it stricter (and it doesn't sits well with me that a couple stepouts or maybe even a step out + a pop *could* result in PCS being capped at 90). Well, I can already see Yuzu with a couple mistakes getting lower components than clean 100crossovers program from xxx 'cause the rule says so¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Now, it wouldn't be an issue if components were assessed according to the criteria and real gap in skills reflected, but they are not, so it is a big issue. The feeling I have is that we're crawling back to 6.0 (the bad parts of it), when the only thing that mattered was just "looking like you landed your stuff", with all the nuances lost. why the heck do they need to review falls in normal speed only? I'm still confused about what the heck it really means that in SP GOE -5 for wrong number of rotations... if a sr male skater pops the planned solo jump to a single or double, tha'ts a 0 BV, how the heck do you even calculate -5GOE? It's still a 0. IMO they were just being redundant in what it was already a rule: in SP element not according to requirement must be -5. That, of course, also covers pops, and this last season resulted in just getting a simple 0 for the element (it's different for mistakes in the combo since in a combo if one jump still fits requirements there's the BV of that element...then you can calculate the -5GOE) ranting end for today and hopefully the week (too much to hope it's the ranting end for the whole month)