nekodearu

With lighting from a huge chandelier with candles to save on electricity.

Learning Japanese from his interviews, documentaries and CMs 😅 I finally have some time to digest. Lately it's been like eating hastily and voraciously all the chocolates at once, already with a new, looking even tastier box of sweets on the horizon. Now I can curb my appetite for dynamite and take care of my body and soul 🙃

I guess it might be more about strong core and properly used legs, both generating the movement and reducing excessive forces by changing its direction at the right time. My impression from watching his performances and practices is that his movements, for his most mesmerising performances, especially the recent ones, must come from the center of his body, even if we see only their last part, such as a little gesture that highlights a musical accent. That would explain why they look so incredibly sharp, expressive, organic and coherent, with clear, prolonged lines and great internal and external flow. He also seems to be well grounded, which always improves not only one's balance, but also the overall quality of movement, as it releases some unnecessary tension from the body and eases the proper use of joints. But it's only my guess, of course, and I may be totally wrong 😅

OMG, guys, why are you so calm, am I the only one who got so excited about this 4Lo3A sequence?! It's so powerful! No comparison to 2015. Confident, clean, with good flow, and it's a real sequence, no hop in between. Just beautiful! The thumbnail of this video already made my day but that jump at the end - a chef's kiss indeed! Also, I am a bit late, but would like to join in expressing my gratitude for having the Planet. Big to everyone who created this place, maintain it or keep it alive by engaging in conversations.

I'm not a reliable source when it comes to translating from Japanese, but she said, more or less: "Awesome [egui]! Taking all the notes with that speed is amazing [yabai]! Wow/yeah!". "Egui" and "yabai" are slang, emphatic expressions, and "egui" in particular seems to be used by young Japanese as a reaction to something sensational, unique, different. But I was rather referring to her body language and tone. Her reaction is so spontaneous and sincere that it adds great value to her words.

It looks like a bigger project, including 2 ice rinks (an international-sized main rink and a sub rink), off-ice training facilities, a stage for dancers (she trains ballet, jazz and tap-dance), restaurant providing food to all the trainees, and a gallery with an exhibition of her costumes. As far as I understand, she wants her own place to coach (a school for children and an academy for top skaters), and a place to prepare and perform her ice shows. In Yuzu's case, in the place of a mere gallery, an entire museum, a multimedia archive, a projection room recreating his best performances on a big screen, a library and a scientific lab should be considered. 😂 Not to mention the huge screen, the Phoenix lift and the orchestra pit on the main rink. 🙃 So, yeah, it may take a while.

Mao Asada has just announced that she's going to build her own ice rink, so it's not impossible. Yuzuru's fundraising ability is no less than hers.

TBS censored his body and soul though 😅 Great reaction from Kaori to Ashura-chan, and Kazuki's comment that it surpasses the genre of figure skating - so on point.

Thank you very much! I managed to send my questions when I came down to less than 200 signs. That was a bit of a challenge though 😅 Anyway, I had to split my questions and submit them separately.

Does anyone have problems with this form? I filled all the boxes required, but still an error occurs

Given his struggles with English, it's pretty funny that he ended up in an English textbook

Cześć, Wiesiu! Jak się jeździ u Was na Torbydzie?

I'm soooo happyyyy! This is so precious! Can we also take a moment to appreciate them for not muting the Dynamite?

@Henni147 Thank you for all your information and analysis. I greatly appreciate your insights and envy the knowledge that allows you to break down Yuzu's skating in such detail and understand its compexity thoroughly. It is also extremely satisfying to have such precise tools to demonstrate why he is superior and that it is not entirely subjective or dependent on individual taste, as some would claim, as most of the factors you point out are measurable.

Exactly. However, I don't think that everyone sees the difference between actually interpreting the music and skating in a way that meets the overall mood of the song. Last season I saw on YT, iirc, Yuzu's Rondo with an altered soundtrack, based on some orchestral version (extracted from Shcherbakova's FP?). Someone in the comments section expressed their delight at how it fit perfectly. I remember that I was honestly surprised reading this, because my impression was quite the opposite, I saw a big difference, which for me was the ultimate proof of Yuzu's exceptional skills. Of course, the overall effect was still beautiful (after all, Saint-Saëns is great music and it was still Yuzu who skated, and we all know that his skating is captivating by itself, as you can see when the video is muted or even in slow-mo), but many of the most delightful details that make the movement of his body seem an integral part of this classic work were lost. As far as I understand from various interviews, the soundtracks for Yuzuru's programs are very carefully edited, with great precision, and then the choreo is adjusted so that each movement corresponds to such things as phrasing and musical accents, either following them or remaining in a kind of dialogue. When we change the soundtrack, we lose this unique connection that makes his performances unparalleled. But apparently not everyone pays attention to these things, which is perfectly fine - as long as it doesn't get in the way of properly evaluating Yuzu's and other skaters' work. Unfortunately, judges and commentators too often failed to distinguish between "great interpretation of music" and simply "skillful skating to pleasant music". The most notable example for me was "the king of skating skills", Patrick Chan - just mute his Free from Sochi and tell me: what is it about, where there are major slowdowns and longer pauses in the soundtrack during the program and when Winter begins.

Yes, according to the comment: "First and second pictures Hanyu arriving locally at the 2018 Rostelecom Cup. Third photo Hanyu arriving on site at the 2019 Saitama World Fourth one, today."

Thank you! Yesss, Yuzu, please!

Many skaters change their music from season to season, but somehow always skate the same. Yuzuru can skate one program in a million different ways. The HYK in 3.11 Notte Stellata was the most poignant HYK I've ever seen. The sharpest, the most expressive, painful, raw, piercing performance from Yuzuru. I feel I witnessed something real, and it will stay with me for long.

Satomi Ito is the designer. She reportedly created two versions - one fanyu spotted the sketches at her recent exhibition. I couldn't find the twit, but here is the exhibition:

It is also meaningful. I couldn't resist and did a search for the concept. I found, for example: "Yūgen may be, among generally recondite Japanese aesthetic ideas, the most ineffable. The term is first found in Chinese philosophical texts (...). Kamo no Chōmei, the author of the well-known Hōjōki (An Account of my Hut, 1212), also wrote about poetry and considered yūgen to be a primary concern of the poetry of his time. He offers the following as a characterization of yūgen: “It is like an autumn evening under a colorless expanse of silent sky. Somehow, as if for some reason that we should be able to recall, tears well uncontrollably.” - (so relatable... 😅) "The art in which the notion of yūgen has played the most important role is the Nō drama (...) Zeami Motokiyo (1363–1443)... wrote a number of treatises on Nō drama, in which yūgen (“Grace”) figures as “the highest principle” (...). He associates it with the highly refined culture of the Japanese nobility, and with their speech in particular, though there is also in Nō a “Grace of music,” a “Grace of performance [of different roles],” and a “Grace of the dance” (...). It is something rare, that is attained only by the greatest actors in the tradition, and only after decades of dedicated practice of the art. It is impossible to conceptualize, so that Zeami often resorts to imagery in trying to explain it: “Cannot the beauty of Grace be compared to the image of a swan holding a flower in its bill, I wonder?” (...). The most famous formulation come at the beginning of Zeami’s “Notes on the Nine Levels [of artistic attainment in Nō],” where the highest level is referred to as “the art of the flower[ing] of peerless charm”: The meaning of the phrase Peerless Charm surpasses any explanation in words and lies beyond the workings of consciousness. It can surely be said that the phrase “in the dead of night, the sun shines brightly” exists in a realm beyond logical explanation. Indeed, concerning the Grace of the greatest performers in our art [it gives rise to] the moment of Feeling that Transcends Cognition, and to an art that lies beyond any level that the artist may consciously have attained. (...)" (source: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/japanese-aesthetics/#YuugMystGrac, bolding is from me) Indeed, our Haku-sama is the embodiment of yuugen.

Do I see under his surname a shadow of the word: 幽玄 yuugen - "mysterious profundity; quiet beauty; the subtle and profound" (https://jisho.org/search/幽玄)?

I think so, if they make it worldwide, but it's available in France (https://www.disney.fr/), much cheaper than GC streaming and incomparably easier to register. You can choose to be billed monthly and then cancel your subscription when the Yuzu content is gone.

@YuzuSkating_IsTheTruth Thank you so much for such a detailed analysis, I highly appreciate that you shared your thoughts at length. I hadn't noticed this possible analogy between days after the earthquake and the end of his competitive carrier after Beijing, and I like it. I find it inspiring and thought-provoking. Makes me think about a natural cycle of death and rebirth. In nature, from each disaster a new world arises, and Yuzuru seems to say in Gift (or actually says in Prologue: "the endings are the beginnings") that it is true also for humans. (I know that many say the same thing, but the way he does it is exceptional). Those who survived can build something new, provided they let go of what they have lost irretrievably. However, to do that, one needs a lot of courage to move forward despite not being able to see the path for more than a few steps forward. That's why I am deeply touched every time I see him this emotional as he is heading toward the light after Notte Stellata to soar and fly into the unknown (thank you, cameraman, for this close-up). Thank you for this quote, it's precious and comes at the right time for me. It also matches Yuzuru's attitude perfectly. I also liked another fanyu's comment that Haku regained his dragon form and ability to fly thanks to remembering his real name and past (i.e., his true nature/self). Iirc, Yuzu said that in SEIMEI he doesn't have to do anything special to get into character, because skating to SEIMEI makes him feel like himself. In this context, I understand final SEIMEI as a burst of joy coming from the feeling of "returning home" (note his previous "Tadaima!"), returning to his proper form. Having come to terms with the worst losses in his life, having acknowledged the harsh reality as it is, he can now build on those brightest moments, like 2018 OG, rewrite his memories and write a new story.

😂😂😂 That's insane. If such crowds gather just because of Yuzu's skating boots, without Yuzu in them, how big a facility would be needed in China to accommodate all the people coming to see Yuzu's skates containing Yuzu?

I only subscribed to Disney+ because of Gift, and I was going to cancel my subscription today, after the expiration of the streaming, but now I have to wait a bit longer. They know how to keep their customers 😅