CupidsBow

@LadyLou Hahaha my only take away from the program was that the spread eagle was great. Hopefully in the season he'll bring some...spark to the performance but yeah it fell kind of flat for me and the comparison to Yuzu doesn't help, especially when RJ1 was one of Yuzu's break-out programs that he performed with a lot of fire and saw a really big jump in his PCS compared to the previous season (his average PCS rose by like 10 points compared to the 2010-11 season)

Junhwan seems very level-headed and grounded, not getting caught up in the quad race and playing the long game. He knows he's not likely to get any medals at Pyeongchang and has his sights set on the next Olympics and I think that's smart. Brian will make sure he has a strong foundation in his skills and performance components and raise his tech at the right time - he can do the jumps cuz Yuzu has talked about seeing Junhwan training before. I feel like Nathan and Vincent are a bit more 'here for a good time not for a long time' while Junhwan seems to be thinking more about a bigger picture. Vincent might be trying a lot of quads but the execution of them is a bit...eh and watching his FS...I feel like the choice of music, particularly the similarity to Hanyu's 2012 music cuts, is an unfortunate choice because it's really hard not to compare and it really draws attention to how little impact he has (right now) performance wise. It'll probably be tidied up before the season really starts but it really shows (to me) that jumps are not enough. He'll get the hype for the quads but overall it's not a great program imo. We'll see how it plays out in the season but I'll be really sad if Jason or Adam lose a ticket to Pyeongchang to Vincent because I'd much rather see them skate than Vincent tbh.

I don't think it's the lens because I have 2 friends with the same model and different lenses with the same kind of problems. It's not like it's unusable, I still get good enough images, but it can be really frustrating. Like if i'm shooting FS it's not so bad because I have 2.40/4.30 minutes (plus 6 minutes warm up, plus the time it takes to leave the ice) to get some good shots - but I mostly use my camera trying to get as many usable shots as I can in as little amount of time as a minute with not a lot of time to test and adjust. I'm upgrading my body before Pyeongchang anyway so *shrug*

definitely, go with the 7DmarkII the AF is far superior and it has different AF modes for the kind of movement you expect it to track. I hate my 70d and have had problems with the af constantly not focusing on the point I'm trying to shoot, arbitrarily sliding out of focus, being totally unable to track motion etc. even if i have it a f3.5 (which helps, it hates being at f2.8) or take it off al servo and try it on single shot. My previous camera was a nikon d300 which i replaced for being old and being practically useless in low-light settings because its iso was bad, but the d300's AF was amazing

I have no idea actually but at 4CC the Gangneung arena didn't seem to care at all so long as you weren't using flash. I don't think they checked bags (though I imagine that will not be the case at the actual olympics) I'm unlikely to actually hire a huge lens because money but i think my friend might be. If I think I'm too far away for photos I might fancam if we're allowed.

huh kinda the same as nathan then? that kinda sucks for US men if they both quit after PC for school.

Hey, If you can get the shutter speed, aperture, iso and colour balance right and have a decent try to with framing...... Photography can be tricky

I only took photos of the warm up for that reason XD there was no way I could take photos of his actual performance. We'll see how I feel at Pyeongchang but I'll probably be scared of the sound of my shutter bothering him or something XD I used to just work in macro, often extreme macro where manual is the only way, but I rely on my AF a lot when I'm doing sport or street or idols. I'm very much in the school of 'whack it on al servo, make sure all your other setting are good, press your finger down on high speed continuous shooting and hope for the best' when it comes to sport photography XD

ahhhh yes that is mine! I'm hoping my B seats for the FS are a bit closer than the ones I had for 4CC so I don't need to lug around another lens XD I'm fond of this one even though the focus is a bit >> soft I'm really looking forward to trying to photograph his again with a better camera body XD

constant adjustment of the focusing ring and practice i imagine XD I have the 70-200 f2.8 but I don;t manual focus on moving objects because .... hahaha no, my camera AF is shitty (I have a 70D) but it holds up okay so long as i'm around f3.5, below that the af just totally goes to shit. I'm going to upgrade my camera to the 5d mark 4 before pyeongchang tho so I should be able to get some nice photos. Though I am considering renting another lens (maybe a 300mm or 400mm. my 70-200 was still real far out at 4cc. i have A seats for SP but B and C for lp and gala so a zoomier lens might be better...) I don't have many photos of yuzu cuz i only went to 4cc and didn't really take photos there but i have a lot of photo of idols here

idk Shoma recently had an ankle injury (possibly because of the way he positioned the blade on his boot - he put the blade off-centre so it was esier to get the edge for the loop or smth) if he has to preposition his blades back to the centre he's going to have to change some of his techniques for some of his quads - the loop, but I imagine others too, or he might have some issues. I'm personally hoping he'll be adjusting his technique for the better but we're gonna have to see how it goes when the season starts. I do think judges might start getting a little pickier with the quad squad at least in part because if you have hanyu and fernandez with 4lo, patrick bringing in a 4f, hanyu maybe bringing in a 4lz ... you've got more skaters doing those jumps, more examples to compare against, less novelty to throw goe at. if Shoma throws out an iffy 4f and gets +2 and Patrick throws out a beauty and also gets +2 it's gonna be a bit weird, right? As the fancier quads get more widely used the judging for them will settle somewhat. Anyway, I think there being a good 6~8 highly competitive men at the top of the field fighting it out for the podium, all with pretty good chances of getting a medal is a good thing for the sport and for Yuzuru's motivation. At the end of the day he knows the field, his own skating, his body/mind and what he can do/needs to do to win way better than me.

Yeah, Junhwan has a qualifying event in a few weeks (In the rink that is like a 30 minute walk from my apartment lol) I'm gonna go cheer for him and my other team korea faves.

But we are also talking about Yuzuru - who hasn raised his BV every season in both programs (except for 2014-15 but his whole season is a retrospective outlier and dumpster fire so). I can't imagine Yuzu for a second thinking he doesn't have to raise his bv at all after last year especially when he sorta already attempted 5 quads in the free (albeit in a 'aw-shit-popped-a-4s kind of attempt) and the only way to have 5 quads without sacrafing a 3A is to bring in a new quad

I do still think Yuzu might bring in the 4lz, but maybe in the free and not the SP - the SP is going to be strong enough BV wise with the loop and the 4t3t in the second half, if that's the layout he keeps, since this is the program that still holds the record high score with a lower bv layout. In the free it's either going to be the 4lz or some new combinations and bigger jumps moved to the second half, now he knows he can do it. There will be a BV increase whether he adds the 4lz or not. Atm Yuzuru gives a vibe like he's prioritising skating clean consistently over having a super high bv and I agree with him tbh. So long as his BV is competitive, which it will be, it doesn't need to be the highest one there if he can skate two programs clean multiple times through the season ala Evgenia. Nathan might try 7 quads, he might even land them all, but you who he's going to have front heavy layouts with nothing happening between the elements. Even if the judges still give GOE for effort and 9s in PCS for landing jumps, anything Yuzuru does clean is done to a level that Nathan isn't producing right now. If Yuzuru skates 2 good programs it's going to take a high degree of bullshit to deny him a second ogm

...... What did the raccoon DO?

I love Shoma but I will admit his landings bug me when his free leg is barely a millimetre off the bloody ice. I think Shoma's style is still developing. I'm hoping after the oly season he'll start branching out a bit. Loco was a great program for him but I think he will need to start breaking the violin-short-program-and-intense-eyes trend he has going. I'd like to see a bit of more varied expression from him but if he does, he won't be the only skater who has a tendency to do very similar programs over and over... back on topic though....every time someone announces their FS music I am screaming on the inside wanting Yuzu to announce ;;

I like a lot of skaters I find myself sort of rooting for everyone in some way, the only one i don't particularly enjoy watching out of the top men is Nathan tbh. but when it comes to everyone against each other ... sorry Shoma, sorry Javi, sorry Boyang etc. but I want Yuzu to whoop your butts. But even that comes down to I want Yuzu to skate well, and Yuzu doing good just...equals him taking gold (though he was amazing at 4cc imo and still got silver).

I live in Korea at the moment, yes, hahaha. I've been living here for a few years so some Korean phrases/words are going to stick with me XD

Hahahaha the greatest 'manner hands' (as they are called in my current corner of the world)

Seimei 2.0 is great so long as the music cut is a little different. Or even if it's not, in all honesty looking back at the OG and comparing to H&L there are some empty spaces I think he would fill now. Even with the exact same music cut, it wouldn't be the same program it was, there would be changes, some things added, some layout changes... I wouldn't be mad about it. I just think it would be hard and might add pressure to have to better a program many already consider complete and skated to perfection (though I know he likely doesn't think it has been skated to its fullest potential and the same concern applies to Chopin but he's already shown there's more for Chopin to give). IA that I would prefer to see a sequel of alternative side to that character rather than an outright recycling. I'm prepared to eat my words though. He could go full Team Japan solidarity and do Turandot. I wouldn't totally mind POTO 2.0, I think I joked somewhere that if 14-15 POTO was him playing the Phantom he could skate as Christine next ala R&J 1 and 2 lmao

I will believe Yuzu won't add a 4lz when the season starts if it really isn't there but until then, I'm like .... sure whatever Yuzu. i don't think it would be great for him to fall behind a little in the quads race and pretty much totally rely on going completely clean consistently or everyone one else making hella mistakes. But he knows more about his skating than I do so.....

Oh bless, Shoma really adores Yuzuru, and Yuzuru is always just making heart-eyes right back. Yuzuru is the king of pleasant, friendly rivalries? (ignoring fan behaviour from any side of said rivalry lol)

There will be shuttle buses between venues/major events i believe but i'm super annoyed that they've only said now that the medal ceremony is separate and you need to buy another ticket -_- like when do these tickets go on sale?

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