General Yuzuru Chat

[rockstaryuzu]

1 minute ago, makebelieveup said:

 

Yeah but since its just who he is, I dont think he will change. The passion and competitiveness are something more innate in a person. We clearly see that in Yuzu as a kid. The way he so proudly held up his trophy when he was just a mushroom. 

 

I agree and I remember Jun saying something along the lines at the press that he just felt pitiful that the choreo is sacrificed due to the 4 min constraint and that he had a lot more to show. I like the fact that he doesnt only care about jumps. You can see he is trying also taking small steps to stabilize his skills. Fix the underrotation problems and get better music and him and Boyang are two skaters I look forward to after Yuzu.

Once Jun gets his technical content up to par, I predict that Yuzu will have a fight on his hands to stay on top. So far this year, Jun's as rock solid consistent as I've ever seen in skater, his spins are bang on, his jumps are crisp and sharp and he gets huge air. He has some of Yuzu's catlike qualities in skating skills already. If he figures out the same skill Yuzu has of holding on to a jump even when the landing's going sideways, then watch out because he'll be coming for all the gold. 

 

My friends, we are in for an amazing season IMO.

[makebelieveup]

19 minutes ago, rockstaryuzu said:

Once Jun gets his technical content up to par, I predict that Yuzu will have a fight on his hands to stay on top. So far this year, Jun's as rock solid consistent as I've ever seen in skater, his spins are bang on, his jumps are crisp and sharp and he gets huge air. He has some of Yuzu's catlike qualities in skating skills already. If he figures out the same skill Yuzu has of holding on to a jump even when the landing's going sideways, then watch out because he'll be coming for all the gold. 

 

My friends, we are in for an amazing season IMO.

Actually, in terms of his performance ability, (and this is just my personal perception) I dont think he is solid as 17 year old Yuzu tho except he has better stamina. So I dont know if he can really compete with the current Yuzu in any level anytime soon if I were to judge. He could jump harder element than Yuzu at 17 in competition but that is also of how the figure skating world has evolved. He also trained with Brian at a younger age so he learned higher technical elements earlier, but he still with some UR problems. Yuzu, on the other hand, could land a huge 4T and 3A at 17 and his skating skills were more fluid. Yuzu also showed more passion around that age, so while he does have some of Yuzu qualities, I wouldnt say he is as good as how Yuzu was around his age.

 

BUT even with that being said, I agree that from the look of the current judging system and how it often rewards technical element more, I do see that Yuzu will have to fight to stay on top when younger skaters stabilize their technical skills. And it speaks for all of them like Nathan, Shoma, Vincent even, and Boyang. So while Yuzu has to fight, the other four also have to fight against him. 

[rockstaryuzu]

1 minute ago, makebelieveup said:

Actually, in terms of his performance ability, (and this is just my personal perception) I dont think he is solid as Yuzu's 17 year old tho except he has better stamina. So I dont know if he can really compete with the current Yuzu in any level anytime soon? He could jump better than Yuzu at 17 but that is also of how the figure skating world has evolved. You learn higher technical elements earlier but he still with some UR problems, while Yuzu could land a huge 4T and 3A at 17 and his skating skills were more fluid. Yuzu also showed more passion around that age, so while he does have some of Yuzu qualities, I wouldnt say he is as good as how Yuzu was around his age.

 

BUT even with that being said, I agree that from the look of the current judging system and how it often rewards technical element more, I do see that Yuzu will have to fight to stay on top when younger skaters stabilize their technical skills. And it speaks for all of them like Nathan, Shoma, Vincent even, and Boyang. So while Yuzu has to fight, the other four also have to fight against him. 

Hence why I say we're in for a great season... actually a great couple of years. The depth of talent is amazing.

 

As for Jun, I'm basing my opinion of him off what I saw at the practices at ACI and Skate Canada. Right now he's the only other skater in the men's that moves even remotely close to the way Yuzu does. It stood out to me.  He may be young yet but he has the potential for sure.

[makebelieveup]

 

has this been shared? ok so 4T3A in first half is nothing special according to him

[wpisces]

24 minutes ago, rockstaryuzu said:

Once Jun gets his technical content up to par, I predict that Yuzu will have a fight on his hands to stay on top. So far this year, Jun's as rock solid consistent as I've ever seen in skater, his spins are bang on, his jumps are crisp and sharp and he gets huge air. He has some of Yuzu's catlike qualities in skating skills already. If he figures out the same skill Yuzu has of holding on to a jump even when the landing's going sideways, then watch out because he'll be coming for all the gold. 

 

My friends, we are in for an amazing season IMO.

Jun's expressions have been improved so much for 2 years. When I watched his junior debut at JGP Yokohama 2016, he kept an emotionless face throughout his performances back then. I'm also amazed at his consistency this season. He definitely has great potentials: solid skating skills, amazing flexibility, excellent spins, smooth jumps, no bad postures ( imo his postures and upper body movement are better than Yuzuru's) but he needs to improve the quality of his jumps because they are usually URed. 

[rockstaryuzu]

1 minute ago, makebelieveup said:

 

has this been shared? ok so 4T3A in first half is nothing special according to him

It's just proof that only Yuzu knows what Yuzu is really capable of.

[xeyra]

36 minutes ago, makebelieveup said:

 

has this been shared? ok so 4T3A in first half is nothing special according to him

 

He hasn't done a FS layout with a combo in the first half in years, it's not now he's starting, apparently.

[BWOZWaltz]

2 hours ago, rockstaryuzu said:

Shoma's skate was great technically. In the sense of blade control and technical mastery, he mostly put on a clinic at Skate Canada. But the soul was missing. There was nothing of himself in that skate that the audience could connect to. Shoma's said in interviews that he doesn't think too hard about his pieces and just skates to whatever music and choreography he's given, and from watching and comparing him to Yuzu I'd say that's very true.  He's great, but he doesn't have that extra something Yuzu has. 

 

If I had to sum it up, I'd say that Shoma is doing a sport while Yuzu is trying to communicate with the world through the medium of figure skating.  So as long as both skate clean, IMO Yuzu will win every time.

 

1 hour ago, makebelieveup said:

Yeah, I agree and I sometimes question why does Shoma choose to become an athlete? He always appears so nonchalant that I wonder whether his goal is really to win or to be under Yuzu's shadow? Obviously, he is talented but it seems like he avoids the spotlight like a plague. 

 

1 hour ago, rockstaryuzu said:

I think it's a maturity thing. Like, right now it's as if he's doing the sport like a talented prodigy: amazing skill, he's having fun, but he doesn't fully own it. He hasn't discovered his own internal drive to mark his mark; skating's just what he does, not something he lives for. I think that if he ever discovers the fire of his own intrinsic motivations, he'll give Yuzuru a huge run for his money.

 

But seriously, right now Junhwan does a better job on the emotional/connect with the audience side.

 

I agree. Shoma hasn't really discovered himself as a figure skater yet. Sometimes I wonder if he has any long term goal in figure skating. Despite of his achievement so far, I struggle to remember his absolute "This is it!" moment. Technicality and artistry alone do not make a truly great skater. I feel Shoma and figure skating are bound by "because he's nice to me, I'm staying with him for now" level of love while Yuzu and figure skating are bound by "till death do us part" level of commitment. When someone is talented with something and also is crazy about the very thing that they're good at, it can create something truly amazing and that is Yuzu's case with figure skating. But this is my personal opinion and if anyone here knows Shoma's true love moment for figure skating, I'd like to know. I really need to see him in different light as he's been in Yuzu's shadow for too long.

 

I love the way Jun is progressing and developing  He's TCC boy through and through. With his cute baby face and almost fully developed physique, the contrast creates very interesting outlook. His skating skill is coming along nicely and I like his spins too. But I feel his arm movements are too casual sometimes in choreos. Because Yuzu is so flexible and jelly like, sharpness of movements may not come naturally for him but he still manages to achieve that feeling of precise movement into his choreograph. 

 

While I was watching Helsinki GP, I couldn't help but thinking "Who is the rival for Yuzu here?" as the point difference was just ridiculous. Few commentators viewed that Nathan and Shoma would be the ones that challenge Yuzu but deep down I didn't think they could truly beat Yuzu. For point wise or podium orders, sure either of they could (and have) beat Yuzu. But to surpass Yuzu for what he's achieved in figure skating not just records but also as a whole, only Yuzu himself can do that. I can't see anybody else in the field right now can go beyond Yuzu where he is now. We'll have to leave that to future skaters who's starting point is YUZURU HANYU.

 

I've watched different commentary SP/FS and it's funny to hear commentators praising Yuzu as "the greatest ever skater" or "GOAT". To me, some of them were just saying it like a phrase rather than complimenting him. It is so rare to have 2 time olympic gold medalist still competing and showing he's hungry for more. For them to get used to the idea that Yuzu is here to stay and win again, it'll take a little more while. For me, I know this will never happen again in my life time so I'm going to make most of it and be gracious for every piece of Yuzu

[ruruzest]

[robin]

10 hours ago, Lunna said:

Interesting discussion about Origin. For me it's always hard to find what meaning is behind the programme/what thoughts are put into it (well, reading people is surely not my strong point))) until a creator talks about it or portrays a certain character. When the programme is more abstract like Origin for me it's more about mood and music. And I adore first jumps on the beats and how later it has natural slow and fast parts. And also I love when Yuzu gives this I'd say not dark but strong/dominating vibe. It's a total opposite to light Otonal. Of course for a programme to have a full impression Yuzu needs more sharp and strong movements (like at practice) but I'm sure he'll get there))

 

I'm the same hehe. Even when Yuzu/Jeff/Shae talk about the meanings behind a program it doesn't really translate to the experience of actually watching the program for me. All his programs have a distinct feeling to them but are more of an abstract concept to me. sometimes I feel like I'm missing out when I read everyone's interpretations LOL

[shanshani]

I hope it's ok if I repost this here--this thread has more readers than General Skate Chat and it's of general Yuzuru-related interest as well:

I've been compiling judge's scores for some of the competitions this season (the ambition is to do it for all senior international competitions and maybe even some junior competitions, but it's a slow and tedious process) and running some numbers in order to determine how the judges scored various skaters relative to other skaters and particularly whether they overscored skaters from their own country versus skaters from other countries. I first calculated how much a judge's scores different from that of their fellow judges (that's the first table of numbers you see--eg. -11 means 11 points lower than other judges).  From this, I calculate a value (which I have temporarily named "DELTA") which indicates how much more favorably a judge judged skaters from their country versus skaters from other countries--a delta of 5 in total score means that a judge scored their own skaters 5 points higher than how they scored other skaters, adjusted for the average score the skater got from the other judges. Anyway, I've done this with 3 competitions so far (Autumn Classic, Ondrej Nepala, and GP Helsinki), which is enough that I thought some of you might be interested in seeing the results (after all, some of the judges who judged there are judging upcoming competitions).  I did the whole competition at each event, so you can see the scoring for each discipline (scroll to the right) and I also looked at raw GOE and PCS in addition to point total.

Autumn Classic

Ondrej Nepala
GP Finland
(working on Skate America now)

These spreadsheet also show how much higher or lower a particular judge judged a particular skater, so I think it's also useful if you want to take a look at how some judges score particular skaters. Also, it shows the average amount a judge deviated from the rest of the judging panel, so you can also tell which judges are harsher and which are nicer. At some point I want to compile all the data so that it's sorted by judge so you can look at their judging record across competitions this season as a whole, but there's still so much work to do and I have a job and other hobbies

Which leads me to my next question--would anyone be interested in helping? I have templates for all the formulas, so all you have to do is go to the "protocols" page and copy numbers from skatingscores.com into the relevant boxes. It's a little tedious, but you can do it while watching tv and it would be immensely useful hopefully not just for me but also for the figure skating community to get a better sense of judges and judging. (Alternately, if anyone knows how to program a web scraper, that would make life so much easier for me)

Points of interest as it relates to Yuzu in particular:
GP Finland men's judging was pretty dodgy overall--4/9 judges had some pretty strong nationalistic bias numbers, including the Japanese judge Yoshioka (Yuzu finally benefits from biased judging!--lol. Actually the ACI Japanese judge Ando was also pretty pro-Yuzu). In a reversal of the usual order of things (most US judges are terrible), US judge Wendy Enzmann was actually harsher on US skaters than other skaters on average in men's. But among all the judges I've been paying attention to, she's actually probably the fairest and least biased.

Odhran Allen, the Irish judge everyone was complaining about at ACI for giving Yuzu only +1 on his 3A in the short is a super harsh judge overall.
On the other hand, Doug Williams, the US judge at ACI mostly gave pretty average scores, except he had it in for four men: Yuzu, Junhwan, Julian Yee, and Yamato Rowe from the Philippines (and also loved the Dodd brothers for some reason.) scoring them 10 points or more below the other judges.
 

[makebelieveup]

20 minutes ago, shanshani said:

I hope it's ok if I repost this here--this thread has more readers than General Skate Chat and it's of general Yuzuru-related interest as well:

I've been compiling judge's scores for some of the competitions this season (the ambition is to do it for all senior international competitions and maybe even some junior competitions, but it's a slow and tedious process) and running some numbers in order to determine how the judges scored various skaters relative to other skaters and particularly whether they overscored skaters from their own country versus skaters from other countries. I first calculated how much a judge's scores different from that of their fellow judges (that's the first table of numbers you see--eg. -11 means 11 points lower than other judges).  From this, I calculate a value (which I have temporarily named "DELTA") which indicates how much more favorably a judge judged skaters from their country versus skaters from other countries--a delta of 5 in total score means that a judge scored their own skaters 5 points higher than how they scored other skaters, adjusted for the average score the skater got from the other judges. Anyway, I've done this with 3 competitions so far (Autumn Classic, Ondrej Nepala, and GP Helsinki), which is enough that I thought some of you might be interested in seeing the results (after all, some of the judges who judged there are judging upcoming competitions).  I did the whole competition at each event, so you can see the scoring for each discipline (scroll to the right) and I also looked at raw GOE and PCS in addition to point total.

Autumn Classic

Ondrej Nepala
GP Finland
(working on Skate America now)

These spreadsheet also show how much higher or lower a particular judge judged a particular skater, so I think it's also useful if you want to take a look at how some judges score particular skaters. Also, it shows the average amount a judge deviated from the rest of the judging panel, so you can also tell which judges are harsher and which are nicer. At some point I want to compile all the data so that it's sorted by judge so you can look at their judging record across competitions this season as a whole, but there's still so much work to do and I have a job and other hobbies

Which leads me to my next question--would anyone be interested in helping? I have templates for all the formulas, so all you have to do is go to the "protocols" page and copy numbers from skatingscores.com into the relevant boxes. It's a little tedious, but you can do it while watching tv and it would be immensely useful hopefully not just for me but also for the figure skating community to get a better sense of judges and judging. (Alternately, if anyone knows how to program a web scraper, that would make life so much easier for me)

Points of interest as it relates to Yuzu in particular:
GP Finland men's judging was pretty dodgy overall--4/9 judges had some pretty strong nationalistic bias numbers, including the Japanese judge Yoshioka (Yuzu finally benefits from biased judging!--lol. Actually the ACI Japanese judge Ando was also pretty pro-Yuzu). In a reversal of the usual order of things (most US judges are terrible), US judge Wendy Enzmann was actually harsher on US skaters than other skaters on average in men's. But among all the judges I've been paying attention to, she's actually probably the fairest and least biased.

Odhran Allen, the Irish judge everyone was complaining about at ACI for giving Yuzu only +1 on his 3A in the short is a super harsh judge overall.
On the other hand, Doug Williams, the US judge at ACI mostly gave pretty average scores, except he had it in for four men: Yuzu, Junhwan, Julian Yee, and Yamato Rowe from the Philippines (and also loved the Dodd brothers for some reason.) scoring them 10 points or more below the other judges.
 

I will have to go home to look at this but I just want to commend your dedication. 

[Salior]

25 minutes ago, shanshani said:

I hope it's ok if I repost this here--this thread has more readers than General Skate Chat and it's of general Yuzuru-related interest as well:

I've been compiling judge's scores for some of the competitions this season (the ambition is to do it for all senior international competitions and maybe even some junior competitions, but it's a slow and tedious process) and running some numbers in order to determine how the judges scored various skaters relative to other skaters and particularly whether they overscored skaters from their own country versus skaters from other countries. I first calculated how much a judge's scores different from that of their fellow judges (that's the first table of numbers you see--eg. -11 means 11 points lower than other judges).  From this, I calculate a value (which I have temporarily named "DELTA") which indicates how much more favorably a judge judged skaters from their country versus skaters from other countries--a delta of 5 in total score means that a judge scored their own skaters 5 points higher than how they scored other skaters, adjusted for the average score the skater got from the other judges. Anyway, I've done this with 3 competitions so far (Autumn Classic, Ondrej Nepala, and GP Helsinki), which is enough that I thought some of you might be interested in seeing the results (after all, some of the judges who judged there are judging upcoming competitions).  I did the whole competition at each event, so you can see the scoring for each discipline (scroll to the right) and I also looked at raw GOE and PCS in addition to point total.

Autumn Classic

Ondrej Nepala
GP Finland
(working on Skate America now)

These spreadsheet also show how much higher or lower a particular judge judged a particular skater, so I think it's also useful if you want to take a look at how some judges score particular skaters. Also, it shows the average amount a judge deviated from the rest of the judging panel, so you can also tell which judges are harsher and which are nicer. At some point I want to compile all the data so that it's sorted by judge so you can look at their judging record across competitions this season as a whole, but there's still so much work to do and I have a job and other hobbies

Which leads me to my next question--would anyone be interested in helping? I have templates for all the formulas, so all you have to do is go to the "protocols" page and copy numbers from skatingscores.com into the relevant boxes. It's a little tedious, but you can do it while watching tv and it would be immensely useful hopefully not just for me but also for the figure skating community to get a better sense of judges and judging. (Alternately, if anyone knows how to program a web scraper, that would make life so much easier for me)

Points of interest as it relates to Yuzu in particular:
GP Finland men's judging was pretty dodgy overall--4/9 judges had some pretty strong nationalistic bias numbers, including the Japanese judge Yoshioka (Yuzu finally benefits from biased judging!--lol. Actually the ACI Japanese judge Ando was also pretty pro-Yuzu). In a reversal of the usual order of things (most US judges are terrible), US judge Wendy Enzmann was actually harsher on US skaters than other skaters on average in men's. But among all the judges I've been paying attention to, she's actually probably the fairest and least biased.

Odhran Allen, the Irish judge everyone was complaining about at ACI for giving Yuzu only +1 on his 3A in the short is a super harsh judge overall.
On the other hand, Doug Williams, the US judge at ACI mostly gave pretty average scores, except he had it in for four men: Yuzu, Junhwan, Julian Yee, and Yamato Rowe from the Philippines (and also loved the Dodd brothers for some reason.) scoring them 10 points or more below the other judges.
 

 

try skatingscores.com, their database should help a lot.

 

Here's the ACI scores by judges for SP and FS

[OonsieHui]

[Sammie]

Does his pinky look better?