Perelandra

Hi, Sorry to respond to your comment so late, I was too raw to think straight for a while. You are correct, people cannot be forced to 'make nice' if the don't want to and any statements will inevitably be perceived as the falsehood that it is. However, these two skaters are adults and they must be aware that all appearances in a public setting are open to public scrutiny and judgement. Behaviour and speech needs to be very measured in such situations. Sadly, there is a well known phrase "everyone loves a winner", an indictment on insincere, fawning admirers who are all too ready to make use of another person's greatness but will quickly find someone else, when they think that association with the first person no longer has benefit to them. Now it seems that some people feel that they can behave in a dismissive manner towards Yuzu, to their own discredit. Yuzuru has worked so hard to reach the pinnacle of his sport and has achieved every accolade within the sport and more. We all know his back story, so even more remarkable that he has not only remained humble and hard working but also has demonstrated respect and kindness to everyone he encounters. The JSF president has threatened him in the past 'perform well, or you are on your own" before the FP at Sochi and shockingly Yuzu has been the subject to death curses (the white towel thrown on his head). Yuzu somehow overcame all of his detractors and somehow moved ever forward to great success, and yet he never failed to treat others with consideration and kindness. Over the years from junior days, Yuzu took Shoma and other juniors under his wing. Even if Shoma does not wish to pay Yuzu compliments now, he should reflect on how thoughtfully Yuzu treated him when he was a newcomer. Incidentally, to Nathan's credit, he cites in an interview, after World's 2019 that Yuzu was very kind and nice to him when he was a newcomer having moved up to senior events. The demonstration of support from Team China skaters has been incredible. Not just with the gifts that they gave to Yuzu, but the consideration they showed him, at a difficult time. Shiyue and Xinyu queueing up for several hour to get Yuzu a limited edition Bing Dwen Dwen and Boyang wanting to be 'panda hat buddies'. The show of kindness and support were really thoughtful. Some people clearly do not forget true friendship. I hope that Yuzu derived a great deal of comfort from Boyang, Xinyu, Shiyue Sorry to whinge about this

Oh no. Dear George, many apologies to you. No dispersions on your part whatsoever. You mentioned having reservations about Senor Fernadez' with regards to various vacillating comments about the hole in the ice and whether it was being used as an excuse for the popped 4S. Yuzuru has a well earned reputation for never making excuses for poor performance. I have seen several posts on various social media that Spanish speakers actually translated Javi as having said " maybe this was a little lie" whenJavi was speaking about Yuzu's comment that there was a hole into which his take off blade slipped. Javi received a considerable amount of criticism for his comment. Although, he should have been somewhat more measured in giving essentially an opinion in a public forum, his comment was ill advised. Thereafter he wrote an apology, which may have contributed to him appearing rather disingenuous. I recall that your profession is a trial lawyer, now retired, so I thought that your comment about Javi was particularly relevant because I thought similarly. Hence my comment about the importance of not casting aspersions on the veracity of someone's word, without proof. I did not make it clear enough that it was Javi who was the object of my criticism. I really enjoy your insightful comments and posts and apologise unreservedly about the miscommunication, whereby you had the impression that my comment was aiming to be critical of you. It was intended to compliment your insight. I am glad that you made contact, I do hope that this is cleared up. So sorry. Perelandra is the title of a novel by CS Lewis, Sci Fi story about Venus. Personification of that planet as female, so Mdm

Good sign that off ice training is paying off. I'm sure that Yuzuru can lift a partner. ( There was footage from an ice show where the female partner in one of the pairs or ice dance couples skated around the rink carrying her male partner. Anything is possible )

Thank for reposting. Always joy to watch Sorry to respond so late to both this and something you wrote back in Feb. Yuzu has always behaved with integrity and has never used any public interview/forum opportunity to say anything derogatory or critical about any person or organisation. When a well known figure is requested to make a public comment, the widely held view is that it is incorrect to throw doubt upon the word of another, unless there is irrefutable proof. Yuzu would never behave in this way and has rightly garnered world wide respect for his conduct

Looking at Yuzu in short sleeve costume, the arms are slim but he has well defined muscles. It has been discussed before about Yuzu doing Ice Dance in the future, I love the photos/footage of him being lifted. With the muscles he has currently, it would not be too difficult for hime to increase muscle strength to lift a Ice Dance partner. After all Dai Takahashi has commented in interviews that he has done a lot of training to be able to manage lifts. He has returned from retirement numerous times and in his latest incarnation has been rejuvenated to find career with Ice Dance. Yuzu has amazing musicality his transitions, steps and choreo are perfect for this discipline, no jumps required and there would be a huge queue of female skaters wishing to be auditioned to accompany him. This is only my very humblest of opinions/wishful thinking, but personally speaking it would be a way to carry on competing without risk to the already delicate ankle. pretty please Yuzu, just a tiny something to think about before you hang up the skates for good

Thank you for the link. Voted

Hi River Thanks for the info. Great to meet a fellow physician Agreed, Nathan could continue to skate. However, I also agree that trying to divide competitive skating commitments and demanding work schedule would be nigh on impossible, especially with night/weekend shifts/long and exhausting hours and trying to attend overseas competitions. Would he be able to take time off for such things? Nathan may also feel that having won Olympic gold, that it is time to move on to a different path. Most Olympic champions do retire from competition and do something else There are several Olympians from Team GB - a GP who won Women's Modern Pentathlon, one of my junior docs did cross country skiing for team GB and an ENT surgeon that I worked with won Bronze in Seoul, Rowing. There are others, but it is really difficult to combine competitive anything with medical training/career My speciality is Anaesthetics and Critical Care. My understanding that it's different in US - ITU is part of Internal Medicine and Anaesthesiology is completely separate, is that correct? Completely different level, but I played in high standard orchestras all my life (violin ). Had to give up when trying to sit my Royal College of Anaesthetists Final Fellowship Exam, with 14month baby and 66h week. So I can completely understand how challenging it can be attempting to do everything. Don't know how things stand in US, but back in late 90's/ early 2000's higher specialist trainees ( not sure what US Doctor grade equivalent would be ) requesting part time training posts was really frowned upon by the various training Deaneries. They were mainly middle aged stick in the mud men, who perpetually looked down on working mum's. Fortunately husband was super supportive and is great dad, so i was able to finish training and get Consultant post, is that Attending in US. I was a big fan of 'House' so I feel that I should know about US under graduate and post qualification training structure. Kind of like ISU, make things less accessible and wonder why people aren't interested in pursuing honourable goals. Bye for now and lovely to start a chat with you

Hi, Apologies in advance. Silly question. Is the mined salt needed to overcome the bitter taste of betrayal? Dear Prime Minister Pooh, I am willing to undertake my fair share of shifts in the Salt Mine in order to prevent treachery from reaching the beloved Ice Emperor, around whose planet we orbit.

This footage hurts my heart to see. As you say. like a true champion, he fights through the difficulties with integrity and courage.

Photo book of Yuzuru arrived today, Sunao Noto the photographer. As expected the pictures are beautiful and captures something of what Yuzu tries to express during his performances. There are also some practice and non performance pics. There are many discussions about Yuzuru's beauty. To my mind he has a an ethereal quality akin to the angels featured in Renaissance art and also a quiet strength. Yuzuru has chosen a challenging path and his journey is constantly beset with adversity. Somehow, in spite of these trials Yuzuru always comports himself with dignity and never wallows in pity. For me, this is but one of a great many reasons that inspires so many people. Hoping that he can achieve all of his goals and that he will have the benefit of the most up to date medical therapies to help him recover. Although it is none of my business. as I am not part of YH medical team, I feel certain that he has explored all of the therapeutic options. Yuzu said himself, when previously injured, that he had done a lot of research about anatomy and related topics. There have been many peer reviewed papers about ligament injuries and treatment options/outcomes. I remain hopeful that each of the options and benefit vs risk, will have been weighed up carefully by Yuzu and his team. Here's hoping to the absolute best outcome

From posts relating to ACL 2017 and 2018, some satellites became rather fond of the on ice antics of a skater dubbed the Pumpkin King. Harry Mattick has gone into Pairs now. He is featured in a BBC iPlayer has documentary series about Figure Skating in UK, 'Skating on the Edge' Series 1, 'Back on Thin Ice' Series 2. Good watch and available for a few more months. It is a shame that there is little interest in the sport from UK point of view, athletes have to self fund mostly. I wonder how Team GB would have treated someone with talent like Yuzuru, I would hope that he would have attracted a fiercely loyal fanbase a bit like the Barmy Army (who follow England Cricket team) to counteract bullying antis and British Ice Skating would have offered whole hearted support

@Faithyu How appropriate to have seen the statue of Nike, as she is the goddess who can grant victory in competition. Hope that her powers can be channeled towards Yuzuru

@NattyTashi Hi, yes this unfortunate state of affairs seems to exist with regards to PCS scoring. There are many posters on the planet who are skaters themselves or are expert with regards to the judging/scoring system, especially the GOE, grade of execution score for various elements within any given programme. Some skaters get away with under or pre rotations for jumps, poor quality transitions, that sort of thing. Favourites and skaters from powerful federations i.e can influence financial funding to sporting bodies seem to gain higher scores for doing the same or even lesser quality elements If you ask about inflated vs low scoring in the general forum, pertaining to Yuzuru, I believe that you will receive a comprehensive run down of inflated scoring for some skaters versus poorly rewarded scores for Yuzuru. I'm not the best person to explain it but understand the issues when I've seen the skaters compete and the scores that were awarded in competition. It's like someone saying one ballerina X was not very good and another one Z is better for not very clear or consistent reasons, when even an amateur spectator can see that ballerina X performed beautifully and put artistry and emption into a performance but ballerina Z was technically same but had a wooden performance and was actually not very memorable. Ballerina Z has a better PR agency or came from a better known ballet school. This may not be a very good analogy, even though I love going to the Ballet. As I say, ask on the General Yuzu forum. Some people are IMO expert with regards to rules and scoring and will give good examples related to various competitions, you will be able to reference the performances looking at competition footage. Hope that helps a bit There has been a lot of credible discussion over the years that Yuzu for all his talent and hard work has never been a favourite, even when he gives almost perfect performance, he falls foul of negative judging bias.

@NattyTashiI genuinely wish Good luck to Nathan and his ambitions to attend Medical School. I hope he makes a success of this excellent and rewarding career. It will be quite a challenge and will require a great deal of commitment in terms of time and hard work. If he is serious about following this profession it will be years of Med School and then many years of work before becoming a senior Doctor. Although Nathan has stated in interviews that he is having a hiatus from Figure Skating to concentrate on his studies, finishing his primary degree, realistically it would be difficult to return to the world stage of competitive skating after a protracted break. With regards to the intensity of studying at Medical School, it would be difficult to incorporate competition level practice with Med School. He may wish to move on to this new chapter and not delay finishing his degree and then onto Grad school Not sure about the US curriculum, here in UK it is 6 years at University followed by 2 years foundation training, 2-3 years Core training, 5-6 years Speciality training( 4 years for General Practice ) plus very demanding Royal College post graduate exams, which only small percentage pass per attempt, so repeating attempts may be needed @EisEllehas stated that USFSA will be uber promoting their next top skater, most likely Ilia M and has correctly deduced that this athlete backed by a strong Federation will only serve to stamp out all other competitors Quite honestly, I don't know how some of the skaters can face this injustice day after day, at pretty much every competition they attend, even if they skate the performance of their careers. Yuzuru has my utmost admiration to be able to turn up and give his best, he is too good a person to have to endure this barely disguised discrimination. He will be rewarded eventually when all of his fans follow him to ice shows and stop buying ISU event tickets and consequently divert funds away from all skating disciplines. There will be karmic consequences for failing to take care of the jewel of figure skating. His fans will spend their money on Yuzu enterprises and if ISU goes extinct so be it The final irony IMHO, after having thrown candies to favourite competitors, the latest OGM winner has grabbed the Gold and headed off to follow their own path, having given little back to the ISU coffers Yuzuru is one of the few Olympic Gold medallists who continued to raise the profile of competitive figure skating, the fans bring in bushels of cash to ISU, which in turn encourages athletes into the sport, a true legacy. Every time he attends a competition he is giving the gift of himself, the fans adore him and throw money at ISU. Believe me compared to other sports, skating disciplines are not well funded, in return he receives no gratitude whatsoever and will back fire on them in the long term.

Hi there Yuzu and Potter fans. There is a lot of speculation about which house at Hogwarts Yuzuru might have been sorted into. Given that there is a Japanese school for Witchcraft and Wizardry, wouldn't he have attended Mahoutokoro? It is said to hidden in a volcano on the island of Iwa Jima. Students are well recognised for academic prowess and said to be excellent Quidditch players. Just a thought Mahoutokoro School information Location Minami Iwo Jima, Japan[1] Headmaster Unidentified Headmaster (c. 1990)[2] Permanent residents Mahoutokoro students and staff Affiliation Japanese Ministry of Magic International Confederation of Wizards Educational Office [Source] "Mahoutokoro's reputation rests not only on its impressive academic prowess, but also on its outstanding reputation for Quidditch..." — Mahoutokoro's impressive reputation[src] Mahoutokoro (Japanese: 魔マ法ホウ処トコロ),[3] Mahōtokoro)