EisElle

don't forget the guy rewatches his programs..again...and again...and again...not only his bad ones, apparently! And he's always copying other people's choreographies even months or years later, his memory is no joke (but yeah, I bet he has some super archive with tons of recordings and instead of going to Niagara falls he rewatches them or doeas image training in front of the mirror...) not that I don't understand the feeling, I myself have spent many hours watching his programs, too and when listening to the songs of his programs I kinda...imitate some parts of choreo speaking of past programs, and given our recent Boston reminiscences and the connection with Yuzuru's most recent EX, here's my 'no commentary' version of Boston Requiem It's my own edit and it's supposed to be a 1080p video, I tried my best to sync the landing sounds and it looks fine to me but if you think the timing is off I can make more tweaks. I took the audio from a lower quality no-commentary video and the footage from BESP that looked like the one with higher resolution...the CBC one looked about the same to me and the logo of the network would be less intrusive, but it cut the replay and Boston Requiem replay is a MUST, so... Cry your heart away! Enjoy! Also tagging @kaeryth if she wants to add it to the compilation

Why had Jack to choose that podium? It breaks my heart to even think about Boston..and I wasn't even a fan back then...everytime in a fanvid I see scenes form Boston FS (with those puddles of melted ice and Yuzuru falling and his reaction after his skate ) I just need to close my eyes for a moment, I can't bear it... it's not even the same feeling of watching the 2017 ACI FS, there I can cringe and even chuckle a bit, but to imagine how Yuzuru was feeling in Boston it's too sad... I almost forget that for other skaters and other fans Boston is a happy memory, because for me the whole WC is marred (not so much by Yuzuru losing, but losing in such way). Even that triumphant SP, I can't listen to commetaries knowing what happened later... (Boston Requiem tho...it hurts but I can't help but love it) tbh Helsinki and then PC really feel like a miracle and Boston was... necessary for Yuzuru to become who he is now and now we can all enjoy happy Zu and he's so darn strong and aaaah I'm getting emotional (also, I've just got my hands on my very first Yuzuru magazines, I'm drowing in huge beautiful pics, some are really huuuuuuuuge, my brain can't take all of this) you can! I was hyperventilating livestreaming ACI and for COR I thought I'd die because my heart rate was seriously WILD but then I survived 2017 NHK and then OWG too without hyperventilating too much, which is astonishing... And sharing things here helps!

I'll patiently wait for 4Lo first...and I'll rejoice for beautiful 4S and rippon combo but yes, 4Lz would be fab and a healed Yuzu would 100% want to woo that jump back to him

why with the whole freakin' day (and all the freakin' days of June) they all put Yuzu content at the same time? Do they hate ratings so much? Ah what to do? I guess I'll start with CiONTU and then switch to H&F because I wouldn't understand half a thing of the CiONTU special anyway...but it's a CiONTU special this it's so cruel fit will be full of giggling Zu possibly wearing his black CiONTU tee and holding many pens in one hand as he looks very focused planning his show (I hope that at least they'll show the H&L performance on day 3 + the mushroom baby with Javi)

June 23th is going to be a pretty busy day (also, my sister's birthday too LOL) I hope they won't air everything at the same time, it would be the ultimate trolling... ALMOST (the title of 'worst one' still goes to last Mezamashi) oh...wow...that's...something some really needed to loosen up a lot a bit (Kohei wtf was that), but I appreciate the effort now I know what to expect... I hope Zu won't look as serious tho... I don't even care about his voice tbh, I just hope he'll look at least half-into the piece like he is when lypsyncing, that can heal any secondhand embarassment I'm here for this HQ content, Legends having casual chats and being squishy&awesome also I'm getting nostalgic & laughing a little thinking back to that Finlandia Trophy fancam of V/M watching Yuzu's FS and looking unimpressed for the most part LOL (and Scott suddenly perking up at the axel combo) (and just to be clear I'm not faulting them for how they looked in that video nor I know what was really going through their minds, it's just funny to imagine they were checking Patrick's competition and Scott was 'so, this is the guy, uh... no prob PChiddy, you've got this...' and then '...whops or maybe not' ) during OWG Men's FS, the white hot PANIC when streaming suddenly stopped working during Patrick's program and Yuzu was NEXT and the frantic search for another stream and the ONLY ONE working was a LQ and very LAGGY russian one that kept FREEZING during Yuzu's skate EVERY SINGLE TIME HE JUMPED skipping all the landings and I had to rely on those stupid coloured squares to know what the heck was happening, if he'd landed those darn jumps it was very close to a nightmare tbh... still, worth it tho... because Zu got the gold and everything was fine in the world fixed for you

c'mon, it can't be that bad! as a first pic, this looks already better than Dory, I'd say! Tho, of course, it's still a Yuzu costume thank you @SuzyQ for translating the lyrics and your post on kanji in Yuzuru's name. I can't understand Japanese at all but those details are so fascinating of course even his name had to be unique

well to be fair some of those top skaters didn't had many TR, or outstanding SS, or based their interpretation on pointless arm movements... tho some probably got less than they deserved, compared with what we see today... you don't even have to go that far, tbh, if you think Yuzuru's counter 3A still got 2.14 in Sochi (and iirc even the following season) As for PCS, up to Sochi I think Patrick was the only one who was consistently scored in 9s (maybe that's why Yuzu's GPF score was a shock for many), even Daisuke T. usually was more in the range mid to high 8 and I'm not even sure he's ever got 90 outside Japan (he got 85 in Nice FS, I haven't checked the GP results) and the other top skaters were stuck at 8 (many PCS around 40 in SP and 80 in FS). I expect judges won't be that stingy on +2, +3 next season, but will be super super stingy with +5, despite what GOE bullets say. And it theory there is no reason to change how PCS are currently scored, but with the new recommendations to avoid mid to high 9 for programs with mistakes, probably scores above 94 will get fewer, so if Yuzuru or Javier (if he competes at Euros) make mistake they're probably going to lose any significant PCS cushion (tho there will still be some cushion between all top skaters and the others) RE: Plushy's predictions Can't he wait a couple seasons before saying Yuzu will go to PC? Tho I might forgive him if it means Yuzuru will be healthy the whole quad and he'll still be enjoying competitions (meaning: slaying all the quad children with his beautiful jumps and complete package) (I'm still half-pleased and half-bitter for Plushy's PC prediction, pleased that it came true, bitter that he said Yuzu only needed 4T and 4S and apparently skating gods decided to accept the challenge) Now off to bed, I don't want to miss the twitter storm for Chopin 4.0 new costume unexpected bis of Dory new program reaveal

I've just made a donation via gofundme

tbh rn for me it works better than before In the last month the Planet sometimes buffered really a lot, but now it works fine (I don't think it was my PC, all other sites worked fine, I only had troubles with the planet) I hope it will keep working like this and thank you for your work!

I think Shoma will go for repeated 4T that can give him good goe, and I agree he can backload all combos, he has the stamina and Axel and Toe are his best jumps anyway. It looks like he wants to improve on his 4S but I don't think he would repeat it and use it in combo, he has much more experience with the 4T and bv differential doesn't make it worth for him to repeat the sal, which is still a new jump (and last time he still had long preparation, so it makes sense to increase stability and learn shorter set up for good goe first, rather than train a new combo). I don't think he will drop the 4Lo, tho he might scale back to 3Lo for some competitions...(I wonder if he would jump a lutz in any form tho...probably 3Lo with positive goe is a safer bet than 3Lz for him, and in theory he doesn't need 4Lz, but he might want to go for it to be the 2nd skater with 5 types of quads.. I hope he won't go there tho) I think Misha went to Raf to stabilize the Lutz and possibly the 4S too. He needs both to stay among top skaters and his main competitors in Russia (Dima Aliev, Samarin) have 4Lz too (tho with much much worse technique, but it's not like that's going to be punished), so he'll need his 4Lz even at RusNats, to qualify for Euros and Worlds... Nathan...no idea LOL I think he does feel more comfortable with flip than with lutz and if he has to repeat a quad in 2nd half I can see him go for Flip... not sure he would repeat the Toe, idk how much he can get with good goe to make it more worthy than a decent flip (and 4F gets higher factorization + judges boost, it might be easier to get +3 on a 4F than on a 4T) RE Yuzuru, I think chances of 4Lo are high, I'm not not hoping for 4Lz for now. Probably regaining 4Lz would be ideal for many reasons, the first one being a clear statement that 'yes I'm fully recovered, my ankle has never been better'. And he could keep my beloved 3F in an non-optimized BV layout without worrying too much about the points he leaves on the table jumping a flip instead of a 3Lz. I think he can backload all combos but not sure if he wants to, it will all come down to strategy and how consistent he is in the 2nd half. I think he would go for 4S3T or 4Tlo3S as quad combo, idk why but I don't think he would go for planned 4T3T in the free (unless he really backloads all combos), he's worked too hard on former COD to drop it for something 'easier' like 4T3T...in SP the reasoning might be different, he'll aim for a really really trusted combo there, I think he's aware now the SP might weight more than before... actually a lot of choices will come down to how much he wants to compromise his ideals with his desire to win. Of course he'll aim for gold, but he has not the urgency to win he had in PC. I am indeed expecting a layout with 3F, but will he backload the bare minimum? Will he make easier entries into his jumps? (The goe bullet for entry doesn't even say that the steps must be diffucult or 'original'...really almost no point in going for crazy entries, half-assed steps a mile before the take-off might be enough) I'm not expecting any +5 for Yuzuru, maybe some +4 at best, tho technically most of his jumps can easily satisfy at least 5 of the new bullets, and every jump he lands well should start from +3 But I can see judges holding back and I can see them not giving male skaters the height&distance bullet easily on any triple (3A aside), so I'll probably keep complaining about Yuzu's 3F not getting enough love from judges (I also hope Tech panels will stop making phantom calls on flip jumps and start calling more the lutz, which also has the higher BV so I would expect less leniency there plus a true lutz should have deep outside edge vs slight inside of a flip, imo even a flat edge has different severity on lutz than on flip, because in one case it much farther from ideal technique than in the other, so another reason why panels should be stricter on Lutz edge imo) I also expect lower PCS for Yuzu's non-perfect skates, with all those new recommendations. Not something really big, but it would still further reduce his PCS advantage because I don't expect a similar deflation for the guys 'only' getting 8.75 and 9 or even 9.25 E.g. Yuzuru falls and should't get any 9.5 in some cathegory so he gets 9 or 9.25, someone else makes the same mistake but wouldn't get 9.25 anyway so they still get their 8.75, the gap in scores was artificially reduced while the actual gap in skill is still the same as before... (And I don't like how things like SS or IN must be necessary related to technical mistakes. Also, is step out a serious mistake? UR call? Edge call? And what would an edge call have to do with IN or CO? Or a step out with SS?) so imo, while in theory the new system could advantage Yuzu with his usual GOE, I think his margin will be eroded both in PCS and GOE (because now bullets for GOE are super generic and I can see a bunch of +2 and +3 given freely on the hardest quads in particular, while judges will be reluctant with the +4 and +5 Yuzuru would deserve) Probably he could still have an edge, but not as big as we could think from converting skaters's past scores. (Btw thank you to everyone who run those simulations, they give a lot of food for thought) I think the new system is better than I thought at first, provided that judges give the right marks (without holding back to leave room for inflation in 2022 AND without giving GOE based on reputation or type of jumps), and provided that PCS are scored properly too, reflecting the real gap in skill among skaters (and among different components). Of course all these 'provided that' are also the reason why I think next season scoring will be a huge mess and I'll be reading scoresheets

I love those unique, customized gifts! Those small details are so thougtful! it sounds so menacing

On the contrary, you're very helpful thanks! I think I'll probably go for Ice Jewels photobooks +....I need to think very deeply about the others Figure skaters 10 is luring me really hard, too anyway, completely unrelated but your nick makes me smile, it reminds me of a character I liked a lot thank you @sallycinnamon too idk if I am strong enough to wait for a new IceJewels photobook, I was thinking 'let's wait' but then I watched that preview ok, more homework to do, it looks like I won't be able to order anything today

ok, I've only bought Aoi Honoo I and II and Yume wo Ikiru so far, so I still have 0 big pics of Yuzu (aside those stored on my PC LOL) and I'm planning to catch up with a bunch of magazines I've valiantly resisted to, till now... so I'd like to know what about this https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/4160082335/ref=ox_sc_act_title_5?smid=AN1VRQENFRJN5&psc=1 ETA: nevermind, read the content and there are too many non-Yuzu pages I'm already planning to get Ice Jewels SEASON PHOTOBOOK 2016-2017 Ice Jewels PyeongChang special and possibly Figure skaters vol 9 question: is this one really worth buying even if I'm already buying IceJewels PyeongChang special? Or can I survive without? also between Ice Jewels SEASON PHOTOBOOK 2015-2016 and https://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/4583625448/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=AN1VRQENFRJN5&psc=1 (is this Figure skate magazine? why all these magazine all have similar names????) which one would be better? (or should I drop Figure Skaters vol 9 to make room for this? or should I drop IceJewels PyeongChang?) Also, does any of the PyeongChang magazines I've listed have Swan pics? From what I've gathered IceJewels and Figure Skate (and Figure skaters vol 9?) don't have the gala, but what about the others? (my head is spinning with which magazines has what) (I like UA, Swan, fierce Seimei, Ballade IB, dorky Zu too...but it looks like I'll need to make some sacrifices) ETA: and what about Figure Skaters vol 8? It looks like it has OWG Swan but also some photos from worlds and SOI, anyone has it? How many pages of Yuzuru are there? I don't mind if there are a few pics of Waka or Boyang, but tbh when it comes to magazines I would only spend my money on Yuzuru. Also, sorry but I couldn't care less about Shoma or Nathan pics, so those for me count as a minus

late to the party, but re: Hope and Legacy how come that I hadn't read this yet? I mean, I'm sure I had read some parts but not the whole thing ok, I'm gonna paste some quotes, starting form the interview to Shae above (between SC and NHK2016) @Huiqi has already linked to Ice Jewels vol 4 (amazon tells me it was published on October 21st, so before Skate Canada 2016, and Yuzuru speaks about his recovery post Boston too, so I guess it was taken around media day or during ACI at the latest) I find this quote very poignant of Yuzu's "intentions" in crafting this program, starting from the name he gave to the program and the two music pieces he choose for it adding this interview in Ice Jeweks vol 5 (February 2017 before 4CC) (also there is an in-depth analysis of H&L translated by Gladi) From all of this I gather that when Yuzuru speaks about things like nature, wind and water in H&L, he doesn't want to paint a scenery (some after-WC article claimed he was describing finnish nature), instead he wishes to use his body to express the emotions of "being immersed" in those natural elements, the feeling the wind on skin, listening to the sounds all around, filling lungs with the scent of the air and so on...to perceive everything till being part of the whole. (nature in Requiem was harsher, it was merciless and brought sorrow and despair, but could also turn unexpectedly quiet and soothing, while H&L feels more about gentle waves, the calm of woods...) If I had to choose a single word to define H&L it would be flow. The never-ending cycle of a river to the sea, of the wind always changing, that endless cycle of nature that is also something more, though, a forward motion, an evolution. In this sense it also links to H&L being Yuzu’s personal journey put into music. The beginning, the joy, the moments of struggle and the pain and the fight and the rebirth, the celebration, Yuzuru shares all of that, his cycle that is also a forward motion, his journey where he keeps moving further ahead (as one of his UA said). And the flow doesn't stop, not even at the end of the program, when Yuzuru spreads his arms out to the audience, offering his legacy...tho in Helsinki it was also a scary challenge and most certainly a celebration of Yuzuru winning over himself All in all, imo the best way to enjoy H&L is just let the music and the movements sweep you away, an unbroken flow that lulls and rushes and enfolds. Everytime I watch, I end with a sense of calm and serenity which is the most beautiful thing

LOL at the "close" but I had exactly the same thought it's closer than Japan for sure, and closer than Canada, same timezone even still mourning over the big missed chance in Milan tho...I hope Plushy, Shizuka and Lambiel can drag Yuzu to an ice-show in nice, close places like Verona or Florence or Switzerland we have fine chocolate, strawberries and more tomatoes than he could dream of (paprika can be easily avoided, it's hard to find it in sandwiches here) and seriously, as a twice Romeo, Yuzu should really pay his respects to Juliet's house and in Florence he can find all the gold he wants all gathered in ONE place... AND HE COULD HAVE NOTTE STELLATA AND NDP WITH LIVE MUSIC!!!!!!!!!!!! I can dream

Aw, reminiscence day, I see. The unforgettable Crazy!Swan the whole WTT2017 finale was quite crazy And of course H&L (Also, have you guys checked Seimei in Requiem costume? It was the encore for NHK 2015, the-real-xmonster also speaks about that particular encore here)

WELCOME!!!!!! those pants tho idk if I should be more scared of Yuzu's planning skills or of his fans finding the most astonishing connections... at this point I'm half-sure we risk of making Yuzuru a greater mastermind than he really is maybe he reads those tweets and be like while 'but I didn't even mean that!'

the Epilogue is everything and the closing quote too, it's so APT before Olys I had some of smal58's video on replay, helped to get through those months of media blackout so many talented video-makers in this fandom, I've only ever done some editing for fun and it seriously requires a lot of work, time and dedication...

LOL same, when they were taking the group photo at the end I was: 'wait, WHERE'S YUZU?' then 'Oh, it was the first GP' good times, in hindsight we were sweet summer children..but we survived Winter yay! so many good memories @Hydroblade adding link to cryptid badge in Glossary

Oh no I had forgotten that if Yuzu does 4Lo my favourite 3F in in danger The choice, with repeating 4T or 4S, would be between 3F and 3Lz, so he would lose variety anyway (and the it would made little sense to do flip instead of lutz, tho he has first-half flip in his muscle memory by now) I can see it stay because 1)He wants so (and he kicks Lz away or says goodbye to the BV of repeated quad vs triple...unlikely imo or he repeats a quad and does both Lz and F but drops one 3A again but with goe being much more important and the chance to backload two stable 3Acombo probably it's not worth it 2)He does 4Lz in place of 3Lz but doesn't repeat any quad (he could afford the BV loss from repeat quad-->3F replacing 3Lz-->4Lz, probably he would not do both quad and triple Lutz and he could sacrifice a 5quad+2x3A layout to a 4 quads one for the pride of variety (less likely imo if he does 'only' 3 types of quads) 3)learns to do correct lo3F combo in place of lo3F or learns 4F, both highly unlikely (and we have to hope Yuzuru can jump 3F and 3Lz without pain first....and 3Lo too) ETA my conclusion is: I wish Japan had not withdrawn the bonus for triples&quads variety

Re: only one quad rep Not gonna say I had entertained the thought myself..ops I said that It's a compromise that still allows 3xquads +2x3A with only two types of quads (like Yuzu snd Javi in 2015-2016) while the max (without 4A) would be 6quads+2x3A which il basically the max Nathan already did with added axel ((ETA: nevermind I can't count 6quad+2x3A would be 8 jumping passes, so 5quads+2x3A or 6quads+1×3A, unless skaters go for 3A-quad combo)) so not a huge change to previous rules and still allows some freedom (e.g. Kazuki doing 2x4S or Shoma 2x4T or Nathan could avoid the loop and still do 5 quads which would be less tiring with the need to repeat 3A... for Yuzu it also means guarantee that he won't have to choose between replacing a 3A with one repeated quad EVER AGAIN (we were mourning that at Media day before he added Lz) also this rule still makes the axel important and it's a good thing, considering it's so different in technique from any other jump... As it allows a number of different strategies, I'm fine with it Tho now I expect top skaters to go for // 4T3T 4T among the last jumps +axel combo or solo axel for the bonus (unless they don't fear the +combo and backload all 3 combos, but that might be too much of a risk for now). Imo for top skaters that's doable and it would allow some Yolo if things go wrong with first 4T... (Nathan could go for //4Lz3T 4Tcombo 3A and if things go wrong add one of the combo to axel...I think it would be a much safer option that do e.g.2x4Lz and a 4F so late or even a Lz F T...he managed to have 3A ad last jump once but not even Nathan used a quad as last jump...) still half-chances of quad+REP on Men's protocol @Xen somehow I can't see Yuzuru putting a 4T3T in first half, 4S3T maybe, and he probably would go for two axel combo and quad combo last...basically what he meant to do this past season, minus the last jump that had to go anyway, so in theory he would have the stamina (tho of course no room for mistakes) I wonder how he'd feel going for 3Lz earlier in the program tho... (if he doesn't go for 4Lz) Selfishly I wish we can see both 4S3T and 4T3Trippon next season, it's possible only if he does different quad combo in SP and FS like this season...tho I can also see him reluctant to let go that moody 4Tlo3S combo Re: how ISU votes Well I would be outraged but it's not surprising, sadly

ouch that's really bad, as if it wasn't bad enough that it was happening already, now they are saying: yup, let's keep doing that, what, did you really believed you could give 9 for one component and 7 for another? Did you really bothered reading those criteria? LOL you're so dumb! (I feel dumb) Why do they even bother with guidelines and individual criteria for each cathegory if it's all about "I like it/I don't" and you can dump everything together? Just stop calling them PCS and go for some "Global impression & Pushing my fed agenda". true, sadly. It's not like in most of the countries skaters get much fame or money, even if they have long and successful careers like Javi or Caro. Even in Japan top skaters probably don't earn nearly as much as top baseball players... skaters really keep skating because they love the sport Top priority of ISU should be to protect the skaters and grant them the basic right to see their performances rewarded fairly... after all, fans follow the sport thanks to skaters, certainly not because they like ISU I wonder if ISU will ever realize its own behaviour (or non-behaviour re: PCS scoring mess) is what drives so many people away from figure skating... (heck, they should know the drop in poularity after Salt Lake City was due to, guess what, judging issues, not skaters themselves) It's difficult for people to say "I don't care if that skater doesn't win" if that skater could win if ony judged according to the rules. People can't really enjoy a competition if the final standings make them angry all the time. And it's even harder when fans get emotionally invested in skaters to see their efforts continuously disregarded... and ISU should really know that getting fans emotionally invested in as many skaters as possible is the best way to ensure a strong and loyal base that will pay for comps and would even be ready for pay-per-view content (if decent). If you love a skater you'll also try to catch all his competitions, and you'll see more skaters and eventually grow fond of many of them and of skating itself (that's what happened to me. I would have not gone to Milan and to Florence to watch skaters that were NOT Yuzu otherwise, nor I would have woken up for more than a week at 2 a.m. to follow live Olympic coverage on TV...) Also, in a world where social media allow to share any kind of content, an invested fan is useful as a mean to expose even non-fans to FS content (that otherwise most people could hardly get on tv). How many of us have tried to "convert" our families and friends? But oh wait, I guess they have no idea that less and less people watch tv anyway, and the younger generations in a very near future probably won't even care about tv at all and what they'll watch will be only on-demand content (heck, I don't even watch tv most of the time, I just connect my PC to the tv so I can watch what I want on a bigger screen, and I'm not a millennial...)

who said it was only coffee? (x) wait, what have I missed?

LOL I had joked about that in the very bold predictions thread last year I'm laughing really hard now, it doesn't sound that crazy anymore Probably because no one believed they would really do something about that ISU has this habit of letting the true urgent matters fester for decades while the backloading thing was something that had a reasonable chance to go both ways... (kind of a 'let's make the best of what we have', and BV from backloading is one of the few things judges can't take away from skaters) This ISU keeps changing everything but the root of most problems, the human element in the judging. They won't even try and make everything they can to allow good judging for judges who genuinely want to do that, like having split panels or giving judges more time to score or providing the tech panels with some decent 21st century equipment...but hey, if they don't get how USB sticks work I'm not surprised they have never heard of 4K video or 3D cam Anyway, one possible good thing if the no quad rep pass: less chance of +REP in Men's protocols but still I don't like that it would reduce the possible layouts man can do... strategies like going for good goe quads instead of high BV quads, are now not only discouraged but outright DENIED to the skaters and it happens in the free, where skaters are supposed to have more choices and express themselves more freely. This while in SP, supposed to be the more technical segment with strict rules, they are taking away a technical requirement (prove you can jump out of steps)...

tbh my main gripe with the no rep quad rule is that it reduces the freedom of skaters. Add the idiotic max 3 jump in FS and GOE proportional to BV and options become pretty limited. Till now you could have 2-quad guys going over 300. But with only 2 quads in the FS it won't happen (it would be a layout like the one Yuzu's had back in 2014, with one jump less). Some of the highest scores were, again, achieved with only 2 types of quads. Yuzu with just Sal and Toe still got more than 6 quads with Lz and F (and with repeated 4Lz other than 4F, everything else staying the same, Nathan would have be only slightly higher). And at Olys Yuzu could go for a challenging BV thanks to the chance of repeating quads. I shudder to think what he would have done with no quad rep allowed, he would have gone for the Lo at the very least even against a not threatening Nathan because Shoma even without 4S would have had one whole quad more. And multi-quadsters can change their layout if they are sick or injured but still keep competitive BV because they can replace their hard quad with another quad, thus minimizing the BV loss. Now it will be much much harder to let go ANY of their quads. And then there are skaters like Kolyada who replaced 4S with second 4T but now he won't have ANY choice at all, he'll need to go for both 4S and 4Lz unless he wants to stick to 1 quad only. Or let's say a skater has a lisfranc injury in his left foot, he can try and repeat quads that put a bit less strain on his left foot but now dropping one quad will be even less of a possibility because they can't exchange a quad for a quad, but only a quad for a triple. (Also, just checked and at worlds Kazuki did 4Sx2 but no 4T...so another guy who probably would like to repeat his reliable quad instead of going for a different one) And if you want to ensure more #variety, then the bonus for all 6 types of quads+triples made much more sense, because with this rule it's still possible for skaters to skip one type of jump (for example Shoma can still avoif the 3Lz, he doesn't even need to do the 4S to do that, or Kolyada with 4S 4T and 4Lz can still forget that the flip exists...tbh I think he could even forget the loop if he wanted...) Also, a bonus would be another push for ladies to go for all 6 types of triples, and it wouldn't be a selective rule for men only. It would also reward lower-tiers skaters with no quads but whole set of triples... I'm kind of accepting the "only last jump in SP get bonus" because, after all, skaters are all able to do more than one jump after 2 minutes into the FS, so it is "reasonable" that it's not that much more phisically exahusting to do 2 jumps in 2nd half (tho then one would ask why only a few do that) but I find the max 3 in the FS ridiculous. If you want to limit backloading, which apparently is the Worst Thing Ever and deserving to be prevented ASAP despite being still a rarity in Ladies's and completely non-existent in Men's, the Canadian proposal made much much much more sense, while still allowing skaters decent freedom with their layouts (freedom in the sense they have multiple strategies to garner around the same points, but 4-3 is what basically everyone can already do why should anyone want to challenge 3-4 or 2-5 if there is all to lose in doing that? Also me vs JSF I'm also extremely annoyed at Japan sabotaging its own skaters. E.g. both Shoma and Yuzu (but also others like Kazuki) have reliable 3A with good GOE they can backlload in SP and they can also backload a combo, so from their fed's stupid proposal they are going to lose the advantage they had by backloading 2 jumping pass (and I'm thinking that non-bonus Axel won't be "like" doing another quad anymore). Also, jeez JSF, you have a skater like Kaori who managed to consistently execute a fully backloaded SP, and other skaters enough technically sound to be able to backload more, at least in the SP (like Waka unless she jumps the 3A, or Satoko who has fairly stable jumps and could use a bit of BV to balance her low GOE, even if only by a fraction, but it could still matter against US skaters or skaters like Caro where the game can only be on BV because PCS is out of question with how judging works) and you do what? take away something they could get and that was not based on reputation And it's not like the upcoming Jr Russian girls won't be consistent if they start doing 3-4 layouts... this was the funniest thing and the comments in this thread were even better LOL But ISU is wise, you know, let's just skip USBs and use what the rest of the world is using...no physical support needed for music, so no more expenses form poor skaters to by a dedicated device, no risk of losing it, breaking it, stomping on by accident or forgeting to bring the right one (like Nathan in Milan practice), everything on cloud, so no risk there....but oh my, I guess that would make ISU freak out even more than poor risky USB sticks. Also, the whole debate about "sakters must skate in music" was just as funny, with people worrying if skaters can't skate when there are pauses in the music, and if voices are allowed and so on (also, skaters must skate on music and stop without, does it mean they can't stay still while music is playing? LOL) RE: no change in PCS factor about that I actually agree with both the decision and the reasoning I've said this already, but ISU already has a lot on its plate for next season between goe, bullets, bv and one jump less so at this point it's better to wait for that... tho that you can't change PCS only for Men but need to change for other disciplines too is really dumb, it's not like the PCS factorization is the same Re: no separated set of judges for GOE and PCS I didn't had much faith in that on ebeing approved tbw, I feel it's been suggested time and time again but apparently they don't care judges have to deal with a chaotic interface and with too little time for review and spend most of their time looking down at their screen instead of watching the skaters and hey, apparently they have even hard time at recognizing steps, how on heart is it possible they can judge both PCS and GOE? How are they supposed to evalue SS and TR if they only lift their nose for jumps? And can they see the mistakes at least? or those are controversial, too? this too, maybe even make the bonus higer for jumps done much later in the program. Right now in SP sakters would go for 2 jumps 1 spin last jump right after the half mark and it would not be as hard as going for the last jump after all the other elements, and and for FS it would be still more convenient to do all 3 backloaded jumping pass one after the other right after the half mark instead of doing like e.g. Kaori who had also other elements between the 2nd half jumps (or H&L 3 Lz at the very end of the program)... if you have to give the bonus to only a few jump, let's at least differentiate between very tìdifferent possibilities...