General Yuzuru Chat

[EisElle]

Happy to learn that Yuzu spent quality time with his family on Christmas, he deserved it  

Also nice that the axelwithwings team has a website, twitter isn't the best platform when you have lots of stuff to archive (and hopefully the archive will keep growing lol), very timely also because I hope that people getting interested in FS after watching Spinning Out will prove to have Taste and will find their way to our spacekitren overlord Zu  yes, I am aware that would mean even fiercer competition for tickets, but whenever I see new fans falling into the orbit of planet Hanyu I feel like a proud auntie 🤗 (LMAO only a few years in this fandom and I feel like some seasoned veteran 🤣🤣)

 

On 1/11/2020 at 6:51 PM, FlyingCamel said:

Hi everyone, this is random but I was just wondering if anyone knows why yuzu isn’t able to do a 4F? Since from what I know the Lutz is a more difficult jump compared to the Flip due to the counter-rotation and all...

Sorry if this is the wrong place for the question! Just kinda curious about this 

I see you have already got your reply, but I wanted to expand a bit

So, short answer to your question is: Yuzuru has a... complicated history with the flip jump  

Long answer (seriously, it's LONG)

Spoiler

 

maybe you know this already, but all skaters have their fave jumps and their non faves, usually regardless of how difficult they are "in theory".

Flip happens to be Yuzu's non fave, or to be more accurate, he has his share if struggles with the inside edge. His situation is not uncommon, on the contrary, I'd say it's quite frequent that skaters who have nice outside edge on their lz struggle with getting inside edge on their flip, and vice versa (though ISU protocols rarely mirror this fact). Think for example about Misha Kolyada who has gorgeous lz but still has a clear lip, or Shoma Uno having deep inside edge on his flip but flutzing (at least he did the last time he jumped a lz).

It isn't clear why a skater would develop a preference for a outside edge rather that inside, it probably is related to both the body/natural inclination (like some people prefer clockwise to counterclockwise) and earlier technique they have been taught.

Correcting a wrong edge is difficult, and takes time, and there are no guarantees that in the end people will succeed. 

 

Now, Yuzu has an excellent lz, nice deep outside edge. He loves that outside edge. So of course the flip had to be his problematic child😅  as every other Yuzu jump, his flip had textbook toe pick, virtually 0 peroration, was big, with nice tight air position, could be landed out of transitions AND very consistently too. Everything was top notch... BUT for the edge (which, of course, being Flip jump defined as a jump that takes off from back inside edge, was a pretty big deal)

He used to have a clear lip in his earlier days, got his share of edge calls, but he has consistently kept working on improving, painstakingly getting it to flat first, finally slight inside. He tried a number of strategies to make sure his edge didn't switch to outside at takeoff (lippers and flutzes usually do have correct edge at one point leading into the jump, but then switch to flat/wrong edge right at take off). Apparently, Yuzuru succeed with the "help" of a difficult entry of double three turns and super-brief toe pick. Basically, he made sure to force an inside edge on his entry AND that he went up in the air before his stubborn ankle could be tempted to switch to outside edge.

This, btw, is just another proof that Yuzu's philosophy is "if you can't get it right, make it harder(and you will succeed)" 😆  

 

But still, keeping that inside edge isn't something that is natural to him. It requires quite a bit of focus and energy, and that's why for YEARS he has had the 3F as his 3rd jump in his FS, while 3Lz and 3Lo were usually backloaded in the second half if the program. Also, that's why we were all so surprised and proud of him when last season he finally put 3F in second half (and in combo!). Also, why we were all so shook (and tenfolds proud of him) when he showed up with a 4T1Eu3F. The 1Eu3F combo was a possibility no one had ever given serious thought when thinking about his potential layout, but then he went and not only landed it but it was so.pretty!!!

But still, even now his inside edge isn't deep, and when he is tired he still has troubles keeping it from switching to flat (e.g. I think his edge at JNats wasn't that good).

 

Now, getting to the quad: chances are high that whatever habit you have on your triples, they will be amplified in the quadruple version (flaws included, like e.g. amount of prerotation)

 

For example, Yuzu has an even deeper outside edge in his 4Lz compared to his 3Lz, and his delay in rotation is even more visible.

 

It's legit to think that when trying 4F the temptation to switch to flat/wrong edge might be even stronger than on the 3F

it would be extremely hard to enter a quad F from the entry that "helped" him with the triple (no one has ever landed a 4F with such a difficult entry), because... it's a QUAD, so you need more speed into the jump, more accurate timing (adding stuff before the jump clearly messes with all of that). So Yuzuru likely needs to find another way to control that stubborn edge.

 

Btw, it would be interesting to know also why Boyang hasn't tried to get a 4F either. He did 4S, tried 4Lo too but never tried the 4F in comp, despite iirc his 3F having correct edge. He has shown a clear predilection for the lz, so probably the reason why he hasn't brought a 4F yet might be the same, the inside edge doesn't feel as natural to him 

 

I think it's also looking at who jumps "4F". Off the top of my head:

skaters with clear predilection for flip jump over the lz (like Shoma);

people who also have poor "4Lz" (sorry Sasha Samarin, Anna S), hence legit to think they don't have a natural strong predilection for outside edge (contrary to Yuzuru and Boyang, iirc JunHwan tried 4F too but his Lz is mostly flat too so I would put him in the  not-natural-born-lutzers corner);

Sasha T who has correct edge on her lz but prerotates A LOT; 

Nathan.

 

Nathan is probably the only one who also as a true lz without excessive pr (but his edge on flip has been getting shallow, even flat at times). Still, Yuzuru's no-prerotation technique on the flip is, on its own, an additional hurdle that Nathan didn't have to face (Nathan has a little but more of pr on his lz and f, so he needs to rotate a bit less in the air to get a quad called as "clean". He "needs" less airtime, while Yuzuru would need more airtime, meaning more strenght/speed into/energy)

 

 

To summarize, I think the reasons why Yuzuru doesn't have a 4F (yet)

1) that mischievous inside edge

2) would need more airtime than most other quads (aside his own 4Lz and Misha's and Boyan's 4Lz maybe)

3) multiple injuries that have delayed Yuzuru's plans for 4Lo and 4Lz (and 4A) for several seasons (and forced him to stay away from both lz and f for a while)

I would also add

4) 4F hasn't been on his wish list for long 😅 (and when he put it on his wishlist he already had his hands full with getting back his other quads)

5) he just... loves Nessie (4A) much much MUCH more 🤣🤣🤣 That's why us fans kinda expected that one day he would go for 4A (though we did NOT expect that to happen in Turin) but there was an epic meltdown when we heard he tried 4F in FaOI19 Toyama (was it? we never got footage I think, so we couldn't confirm if reports were right and those really were 4F attempts with dodgy edge, not just 4Lz with a weird entry 😱😱😱)

 

Anyway, it's true that theorically (from mechanics POV) 4Lz should be "harder" than 4F. But we also know that a 3A should be easier that any quad and yet Sasha T landed 4 types of quads before going for 3A, Anna S too has 3 quads but 2A still, and many male skaters land 4Lz before getting 4T or 4S or both (and the struggles of Patrick Chan with 3A are legendary, and Nathan, too, even if he is landing it most of the times these days has much more confidence in his quads) 😅😅 so a lot depends on the individual skater (and also on what is the current ISU standard for "quad" and "lz", otherwise we would see only a few 4Lz on protocols)

[EisElle]

6 minutes ago, pinkosek said:

Noah, the young Swiss skater talking about his training at TCC and Yuzu...

Has anyone watched the Youth Olys? The live chat of the stream for Men FS was hilariously full of confused fanyus asking when Yuzu will skate

LOL really? 😆 Reminds me of the time I was binge watching YT Yuzu vids and saw a freshly uploaded vid of LGC (from 4CC17). That was how I learned that Yuzuru was competing right then... and that he had botched his SP  

yes, my first OMG-Yuzu-is-competing-OMG😱😱😱 experience was for 4CC, a comp that till then I hadn't even known it existed

(in hindsight, that comp and the whole naughtySal&YOLO + the scoring should have been a wake up call for me to RUN away as fast as I could)

 

I have only been following updates about YOG on twitter and watching selected performances, it's better for my peace of mind to learn about scoring robberies afterwards (I am very pleased for Yuma, very happy for UtaShin and very pissed at Chris Howarth)

 

Sorry for double post, I still don't know how to edit with a nee quote on mobile 

[Henni147]

39 minutes ago, LadyLou said:

Happy to learn that Yuzu spent quality time with his family on Christmas, he deserved it  

Also nice that the axelwithwings team has a website, twitter isn't the best platform when you have lots of stuff to archive (and hopefully the archive will keep growing lol), very timely also because I hope that people getting interested in FS after watching Spinning Out will prove to have Taste and will find their way to our spacekitren overlord Zu  yes, I am aware that would mean even fiercer competition for tickets, but whenever I see new fans falling into the orbit of planet Hanyu I feel like a proud auntie 🤗 (LMAO only a few years in this fandom and I feel like some seasoned veteran 🤣🤣)

 

I see you have already got your reply, but I wanted to expand a bit

So, short answer to your question is: Yuzuru has a... complicated history with the flip jump  

Long answer (seriously, it's LONG)

  Reveal hidden contents

 

maybe you know this already, but all skaters have their fave jumps and their non faves, usually regardless of how difficult they are "in theory".

Flip happens to be Yuzu's non fave, or to be more accurate, he has his share if struggles with the inside edge. His situation is not uncommon, on the contrary, I'd say it's quite frequent that skaters who have nice outside edge on their lz struggle with getting inside edge on their flip, and vice versa (though ISU protocols rarely mirror this fact). Think for example about Misha Kolyada who has gorgeous lz but still has a clear lip, or Shoma Uno having deep inside edge on his flip but flutzing (at least he did the last time he jumped a lz).

It isn't clear why a skater would develop a preference for a outside edge rather that inside, it probably is related to both the body/natural inclination (like some people prefer clockwise to counterclockwise) and earlier technique they have been taught.

Correcting a wrong edge is difficult, and takes time, and there are no guarantees that in the end people will succeed. 

 

Now, Yuzu has an excellent lz, nice deep outside edge. He loves that outside edge. So of course the flip had to be his problematic child😅  as every other Yuzu jump, his flip had textbook toe pick, virtually 0 peroration, was big, with nice tight air position, could be landed out of transitions AND very consistently too. Everything was top notch... BUT for the edge (which, of course, being Flip jump defined as a jump that takes off from back inside edge, was a pretty big deal)

He used to have a clear lip in his earlier days, got his share of edge calls, but he has consistently kept working on improving, painstakingly getting it to flat first, finally slight inside. He tried a number of strategies to make sure his edge didn't switch to outside at takeoff (lippers and flutzes usually do have correct edge at one point leading into the jump, but then switch to flat/wrong edge right at take off). Apparently, Yuzuru succeed with the "help" of a difficult entry of double three turns and super-brief toe pick. Basically, he made sure to force an inside edge on his entry AND that he went up in the air before his stubborn ankle could be tempted to switch to outside edge.

This, btw, is just another proof that Yuzu's philosophy is "if you can't get it right, make it harder(and you will succeed)" 😆  

 

But still, keeping that inside edge isn't something that is natural to him. It requires quite a bit of focus and energy, and that's why for YEARS he has had the 3F as his 3rd jump in his FS, while 3Lz and 3Lo were usually backloaded in the second half if the program. Also, that's why we were all so surprised and proud of him when last season he finally put 3F in second half (and in combo!). Also, why we were all so shook (and tenfolds proud of him) when he showed up with a 4T1Eu3F. The 1Eu3F combo was a possibility no one had ever given serious thought when thinking about his potential layout, but then he went and not only landed it but it was so.pretty!!!

But still, even now his inside edge isn't deep, and when he is tired he still has troubles keeping it from switching to flat (e.g. I think his edge at JNats wasn't that good).

 

Now, getting to the quad: chances are high that whatever habit you have on your triples, they will be amplified in the quadruple version (flaws included, like e.g. amount of prerotation)

 

For example, Yuzu has an even deeper outside edge in his 4Lz compared to his 3Lz, and his delay in rotation is even more visible.

 

It's legit to think that when trying 4F the temptation to switch to flat/wrong edge might be even stronger than on the 3F

it would be extremely hard to enter a quad F from the entry that "helped" him with the triple (no one has ever landed a 4F with such a difficult entry), because... it's a QUAD, so you need more speed into the jump, more accurate timing (adding stuff before the jump clearly messes with all of that). So Yuzuru likely needs to find another way to control that stubborn edge.

 

Btw, it would be interesting to know also why Boyang hasn't tried to get a 4F either. He did 4S, tried 4Lo too but never tried the 4F in comp, despite iirc his 3F having correct edge. He has shown a clear predilection for the lz, so probably the reason why he hasn't brought a 4F yet might be the same, the inside edge doesn't feel as natural to him 

 

I think it's also looking at who jumps "4F". Off the top of my head:

skaters with clear predilection for flip jump over the lz (like Shoma);

people who also have poor "4Lz" (sorry Sasha Samarin, Anna S), hence legit to think they don't have a natural strong predilection for outside edge (contrary to Yuzuru and Boyang, iirc JunHwan tried 4F too but his Lz is mostly flat too so I would put him in the  not-natural-born-lutzers corner);

Sasha T who has correct edge on her lz but prerotates A LOT; 

Nathan.

 

Nathan is probably the only one who also as a true lz without excessive pr (but his edge on flip has been getting shallow, even flat at times). Still, Yuzuru's no-prerotation technique on the flip is, on its own, an additional hurdle that Nathan didn't have to face (Nathan has a little but more of pr on his lz and f, so he needs to rotate a bit less in the air to get a quad called as "clean". He "needs" less airtime, while Yuzuru would need more airtime, meaning more strenght/speed into/energy)

 

 

To summarize, I think the reasons why Yuzuru doesn't have a 4F (yet)

1) that mischievous inside edge

2) would need more airtime than most other quads (aside his own 4Lz and Misha's and Boyan's 4Lz maybe)

3) multiple injuries that have delayed Yuzuru's plans for 4Lo and 4Lz (and 4A) for several seasons (and forced him to stay away from both lz and f for a while)

I would also add

4) 4F hasn't been on his wish list for long 😅 (and when he put it on his wishlist he already had his hands full with getting back his other quads)

5) he just... loves Nessie (4A) much much MUCH more 🤣🤣🤣 That's why us fans kinda expected that one day he would go for 4A (though we did NOT expect that to happen in Turin) but there was an epic meltdown when we heard he tried 4F in FaOI19 Toyama (was it? we never got footage I think, so we couldn't confirm if reports were right and those really were 4F attempts with dodgy edge, not just 4Lz with a weird entry 😱😱😱)

 

Anyway, it's true that theorically (from mechanics POV) 4Lz should be "harder" than 4F. But we also know that a 3A should be easier that any quad and yet Sasha T landed 4 types of quads before going for 3A, Anna S too has 3 quads but 2A still, and many male skaters land 4Lz before getting 4T or 4S or both (and the struggles of Patrick Chan with 3A are legendary, and Nathan, too, even if he is landing it most of the times these days has much more confidence in his quads) 😅😅 so a lot depends on the individual skater (and also on what is the current ISU standard for "quad" and "lz", otherwise we would see only a few 4Lz on protocols)

 

Theory: With the gigantic height, distance and rotation speed that Yuzu needs for the 4A, he might be able to land a 4F from a double-3-turn, too. So the order of practice makes sense 

 

And aye. 4CC 2017 was the first competition that I watched as a fanyubie and where I looked up the time schedule weeks before to prepare myself. At that time I had no clue about planned layouts and pops and stuff, so I didn't even realize what a YOLO miracle that actually was 

[tafattsbarn]

20 hours ago, sallycinnamon said:

I haven't seen this picture before. It was taken in the summer of 2010 when Natalia Bestemianova and Igor Bobrin visited Japan.

 

 

 

 

Yuzu used to always rock such grandpa fashion with those calf high socks with trainers  I'm not overly optimistic his fashion sense has improved over the years, but i guess that is also the charm of Yuzuru Hanyu haha. 

 

I'm so happy to see that he got to spend some time relaxing in Sendai after competing c: 

 

 

[pinkosek]

38 minutes ago, LadyLou said:

I have only been following updates about YOG on twitter and watching selected performances, it's better for my peace of mind to learn about scoring robberies afterwards (I am very pleased for Yuma, very happy for UtaShin and very pissed at Chris Howarth)

Chris was actually very respectful and trying to say something positive most of the time, it just seemed his view is very western-limitted and it was clear he did not expect Yuma to get the gold at all. He did a shout out to Yuzu during his comments though so I am appeased

[IULIANA]

5 minutes ago, pinkosek said:

Chris was actually very respectful and trying to say something positive most of the time, it just seemed his view is very western-limitted and it was clear he did not expect Yuma to get the gold at all. He did a shout out to Yuzu during his comments though so I am appeased

Actually, he also mentioned the Pooh bears thrown on he ice for Yuzuru when referring to some plushies  for the Swiss skater,  so he might benefit from some of our indulgence.

[Sombreuil]

4CC17 - I watched it under the pillow in the middle of the night with headphones on a dodgy Wi-fi connection on the west coast of Ireland on a difficult family trip.  Made me too tired to rise to the bait during the day so it was useful.  This year I won’t even have Wi-fi for 4CC - and I’ve got a houseful of people the weekend of Worlds- but he’s been doing better in the comps I haven’t been able to watch live this year so maybe it’s for the best.

[liv]

ahhh, so Yuzu spent time at a hot spring hotel.... hmmm, that makes me very jealous, actually, lol!!!

 

Seriously, good for him. Hopefully he was able to really relax and enjoy some down time.

[Vadrouille]

22 hours ago, sallycinnamon said:

I haven't seen this picture before. It was taken in the summer of 2010 when Natalia Bestemianova and Igor Bobrin visited Japan.

 

 

 

Can you tell me the name of the Japanese lady on the left of the photo, just behind Yuzuru, please.

I remember seeing this lady in competitions of Yuzuru on tv, beginning at World in Nice in 2012. I also saw her on tv in Olympics in Sochi 2014, taking pictures with other persons in Team Japan with Yuzuru after the Flower ceremony of Men's Free program.

I saw her also in GPF 2016 in Marseille. She must be a former member of JSF, but she did not wear uniform of JSF.

Now she must be retired, since I don't see her anymore in competitions of Yuzuru.

She must be a supporter of Yuzuru, like Mr Kikuchi was his trainer for many Year, until Olympics in Peonchang in 2018.

Thank you

 

[Veveco]

53 minutes ago, Vadrouille said:

Can you tell me the name of the Japanese lady on the left of the photo, just behind Yuzuru, please.

I remember seeing this lady in competitions of Yuzuru on tv, beginning at World in Nice in 2012. I also saw her on tv in Olympics in Sochi 2014, taking pictures with other persons in Team Japan with Yuzuru after the Flower ceremony of Men's Free program.

I saw her also in GPF 2016 in Marseille. She must be a former member of JSF, but she did not wear uniform of JSF.

Now she must be retired, since I don't see her anymore in competitions of Yuzuru.

She must be a supporter of Yuzuru, like Mr Kikuchi was his trainer for many Year, until Olympics in Peonchang in 2018.

Thank you

 

 

The one in a white t-shirt? If so, it looks to be Abe Nanami. She was Yuzu's previous coach, before he moved to Toronto to be coached by Brian Orser. She also works as a choreographer.

[Figure_Frenzy]

4 hours ago, tafattsbarn said:

Yuzu used to always rock such grandpa fashion with those calf high socks with trainers  I'm not overly optimistic his fashion sense has improved over the years, but i guess that is also the charm of Yuzuru Hanyu haha. 

 

I am honestly split on this — on one hand I want to see his fashion sense improve but on the other hand as someone whose fashion sense also evolved ever soooo slowly I definitely sympathize with him (ie. just letting him be unbothered by mere trifles such as fashion 😂, especially when he already has so much things to fuss about, from figure skating to study to earphones 😅😂😅)

 

...also think of what he'd unleash on us when he eventually cares about fashion — that would be the death of us all!

[rockstaryuzu]

18 minutes ago, Figure_Frenzy said:

also think of what he'd unleash on us when he eventually cares about fashion — that would be the death of us all!

It's bad enough when he manages to show up in a tailored suit...anything more stylish and there'd be dead fanyus as far as the eye can see....

[Vadrouille]

3 hours ago, Veveco said:

 

The one in a white t-shirt? If so, it looks to be Abe Nanami. She was Yuzu's previous coach, before he moved to Toronto to be coached by Brian Orser. She also works as a choreographer.

No, I mean the lady who was standing next to his previous coach Abe Nanami, on the left side of the photo. I try to remember her name. She was a former president or Vice President of JSF, she was not a coach. I saw her in the entourage of Yuzuru at GPF 2016 in Marseille. She helped Yuzuru 's parents to take care of the contracts or sponsorships for Yuzuru I think. But in 2017, she did not appear in competitions anymore , instead it was Mrs Shiroda who takes care of that aspect of skating for Yuzuru.

Thank you

[fyere0]

I hope Yuzu had real yuzus (not to say that he is not a real Yuzu... ) floating in his hot spring, relaxing like a capybara. I like this image. 

[yumeaki]

 

Take my money!!!