General Yuzuru Chat

[Paskud]

1 hour ago, shanshani said:

eh, depends on the opera house. it's normal for the audience to heckle the stars at La Scala, and led to a few walk-outs. that opera house is pretty legendary for its, uh, loud and opinionated patrons, actually. 

 

anyway, I think people are wringing their hands too much over people just having some fun. idk, I think people get way too worked up over supposed fan bad behavior in FS. other sports like hockey and football literally cause riots. figure skating fans being a bit extra rowdy? doesn't really strike me as a serious issue. plus, I think it's pretty ungenerous to impute onto rowdy fans motives like “they were trying to making it about themselves,” any more than it would be right for them to say things like “you're complaining about us because it gives you a feeling of superiority.” a bit of silliness, rowdiness, and over-passion is just part of being human, and part of following a sport. let us be the ridiculous creatures that we are!

 

anyway, if Yuzu dislikes it, then let him make that clearly known, and fans will either respect his wishes or get fairly criticized for not doing so. he's an adult and fully capable of expressing himself, and should do so if he has strong feelings and preferences about this. he's not a child in need of coddling, we don't have to protect him from every little thing that could plausibly cause him the tiniest bit of unease. trust him to speak up if he feels the need. meanwhile, we shouldn't jump to conclusions about his inner life based on stray expressions either. impressions of other people's thoughts and feelings can often be wrong, and even though we feel like we may know Yuzu, of course, we really don't. (And people misread the feelings of people they know well all the time too.)

Also, Yuzuru aside, skaters aren't kids in school. They are able to handle loud and excited audience.

[andchipzz]

It is sport. It is competition, and supporters cheers are part of it. And if fans or different athletes are competing in their cheering.. well it is part of it too. As long as there is a competition, there will be fans/supporters who will wholeheartedly cheer their hero.

 

Call it psychological warfare or w/e but who can be blamed if other skaters cannot generate as much as interest and fans enthusiasm like the more popular ones?

 

If associations/federations are concern about skaters safety, then they should distribute pamphlet about proper figure skating fans behavior. And if fans have respect toward the sport, the athlete, and the federation, they will respect those regulations. Of course it does not guarantee that supporters will follow those rules. Soccer for example, no matter how hard they try to control fans even as far as punishing the athletes, it always ends in compromise in the end.

 

The current popularity and interest figure skating gain nowadays seems to be unprecedented and focus mostly on Yuzuru so it seems many is unable to handle such culture shock? Yuzuru fame and popularity (which he gains in such an organic way) cannot be contained and it is not like he can tell people to please stop loving him because it will just encourage fans to love him more.

[yuzuangel]

1 hour ago, shanshani said:

he's an adult and fully capable of expressing himself, and should do so if he has strong feelings and preferences about this. he's not a child in need of coddling, we don't have to protect him from every little thing that could plausibly cause him the tiniest bit of unease. trust him to speak up if he feels the need.

 

I think it's pretty clear that Yuzu does not speak directly about these things. Not that that means any one of us should speak for him, either, but just saying

[KatjaThera]

If we're talking about practices, I've said it before, that I agree self-control is important, especially during another skaters' RT. Of course, if the skater doing the RT isn't actually doing anything and Yuzu - or anyone else, really - lands something beautifully, I think cheering is perfectly normal. But while another skater is doing an RT, I think the audience should be respectful and let that skater focus, even if they themselves can't take their eyes off of Yuzu. I think it helps, for me, that I don't get mind blown by UA Yuzu. I don't actually think he looks hot in that, I think he looks beautiful, as a whole package - the lines and the skating, in UA is beautiful. In a way I guess it's FS in its purest form.

 

The free 6 minutes warm-up was different, though. I don't know about audience members trying to out-scream each other... I personally didn't notice that, but I guess I was too caught up in my own reaction. My memory is also probably shot, but I don't remember Yuzu doing a lot of jumping in that warm-up, while he did do a lot of skating around, near the boards. And at one point he literally twirled right in front of the boards, a little to my right and there's just no way that wasn't purposefully playing to the crowds. OK, maybe he thought "Here, look at it from all sides and shut up!" but that was not likely to happen.

 

About Yuzu looking annoyed, honestly, he looks annoyed or at least very serious most of the time during practice and warm-up. There are occasional smiles, but usually he's so focused and lost in his own world that he looks constantly serious and intense and pissed off. So I'm not sure how much it's just him in his head and how much he's actually annoyed by the audience. I do suspect he was probably bothered by the screaming during the warmup because, yes, it was loud - I don't know about Otonal last year, but maybe that's because I didn't react like that, then, so it didn't register; Origin got to me more then, but I still didn't react at Origin last year like I did this year, either - but I suspect that might be more in the heat of the moment, because he was fired up, especially after the fall in the short and the jump troubles in practice. Outside of that mindframe, I cannot imagine that Yuzu, who is extremely self-aware and aware of his fans and the reactions he can get out of them, seriously expected to show up in that costume that makes one wonder if it really is that sheer, and not get crazy loud cheers and shocked reactions. It's unlike anything he's ever worse before and it does look incredible on him and I'm sure he knew a lot of people would react like they did. Maybe in a different context, he would have even smirked a bit, but as he was in competition mode, he probably didn't appreciate it as much. And that's normal, too. He is human and he will have reactions, just like fans do.

 

I do think it's important to discuss these things and try to find the best behavior we can all try to adopt. What I, personally, do is try to put myself in his shoes and see how I would like it, but it doesn't always work.

 

I do wonder a bit if this discussion is also brought on by that video that made it on twitter yesterday (I think it was) about Dai fans apparently trying to upset Yuzu during Sochi warm-up, but to me this is different. Fans at ACI were screaming about Yuzu, not any of the other skaters, I think many of us didn't even notice what the others were doing, while in that video, the cheers are so well-timed with Yuzu's actions, to upset him, that it's hard to imagine it wasn't intentional. However, because that precedent does exist - and I admit I didn't know about it - maybe we should try to temper ourselves, not to give anyone any excuse to accuse us of doing the same (though I think wordless cheering is better than calling out messages to one skater, still). I doubt any of the skaters at ACI minded it. I suspect Keegan to have maybe been amused or bemused by it and I doubt any of the others expected to get much crowd attention anyway, so they were likely able to mind their own business without much worries... I hope the support they got during the actual skating helped each and every one of them, though, because from that point of view, the crowd was top notch.

[yuzuangel]

1 hour ago, andchipzz said:

It is sport. It is competition, and supporters cheers are part of it. And if fans or different athletes are competing in their cheering.. well it is part of it too. As long as there is a competition, there will be fans/supporters who will wholeheartedly cheer their hero.

 

Call it psychological warfare or w/e but who can be blamed if other skaters cannot generate as much as interest and fans enthusiasm like the more popular ones?

 

If associations/federations are concern about skaters safety, then they should distribute pamphlet about proper figure skating fans behavior. And if fans have respect toward the sport, the athlete, and the federation, they will respect those regulations. Of course it does not guarantee that supporters will follow those rules. Soccer for example, no matter how hard they try to control fans even as far as punishing the athletes, it always ends in compromise in the end.

 

The current popularity and interest figure skating gain nowadays seems to be unprecedented and focus mostly on Yuzuru so it seems many is unable to handle such culture shock? Yuzuru fame and popularity (which he gains in such an organic way) cannot be contained and it is not like he can tell people to please stop loving him because it will just encourage fans to love him more.

 

In all honestly I don't think there's any way to stop common crowd behavior, and no sort of PSA especially from fans would really help to a noticeable degree. So yeah, most probably figure skating (and figure skaters) just need to adapt to it. It is what it is.

 

But I think that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk hypothetically about what's most respectful to Yuzu et. al, though. Because yeah, I get it, I love screaming too, especially if everyone else is doing it. So if someone wants to scream all 6 minutes of the 6 minute warmup, well I kind of relate in a way because that's probably how I'm feeling inside as well  But that doesn't mean it won't be possibly a little annoying to someone out there, maybe even Yuzu lol. 

[andchipzz]

8 minutes ago, yuzuangel said:

I think that's different from claiming that this is optimal behavior though, and that we shouldn't talk hypothetically about what's most respectful to Yuzu et. al. But yeah, I get it, I love screaming too, especially if everyone else is doing it. So if someone wants to scream all 6 minutes of the 6 minute warmup, well I kind of relate in a way because that's probably how I'm feeling inside as well  but that doesn't mean it won't be possibly a little annoying to someone out there, maybe even Yuzu lol. 

Well, respect here is respecting the rule if and when ISU decides to make rules about fans behavior in consideration of skaters' safety and health because of how dangerous athlete losing concentration can be. If there is really correlation to that, and ISU decides to make regulations for fans, then it is ideal for ISU to explain the whys and hows, therefore fans can follow the regulations with understanding. This relates to the recent twitter posts about how fans screaming can distract skaters, especially during jumps. But ISU does not seem to be interested in making such rules... because... what will it be?

 

"Audiences are requested to maintain silence throughout athlete's whole performance or practice run through or better yet, don't bother to come?"

There are so many skaters routine that got enhanced by fans screaming, chanting, clapping especially in stsq. Ideally, it should be encouraging to skaters themselves, they will one day take a big stage and do shows and if they are bothered with that (fans enthusiasm) it will be difficult for them to grow. It is also a test of mental strength, how do you absorb such attention to yourself? 

[yuzuangel]

26 minutes ago, andchipzz said:

Well, respect here is respecting the rule if and when ISU decides to make rules about fans behavior in consideration of skaters' safety and health because of how dangerous athlete losing concentration can be. If there is really correlation to that, and ISU decides to make regulations for fans, then it is ideal for ISU to explain the whys and hows, therefore fans can follow the regulations with understanding. This relates to the recent twitter posts about how fans screaming can distract skaters, especially during jumps. But ISU does not seem to be interested in making such rules... because... what will it be?

 

"Audiences are requested to maintain silence throughout athlete's whole performance or practice run through or better yet, don't bother to come?"

There are so many skaters routine that got enhanced by fans screaming, chanting, clapping especially in stsq. Ideally, it should be encouraging to skaters themselves, they will one day take a big stage and do shows and if they are bothered with that (fans enthusiasm) it will be difficult for them to grow. It is also a test of mental strength, how do you absorb such attention to yourself? 

Well ISU only cares about their bottom line, so they're not really the barometer of integrity/respect that I would use. 

 

But yeah, like I said, it is what it is, because like it or not, skaters (and sports in general) exist because they are entertainment for spectators. No one is saying that we should ban fan enthusiasm here.

[andchipzz]

38 minutes ago, yuzuangel said:

Well ISU only cares about their bottom line, so they're not really the barometer of integrity/respect that I would use. 

 

But yeah, like I said, it is what it is, because like it or not, skaters (and sports in general) exist because they are entertainment for spectators. No one is saying that we should ban fan enthusiasm here.

 

I knoooowww. But I got off on tangent because it remains me with the poohvalance being forbidden and I am like thinking to myself what if fans also being forbidden from bla bla bla.

 

Afaik, pooh is sooo dangerous with how it attack judges and judges computers and changing scores and attack other skaters and cause injuries so Yuzuru can win every competition known to man.

[rockstaryuzu]

23 minutes ago, andchipzz said:

 

I knoooowww. But I got off on tangent because it remains me with the poohvalance being forbidden and I am like thinking to myself what if fans also being forbidden from bla bla bla.

 

Afaik, pooh is sooo dangerous with how it attack judges and judges computers and changing scores and attack other skaters and cause injuries so Yuzuru can win every competition known to man.

I don't think the pooh rain is actually forbidden outright. It's just that not every competition has an army of little flower boys and girls who can sweep the ice clear. 

 

Given the fact that Saitama Poohs are still being distributed to places that could use them, it's probably not a bad thing to have a competition or two without them. It will give the good folks who get tasked with Pooh distribution a chance to catch up. 

 

I agree with @KatjaThera on this though: Yuzu is definitely focussed inward during the 6 minute warmups. I'd be surprised if he even sees the crowd; his eyes seem to be 100% on the ice. Keegan, by contrast, is noticing the crowd and will actually react if something catches his attention, like a flag or poster -> you can see his eyes moving to look at whatever it is. It's only after his skate is over that Yuzu's eyes sweep over the crowd. At least, that's what I observed.  

 

 

Anyway, guys, I was re-watching R&J 1.0 from Nice and couldn't help noticing just how much Yuzu's Ina Bauer has improved. Of course all his skating has improved since then, but it kind of surprised me that something as straightforward as the IB would have changed so much. 

 

 

[kiches]

I've been to ACI the last 4 years and to me the reaction to Origin's costume reveal this year was slightly different, and a bit more exaggerated than in the past.

 

I had to go back to my fancam of the 6 min warm-up to job my memory a bit, but what was a bit different was that beyond the initial hurrah and cheers after the costume reveal fans went on for some jumps Yuzu landed etc. Then suddenly, 2 minutes after Yuzu already took off his jacket and was just skating around, fans began cheering again when he skated close by their section - this part has never happened before beyond maybe that first minute when he takes off his jacket. It basically continued like this all the way until the end of the warm-up. I was amused at first, although ultimately I think it's a bit much since the warm-up is only 6 minutes. I think  cheering is generally fine even during warm-up to support skaters, but like yuzuangel mentioned maybe some people were trying to outdo each other this time around. Also don't believe Yuzu would EVER say anything even if he felt the cheering was excessive, I don't think he'd want fans to feel bad. He may occasionally shush the crowd and that's the extent of it.

 

As others mentioned, this type of reaction usually only happens at the start of the season. Later on at Worlds, Grand Prix, or even the Olympics I don't think I've seen costume reactions like we do at ACI so I think part of it is the novelty of seeing the costume for the first time. That and there wasn't any media day this year and maybe everyone was a bit more excited than usual. I will say though that usually Yuzu gets the crowd so amped up that the cheers for other skaters tends to be louder or more enthusiastic, which I imagine is nice for skaters that may not generally be used to that warm a reception.

 

 

[anski]

I think cheering is great and you can tell skaters appreciate the audience’s support. However, we shouldn’t forget that these are athletes about to risk the work of months in a couple of minutes. Many of them like to be very focused and visualize their skate before taking the ice etc so I think we shouldn’t behave like we’re in a rock concert either.

 

About plushies, I think they’re a cute way of supporting a skater after their performance. I don’t think they’re a “psychological tactic” or anything of the sort and I’d only oppose to items being thrown into the ice if they’d be risky for the next skater (a white envelope the flower girls might miss, unwrapped flowers whose petals can stick to the ice, items with glitter or sequins that might fall into the ice...)

[shanshani]

1 hour ago, yuzuangel said:

Well ISU only cares about their bottom line, so they're not really the barometer of integrity/respect that I would use. 

 

But yeah, like I said, it is what it is, because like it or not, skaters (and sports in general) exist because they are entertainment for spectators. No one is saying that we should ban fan enthusiasm here.

I don't know if the ISU even cares about their bottom line that much, otherwise they'd be rolling the red carpet out for Yuzu the way other sporting organizations do for their big stars...

 

tbh when I imagine the ISU, I picture a group of stodgy old fuddy-duddies who hate the idea of change and don't care about anything except keeping things the way they used to be. I mean, think about their reaction to the cutting edge technology of the USB drive (of course, no offense to the older people of this forum--you guys are cool!) 

[rockstaryuzu]

16 minutes ago, shanshani said:

 

 

tbh when I imagine the ISU, I picture a group of stodgy old fuddy-duddies who hate the idea of change and don't care about anything except keeping things the way they used to be. I mean, think about their reaction to the cutting edge technology of the USB drive (of course, no offense to the older people of this forum--you guys are cool!) 

Well, you're probably not wrong. 

[andchipzz]

29 minutes ago, shanshani said:

I don't know if the ISU even cares about their bottom line that much, otherwise they'd be rolling the red carpet out for Yuzu the way other sporting organizations do for their big stars...

 

tbh when I imagine the ISU, I picture a group of stodgy old fuddy-duddies who hate the idea of change and don't care about anything except keeping things the way they used to be. I mean, think about their reaction to the cutting edge technology of the USB drive (of course, no offense to the older people of this forum--you guys are cool!) 

they are tho.

[KatjaThera]

1 hour ago, rockstaryuzu said:

I don't think the pooh rain is actually forbidden outright. It's just that not every competition has an army of little flower boys and girls who can sweep the ice clear. 

 

Given the fact that Saitama Poohs are still being distributed to places that could use them, it's probably not a bad thing to have a competition or two without them. It will give the good folks who get tasked with Pooh distribution a chance to catch up. 

 

I agree with @KatjaThera on this though: Yuzu is definitely focussed inward during the 6 minute warmups. I'd be surprised if he even sees the crowd; his eyes seem to be 100% on the ice. Keegan, by contrast, is noticing the crowd and will actually react if something catches his attention, like a flag or poster -> you can see his eyes moving to look at whatever it is. It's only after his skate is over that Yuzu's eyes sweep over the crowd. At least, that's what I observed. 

At Japan Nationals this year, throwing gifts on the ice is forbidden. Which a lot of people think is ridiculous, because if Japan doesn't have flower boys and girls, then nobody does. It started with banning banners, then slowly only allowing certain areas of the audience to throw gifts, to not banning gift throwing altogether (and I'm pretty sure it's in reaction to fans banding together at Worlds, so those in areas where throwing was allowed, also threw for those who weren't allowed to). Given that Yuzu gets the most banners and most gifts, it's hard not to think this is a move against him.

 

I also don't understand why it took so long to distribute the Saitama Poohs. There is really no reason for it to take half a year... The Helsinki Poohs were distributed within weeks, IIRC and there were plenty.

 

All skaters are focused when they're on the ice. The grand majority of them, in my experience, don't make any eye contact with the crowd until the competition is over. Some of them do it during practice and some do it during programs, but most of them act like the audience isn't even there. To be honest, for some I think that's an effort, but for Yuzu, most of the time, it really seems like he blocks out everything. I don't think that was the case during the 6 minute warmup, although he was focused and intense enough to appear annoyed. And like I said, I can believe he really was, because he was in competition mode. He probably doesn't appreciate jokes or anything other than his music and his coaches' advices when he's like that.

 

Anyway, while I agree that cheering has to be respectful - which is also why, like I said earlier, I'm more in favor of wordless cheering than calling out the names of skaters, as that is more open to interpretation - I think we shouldn't exaggerate with policing it either. I think being able to withstand the psychological pressure of crowds cheering for your rival is also part of being an athlete (as long as the cheering is just in support of said rival and not done just to rattle you). Like, there was an article at one point where the writer claimed it was unfair to Shoma that he had to skate after Yuzu and the atmosphere of excitement that followed Yuzu's free skate in Pyeongchang and that if not for that, maybe he would have won and not Yuzu. Leaving aside that Javi had to do that, too, it's up to an athlete to withstand such pressure, or else, they'd all have to skate with no audience, to ensure utter fairness from that POV. IMO, the right attitude to have, when the crowd cheers for your rival, is to grab their attention and make them cheer for you, instead, like Yuzu did at GPF'15. But of course, not all skaters can do that.

 

Actually, one of my pet peeves with cheering at competitions is people who keep cheering and shouting messages even as the skater is taking their starting position. It always makes me cringe. I'm more in the cheer as they're introduced, then shut up and let them focus and get into the program mindframe. I find that much more grating than even cheering for successful jumps, because that's celebrating - the same way cheering after a failed jump is encouraging - because those few moments before the program is when skaters need to gather themselves and focus. And if you keep screaming at them, that's much harder to do. But that could be just me.