General Yuzuru Chat

[Flutterby]

Nathan's ad for this season is all about how many hours he trains jump attempts, falls, dance lessons etc. Like none of this ever occurred to other skaters. "What!? You mean I have to train in order to land quads? No way!"

 

It the ends with "Changing a sport takes a lifetime." Which does rather sound like he, Nathan, is claiming to be single-handedly changing the sport. The thing is - he didn't start the quad revolution. He came of age DURING it. He's the effect, not the cause. Big difference.

 

Heck here's a vid of Orser doing a quad in 1985!? before any if these kids were even born.

 

All of this is unfortunate because I want to like Nathan. He seems pretty cool and chill in interviews but the US media's portrayal of him makes it very difficult for me. 

[anski]

31 minutes ago, Moria Polonius said:

Lol, Scott Hamilton.

 

From what I heard, the dude's practically homophobic - excuse me for calling a spade a spade - and probably can't stand the fact that the most accomplished skater in the modern era, lauded as the best of all time and arguably the focus of the greatest adoration a figure skater has ever experienced, is one that doesn't represent and doesn't give a flying f**** about the stereotypical masculinity.

That’s disappointing. I never liked the inspiration porn around his illness, but I respected him for his contribution to the sport and because when I got into figure skating I was very into Gordeeva & Grinkov (still am) and Scott was a friend of them and apparently helped Katia a lot after Sergei died.

[Moria Polonius]

12 minutes ago, anski said:

That’s disappointing. I never liked the inspiration porn around his illness, but I respected him for his contribution to the sport and because when I got into figure skating I was very into Gordeeva & Grinkov (still am) and Scott was a friend of them and apparently helped Katia a lot after Sergei died.

 

Eh, flutterby is probably closer to the crux of the situation, mentioning Hamilton's insecurities, but nevertheless the overall attitude ain't pretty. The thing about people is that they can be great friends and very kind and giving in certain aspects and narrow-minded assholes about other aspects.

_{And I'm borrowing the "inspiration porn" term for future use.}

[Flutterby]

4 hours ago, BWOZWaltz said:

Idea of beauty differs from person to person. What's norm to someone could change over the time as well. 

This is certainly true. For instance, in Europe in the 1600s, men as well as women, used to wear high heels because to display your shapely calf muscles was seen as the height of masculinity.

 

 

[anski]

10 minutes ago, Moria Polonius said:

 

Eh, flutterby is probably closer to the crux of the situation, mentioning Hamilton's insecurities, but nevertheless the overall attitude ain't pretty. The thing about people is that they can be great friends and very kind and giving in certain aspects and narrow-minded assholes about other aspects.

_{And I'm borrowing the "inspiration porn" term for future use.}

Yea, still it’s disappointing how you can be a top athlete in a sport where other top athletes belong to the LGBT community and still be prejudiced. I get he might be insecure but that doesn’t excuse it imho. 

[4Nessie]

50 minutes ago, Flutterby said:

Yes Scott does seem to have issues with non-conformist or more "flamboyant" skaters.

 

From past statements he seems to be deeply insecure about being a straight male of a somewhat small delicate stature participating in a sport that is perceived as being predominantly gay. He's worried that people will think he's gay so he always pushing for more "masculine" styles, whatever that means.

 

Its the fragile male ego thing. The man just needs to chill. You can be straight and a figure skater or you can be gay for that matter too, I couldn't care less.

It's so refreshing watching Yuzu, who can create a fierce warrior, fragile swan princess AND absolutely non-gender sakura being and looks so cool being all of those.

[Dreamer]

Scott Hamilton has had many treatments for cancer.  I know our patients often complain of 'chemotherapy brain'.  However, in Scott's case, he is just being crass and trashy, not a good look for anyone.  I do like Nathan as a person as he is more gracious and I have never heard  him trash talk his competitors. He could teach Scott a thing or two about class.

 

 

 

 

 

. 

[faeline]

I've thought about what happened in the past week quite a fair bit. To me, Yuzu is a once in a lifetime kind of existence to FS, and it is this kind of existence that brings people into the sport, beyond those that are already following the sport. The success of Yuzu and the draw of his personality brings about an enormous commercial success to this otherwise niche sport, and to ISU or JSF, they are probably aware of this. At the same time, Yuzu is at the stage whereby he can (if he wants to) announce retirement from competitive FS anytime he wants without any damage to his personal commercial value, whereas such a move would very likely cause major financial issues to ISU and JSF. They are probably in a hurry to rebuild another "LEGENDARY" skater to retain this amount of commercial value within the sport itself. It is not as though they are blind to the fact that Yuzu himself is the reason that FS is enjoying unprecedented commercial success, but they probably HAVE to do something drastic to keep something going. If the Yuzu $$$ train is going to stop when he retires, they need to look elsewhere for a cash cow. JSF tries to hype up poor Shoma (who looks absolutely uncomfortable), and ISU tries to hype up Nathan. They are probably seeing some kind of success in pushing Nathan forward since the USA media is just lapping it up.

 

It feels like they are trying to rehash Yuzu's history into building some kind of a formula to hype up skaters:

1) Young and terrifyingly good! (Yuzu wins OWG at age 19! Nathan wins WC at age 19!)

2) Studious! (Yuzu in Waseda! Nathan in Yale!)

3) QUADS! (Yuzu brings in the era of high quality quads! Nathan knows them all!)

4) Record Breaking (Yuzu breaks whatever possible it was last era! Nathan breaks whatever possible this era!)

Etc... and we all know it doesn't work because there are specific qualities in Yuzu, specific experiences in Yuzu's life that made him the way he is, and this can never be replicated for anyone else.

 

I understand where they are coming from, but what they are doing is pretty much killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. It is motivated by greed and is unsustainable - they will turn off the longstanding FS fans and cause more fans to leave in droves once Yuzu retires. In such a sport, good competition brings about good performances, and of course, good performances brings about better audience attendance. (Which, by the way, good performances is the reason why people attend Yuzu's competitions, no?)

 

By throwing the scores that way, will it promote good performances? Will Nathan be motivated improve his artistry? I doubt so. Why would he need to do so now that he's already obtaining the scores he wants? Will young and upcoming skaters think that artistry is important based on the scores? I doubt so, since having good TES apparently means good PCS as well. I feel like eventually when Yuzu retires, we'll be looking at Jump Skating instead of Figure  Skating - until another "once in a lifetime" figure skater explodes on the scene again.

 

At the same time, I feel like ISU and JSF will not want to recognise Yuzu's GOAT until he retires, because they want to push forth this forced competition/rivalry to keep the audience attendance going. I hate it that they are making use of Yuzu's competitiveness and thirst for perfection against him and making him do things he doesn't need to do to stay competitive, at the expense of his health. Yuzu himself probably feels a great sense of responsibility towards FS and Japan as well, being double OWG, having ridiculous amounts of fans, receiving People's Honour Awards, being a survivor of Tohoku Earthquake etc, that pushes him to keep competing, e.g. reminded of CoC 2014, when he said he thought of retiring after the collision, but wanted to perform worthy of a OWG champion.

 

I think I spoke too much - sorry for the wall of text

[yuzuru-hanyus-triple-axel]

 

It's April 1st probably somewhere already

 

Happy Hope & Legacy day  

[Dreamer]

Imo... Yuzu is a phenomenon... A once in forever skater not just a generational skater or even once in a lifetime skater ... I would never have thought that an athlete would touch my heart and speak to my soul through his performance.  He is a very special and God gifted individual... a true artist and gentle soul. He truly has nothing to prove to anyone as we recognize that he embodies the perfect essence of figure skating. 

[ralucutzagy]

30 minutes ago, yuzuru-hanyus-triple-axel said:

 

It's April 1st probably somewhere already

 

Happy Hope & Legacy day  

Omg .. look at me with teary eyes again after watching this performance 100 times before!  

[Veveco]

5 minutes ago, ralucutzagy said:

Omg .. look at me with teary eyes again after watching this performance 100 times before!  

Same... same... 

[mercedes]

36 minutes ago, yuzuru-hanyus-triple-axel said:

 

It's April 1st probably somewhere already

 

Happy Hope & Legacy day  

 

5 minutes ago, ralucutzagy said:

Omg .. look at me with teary eyes again after watching this performance 100 times before!  

everytime is like the 1st time isnt' it? I never thought I could be in love with a performance but apparently I am

[EisElle]

1 hour ago, 4Nessie said:

It's so refreshing watching Yuzu, who can create a fierce warrior, fragile swan princess AND absolutely non-gender sakura being and looks so cool being all of those.

I like that he is always himself, adapting to the music, embodying the spirtit of the program but always doing things in his own distinctive style.

Some people just don't like that very distinctive style, and especially dislike and are uncomfortable with it when he shows up as Sakura fairy of Swan and looking ethereal out there on the ice.

On the contrary, I absolutely fell in love with that and tbh I still have to find someone else who can make everything look so natural and effortless. Have I seen other refined skaters? Yes. Awesome performers? Yes. Balletic skaters? yes. Skaters that portray music beautifully and with emotion, till the tip of their fingers? Yes. But I still have to see someone else who is able to drop to the ice like in the HYK gif in my signature and make it look so un-choreographed and spontaneous and beautiful. I am in love with the move itself, and gender really has 0 relevance for me when I watch something like that. I mean, does beauty need to have one gender? or a gender at all?

 

adding to this: for some people there must be a difference between men's and ladies's skating (like...men must be "manly", ladies must be "pretty"). When they watch a man, they want to see something different from when they're watching a woman, regardless of the individual they have in front of them. I think that's also the reason why we see judges rewarding different types of programs for ladies and Men (for example busy programs are desirable among ladies, while among men what goes on between elements doesn't matter that much).

when I watch a skater, I honestly don't care if the skater is male or female, I don't expect to see something different, performance-wise (tho I have faith in the ladies's generally superior taste in costumes which sadly could also be the result of ladies having to "look pretty", while for men no one cares if the costume is training gear). I just want to see good programs, be it in Pairs or ID or Men or Ladies, and I want to see music respected, not treated as background interchangeable with 100 other pieces. So I don't really care if a lady skates with power and a man with softness, as long as they are paying attention to their music.

[Dreamer]

1 minute ago, Veveco said:

Same... same...

 

My husband complains when I have musical performances on repeat... I can listen to songs I love on endless repeat.... On a system I have devoted time, energy and $$ to refine and bring live music into my home. Songs that move me. 

 

Yuzu is the only athlete whose performances bring me that level of mesmerized bliss and joy.