EisElle

I love this quote. That's why he's chosen to call his FS 'Origin', focusing more on what the music means to him, in his life, rather than on what it originally portrayed Imagine wanting to skate to a music so badly, for so long, but it was off-limits for so many years (and in the meantime he gave us some other gems), but now he finally feels he can skate to those pieces and he got his idols' blessing on top of that I like that his last 3 free programs all have such beautiful and iconic titles! Isn't it a beautiful journey, from SEIMEI (it can mean also life iirc?) to Hope and Legacy to Origin... what's next uh? Ahh, I shouldn't be greedy, I haven't even seen whole Origin yet, but I want moar! ETA: LOL true. It reminds me of when we were guessing (hoping?) for some black&red SEIMEI and we got..well, quite the opposite (but of course sparkles will never betray us!)

maybe they're keeping things stored for times of need remember the after-NHK17 drought I want Yuzuru to make documentaries to explain FS to people I swear he can make you feel how it would be like to do such a jump and make you realize how insanely difficult is to do what skaters do ISU & Olympic Channel what are you doing? Send him a cute kid to ask him ASAP!!! He'd work for free

does the music for the FS qualify for this prediction? *frantically trying to salvage what she can* AND I've also said *cherry-picking quotes to look super-smug* c'mon, all of this is worth at least half a successfull guess! *finally admitting defeat* I still need to work harder to become a better fanyu but seriously, trollzuzu trolled everyone despite having dropped hints for months...or years

please don't put out such suggestion in the universe unless it's a very very VERY upgraded version... oh wait I wonder if he'll keep doing the Biellman tho... otherwise A-spin it is ETA: hopefully not RJ1 A-spin type tho

@Lyyli I see @kaeryth has already answered, it isn't a direct connection with Yuzuru of course, but still Yuzuru crossing paths with yet another piece of FS history I thought it was funny, in the context of him getting to skate both his programs in places that, in the history of figure skating, share some kind of 'figure skating historical connection' of course anyone can find any kind of connection between unrelated events if they want, but it wouldn't have been the same if e.g. instead of Helsinki Yuzuru went to Skate Canada or to COC or one of the other options rumoured to replace it like Korea or Milan...

Still marvelling at the weird coincidences in everything Yuzu... Yuzu getting RC and the brand new Helsinki GP to skate to pieces that are somehow related to both those locations...and getting ISU to allow tights for men too LOL He could really wear them ballet-like if he wanted.. the power of warlock Kikuchi was too strong, ISU was under his spell or maybe it was the power of The ISU council was after Zu had chosen his programs after all...just like the relocation of COC to Helsinki and GP assignments... on a more serious note, I'm already in love with so many things in Origin, and it looks like everything flows from one element to the other as if whole program was one huge endless transition (and not to be mean but there's more going on in these snippets of his fs than in some whole fs we've seen so far from others, but at at the same time every move is meaningful, not thrown there to just look busy or virtuosistic like in some other programs). On the other side, it also looks an unforgiving program, where it's hard to recover from mistakes, like 2nd half of Seimei ... I'm sure it would't be as demanding if he just dropped half of those hops anf leaps and spirals and choreo and just stuck with balletic arms instead of insisting on using his whole body, but it's Yuzu and I love him for this but I'm calling it now already, without even having seen the whole thing, if this program will be clean or semi-clean imo judges might finally want to go for those mythical 100 PCS... (and wouldn't it be one more poetic parallel to Plushenko's program? It would be like destiny ). Tho it's not like judges's minds have never defied my expectations Re: SP I want to know the music cut! And see some choreo! And get more Yuzu talking about his choices and vision... I've realized what I've missed the most this August (other than Yuzuru's skating of course!) were his thought process and his words, his long and insightful and poignant interviews... we had so many of them last year, I was quite thirsty Re: 4A So it looks like things are slightly more reasonable than I thought at first and yet here we are, half-chill about this crazy guy who doesn't want to merely try it in competition, but wants to land it with positive goe...but of course, who's surprised? And yet it's insane Or it was insane...like, a year ago... exposure to 4A talks is working

Barging in once again and sorry if my following ramblings have been already discussed, I just need to let it out before going back backtracking everything because I'm really #shook Under spoiler so everyone can skip

re: WR ('ISU highest scores'?) reset ooooh gotta give it to the ISU, they've solved the issue of having more WR this new quad (tho judges must not go too score-happy too soon, or by 2022, again, there won't be any room left to make general audience excited!) At the moment I feel half-pleased (yay Yuzuru forever WR holder!) / half- (record galore in Challenger series) but this is one more challenge to keep Yuzuru motivated, so He'll want to break the new scoring system even more unrelated but yasssss finally got my hands on a bit of wi-fi it feels so good to post again!

I LOVE TFTT SLEEVES They're the best part of that costume imo, and the silhouette they create at the beginning of the program is absolutely gorgeous (the brief spiral too). I don't like the shoulder region and all those flowers (it looks over-decorated to me) but I got used to that and the colour looks good to me, I see it like the colour of the singer's voice TFTT isn't one of my fave programs but I don't want to see Yuzuru skate to that in his (gorgeous) white shirt, I want the beautiful sleeves and dreamy light blue And I'd take that over Dory. While I kinda appreciate the meaning of the design and colour choice of Dory and it looks good in some pics, there are no parts that I really really really love BUT! he already had many of his jumps back by the end of June! there's still hope for August media day

Gosh she doesn't look sixteen at all I don't like the shoes tho

*imagining Yuzuru moving Pooh's paws to the song while chanting with his scrunchy smile* (only issue is it's the moves are too slow! Need more complex choreo!) I would give 10 for that, how could anyone suvive the squish?

you're right of course, I wasn't thinking about that at all since the skaters I had in mind aren't exactly praised for their soft knee, but they still land many difficult jumps... and the skater who has landed more quads than anyone else has been often criticized for his stiff knee on the landing too so this is proof that landing a jump (not talking about quality, just staying on one foot) requires a different skill set than the good old skating. Hence to correlate one to the other is factually wrong then of course skaters with good knee bend are able to save doomed jumps instead of splatting, that takes huge skill too and they can also have better landings, but lack of flow in a jump isn't a serious error* so it looks like a stiff landing knee would have 0 impact on skating skill evaluation. If they were really thinking about things like quality of take off and knee bend, the list of serious mistakes that could cap the SS score would be very long * maybe, who knows yes, I admit it's one of those times I'm kinda glad ISU isn't super-detailed... of course one has to trust judges' better judgment. I only wish it wasn't necessary to put anything like that in the rules, it would have meant all judges were already using their better judgment and their better judgment was... defensible, I suppose. Instead ISU needs to tell them loud and clear: hey you, please remember that mistakes can affect PCS too! Because some scores weren't defensible at all. anyway, I can't find anymore the PCS chart with the different componets explained...the one dated august 2016 iirc... is it gone or it's only me being unable to find it? The last update of PCS chart just shows the range for the score, but no components in detail. The only official explanation of the different componets I've found is here. Has anyone another ISU source detailing the 5 components? P.S.: while I was searching for that, I've found this: ISU vs USB sticks (and cloud) vol1 (or maybe it was the prequel, I don't know). I wonder how long it will be before someone tries again to launch ISU into the 21th century... I mean, there are some legit concerns there, but why are they such a insurmountable problem for figure skating only, while for the rest of the world everything works just fine?

I LOVE that they added that to clarify, but it doesn't clarify anything. Masterful! And I wonder, does falling on the music cue interrupt the flow? Because I kinda love Yuzu's fall in gpf14 SP, so swishy, such a flow, so fitting the music More seriously, I guess techical mistakes on jump take off are not serious, since a casual viewer wouldn't be aware nor care (or is 'timing of the jump not fitting the music' something that interrupts the integrity and flow? Whoa, all jumps with long preparation are serious errors then ). I guess stumbles, falls, issues on jump landings (not UR tho, I think, unless it results in some other 'visible' mistake) would count, maybe a particularly ugly pop too? lots of room for subjectivity, once again. Tbh, while in general I can agree a stumble makes performance worse, I don't think I would have liked to see olympic Seimei receive no more than 9 in PE and IN, and not because it's Yuzuru (well, maybe a bit of that too) but because I think it was one of his strongest Seimei ever, interpretation-wise. And while it is reasonable not to give that one the highest score possible, it's really annoying to see clean but much more shallow programs get the same score, just because of that. And again, why should a couple stumbles on a jump landing mean otherwise outstanding SS shouldn't be rewarded as such? A landing can go wrong for reasons not related to the take off itself, that would be the only thing connected to SS (and if good SS and good jumps were really that related I would expect current Nathan and Boyang to have better SS than current Patrick...and current Jason would be one of the best quadsters out there) And there are no GENERAL guidelines on how a 'serious error' affects PCS for all the skaters who are in the 0-9 range. How is it supposed to be fair for all skaters? (Of course, if judges had judged properly all this time, if they had NOT done things like awarding a personal best in PCS to a bombed program, ISU wouldn't be doing this...but it's only judges's mentality and training that should be addressed) EDIT: as @Nenaah said, I think they wanted to say 'all positive features added can't be more than +2, before starting subtracting', meaning that with a negative feature worth -3 you would have at most +2+(-3)=-1, and e.g. with a fall the final GOE could be +2+(-5)=-3 at most (if it is indeed true GOE deduction for falls will be addedd to positive features). For jumps and going by memory it's actually reasonable, since a jump with a issue on landing wouldn't hit any positive bullet for good landing, effortless and good flow. It could hit bullet for height&distance, bullet for creative entry and...matched to music? wait, that would be a +3...I guess falls timed to the music won't get that bullet, after all Imo ISU is just trying to remind judges a two footed landing isn't effortless and doesn't hit two out of 3 bolded bullets... Wait, now I'm confused: is a serious mistake worse than a significant one? Can a mistake be serious but no significant? Significant but not serious? In theory could one mistake interrupt the flow and integrity without deserving capped GOE? Wait, jumps with endless preparation and 0 relation to music would be exactly that! And a fall timed to music could be significant error but not serious! I KNEW IT!!! JK

Not unexpected but still sad for Sui/Han I hope she can recover well and I hope this new quad won't be as tough as the previous one health-wise... and let's hope this season we won't read as many 'WD' as during past season The pair GP series feels less exciting, without the whole PC podium...let's hope other pairs will shine and keep competition at high level tho none of my absolute faves will be there.. oh well, one year ago I didn't even had a fave pair at all, I guess I can spread my love to other teams Yu/Zhang is out of GP too, right?

And maybe more examples too The ISU tech commission could do something nice&useful and rescore a competion like this, with goe all over the place, to train judges... maybe judges could learn more if Bianchetti&co showed judging mistakes, instead of showing a 'perfect' example...learn from your mistakes, they say The spread in GOE to same elements is ridiculous. It's likely there won't be more major rule change before 2022, so the system needs to hold till then...and it looks already broken The commission wanted and designed this system, if they have a little bit of pride they should at least try to make it work.

but also

well... and every judge gave a different GOE I really need to see that combo

hope dies last, right? funny that he also has to work on the opposite problem with ladies c'mon, Zuzu worked hard on his flip edge, he can teach that entry to the kids! If you can't make it the usual way, make it harder (I'm loving all the steps before Stephen's solo jump in SP I don't particularly like his toe-pick technique tho) I love his SP music instead! but I'd like to see a sharper stsq. I'm not sure about his musicality either... anyway, right now I see Stephen being more a Javi-type kind of skater, tho, rather then a Yuzu-type. Rewatching Yuzuru's MI SP back to back to Stephen's SP (tho Yuzu was one year older there), I think Stephen lacks that bit of rawness that I find very appealing, because if feels like skaters are really throwing themselves into the music. sidenote: I've just realized he's exactly one year and one day older than my younger cousin... no wonder I have a huuuuuuge soft spot for him, despite him not being at the moment my 'type' of skater... protective instinct kicking in (ETA: that cousin was the only one who remembered to ask me about Yuzu when we met for Christmas holidays...I had only showed my relatives some Yuzu videos during the summer in a failed attempt to convert them, but he remembered his name)

I wanted to believe they would use some self-restrain now...just a little bit

DORK! But also #relatable Yesterday I would have said this: it will be hard for someone else to break the FS WR (that was probably the most vulnerable till the rule change that cut 1 jump and BV) because the simulations (in General skating chat) show FS scores will probably be lower on average, plus being completely clean on FS is usually harder (and now mistakes will be more costly). So if there will be a new WR, it would likely be in SP. That said, other skaters would need much higher GOE than what they got till now, because they need more than their 'old' PB... not impossible of course (Nathan is usually better at SP too), but still quite hard. And I don't think judges will be gifting WRs left and right in post-olympic season and with rule change. What I say today: With the GOE judges are giving in minor local competitions (and to junior skaters too, like in Korean test skates for JGP), well, it looks like judges are stile eager for inflation, so who the heck knows

Programs at The Ice Kaori's SP costume: similar to Mai's dress! Kobe sisters Shoma's costume: this isn't his final costume of course (I hope ) @Murieleirum right now the FS does look intense, from the pics waiting to see the video tho! no comments from fans about how it was? Marin's SP dress: this doesn 't really scream 7 nation army to me I suppose it could fit the less badass version she chose. I wanted her to try badass tho EDITED for double posting (that's what happeNs when one tries multitasking watching a broadcast, following twitter and posting on two threads LOL

Nastya T SP to Believer made me think about how awesome would it be if Yuzuur skated to something like that and also that I kinda self-made a Believer video of Yuzuru in UA, tho I didn't care about the lyrics, I only tried to match the music LOL. And the original video isn't mine, I've just changed the song (I'm lazy like that... the original is this beautiful MAD on bilibili, check it out, lots of UA awesomeness, beautiful song ) so I won't share the whole video, just these two snippets I hope some talented videomaker will make a video of Yuzu (possibly in UA) with a song by Imagine Dragons (I love those with Fall Out Boy songs). I've only found this Yuzu MAD to Believer, but it's short and this is more Evgenia-centric, tho there is a bit of Yuzuru (other skaters too)

really? I read it as him trying to take one thing at a time, setting small goals and then pushing further if things go well true, it could mean he could give it a shot if he placed in top 3 at Nats and would be selected for Worlds in Japan it would be the ideal closure, I guess. Tho then I'd not be super-sure that fed would really send him, unless the others royally screwed up...I guess a lot will depend on how well the possible contenders skated during the season... hypothetically, if he placed 3rd and someone like Kazuki 4th, I could see JSF sending Kazuki based on recent accomplishments and international ranking....and tbh it would be a sound strategy, with the future of jpn skating in mind. But if he placed 2nd or 1st..it would mean Shoma and Yuzu bombed really hard or something worse, so I won't consider that scenario) I think this kind of mindset is healthy and really good for Dai, in his current condition, coming back to competition after such a long break and at what many consider past-uncle age (I mean if we consider Javi and Patrick uncles...) He will only have the desire to do his best but not the pressure of having to absolutely meet people's or the fed's expectations Also, I've read that the new rules might help Daisuke, but I'm not so sure about that...yes, the BV of quads has been decreased and GOE matter a lot, but I wouldn't say the quality of his jumps was usually much higher than most, and spins aren't really his forte. Steps are his forte, but while, of course, he has all the musicality and star quality and depth of interpretation (and I expect him to be even better now, with all the experiences he had in these years) I don't expect him to have, for example, the same speed*. And 5-6 years ago he wasn't the fastest skater, either. I think the shorter time for FS is going to be very challenging, with the need to execute a more packed program. The time to execute jumps and spins can't be shortened (unless one spins superfast and jumps with shorter set-up), so steps are exactly where sacrifices will be made (I'm quite curious to see which layout he'll try to execute, because the higher the BV the more sacrifices...) I hope he can overcome his issues with 4T, though. I thought it was the quad with higher chances to be back *I'm thinking about someone like Carolina, who while 'known' for the qualitites of her skating isn't as fast as she used to be, and she doesn't jump as big (tho her spins have improved!). True, she gets huge PCS, but she was already getting top PCS four years ago...and she has correct technique on all jumps

yasss he keeps the SP! I can't wait to see how much sharper it can get! Shelock Holmes OST can suit him too Eta: my wild child Nastya! The most important thing is that she's happy and motivated (and healthy of course). I'm curious about her FS, will they go for epicness&drama or something more quiet?

It looks like she can focus more in LA than she did in Japan (maybe thanks to less media commitments too), hopefully she'll get the results Hopefully Raf helped her with her jumps too...tho idk what to expect for her programs. I thought SP would be fresh but the version she might be using isn't half as fresh ad the original one (merely talking about what kind of music she usually skates to), but Shae is doing the choreo so