General Yuzuru Chat

[Figure_Frenzy]

Oh btw, all this "gatekeeping" by other FS fans (who tend to not like Yuzu, not even objectively recognize his accomplishments so far)? That is not gatekeeping, that is straight up gaslighting. Anyone is right to just walk away from that kind of people.

 

As annoying and discouraging gatekeeping can be to newer fans (in whatever fandom you are...), I understand why people do that, and I can appreciate it (to put it loosely) if those gatekeepers were intellectually honest about it and they base it on actual data and knowledge. Those FS fans though, are not -- they are not only making the atmosphere unpleasant for newcomers they also base their opinions on untruths and outright lies.

 

That is not the thing we can let stand (and obviously not under the guise of so-called subjectivity).

[Pammi]

3 hours ago, rockstaryuzu said:

The thing is, Nathan was NOT consistent here at Worlds. he had a fall and a bad day in the SP, exactly as he did in PyeongChang. So even the 'Nathan is more consistent' narrative is not based on fact. 

 

Yep, all smoke and mirrors!

The truth is the 3A in Hana wa Saku should have won Yuzu the championship on it's own!! Someone put on twitter it should be given 1,000,000 GOE and even that is underscoring it! That jump was so beautiful it made me cry.

 

 

[Whoopiewoop]

1 hour ago, Figure_Frenzy said:

Oh btw, all this "gatekeeping" by other FS fans (who tend to not like Yuzu, not even objectively recognize his accomplishments so far)? That is not gatekeeping, that is straight up gaslighting. Anyone is right to just walk away from that kind of people.

 

As annoying and discouraging gatekeeping can be to newer fans (in whatever fandom you are...), I understand why people do that, and I can appreciate it (to put it loosely) if those gatekeepers were intellectually honest about it and they base it on actual data and knowledge. Those FS fans though, are not -- they are not only making the atmosphere unpleasant for newcomers they also base their opinions on untruths and outright lies.

 

That is not the thing we can let stand (and obviously not under the guise of so-called subjectivity).

I do wonder where the line between subjectivity and objectivity gets crossed though. My case is a funny one.

 

When it comes to figure skating, an artistic sport that granted combines artistry and athleticism, I certainly prefer the more artistic skaters than athletic ones.

 

Now compare it to tennis for example. That sport is purely athletic, there is nothing artistic in it but a lot of fans saw Federer’s style as ballerina-like, effortless, beautiful. While on the other hand (and my personal favourite) they saw Nadal as the brute, the muscle guy with more power than skill.

 

Some people just prefer the athletic type regardless of the sport, and others not.

 

I’m not sure why I quoted you specifically to say this ha! And I’m just rambling at this point, being it my 2nd birthday on my own because of COVID and having drank 1/4 of a bottle of red wine after not drinking much for the past year. Cheers.

[Sombreuil]

There is a lot of possessiveness about FS among older, often North American fans who have a tendency to regard it as ‘their’ sport .  Possibly also among Russians, which I’m less aware of because unfortunately I don’t speak the language.  There are also west  European purists.  They all do a lot of annoying things like gate keeping, insisting on western music/ themes unless a western skater is being ‘refreshing’ or ‘innovative’ by using someone else’s cultural music/iconography.  One thing that hasn’t been addressed above are the Western Hemisphere fans who take Asian skaters to their hearts then gatekeep their ‘Asian ness ’ - (idk if that is even a word but I drove a long way to attend a funeral today and I’m tired).  For example there were a whole lot of western fans who adored young YH and his lovely Japanese coach who went nuts when he moved to Canada, hated on Parisan, which as far as I can see Japanese fans took to their hearts, and have probably been sniping from the sidelines ever since.  (That’s not to say Japan doesn’t have its own nests of snakes - but that’s a different, more political story).   To them he should have stayed in Japan with his lovely coach rather than manifesting an ambition to do whatever it took to get those jumps and the technique that could take him to the top.  Thin line between love and hate, when the love is the possessive sort that doesn’t take kindly to the object of that affection demonstrating a will of his/ her own and changing the narrative.  

Regarding Olympic programmes I think it would come as a shock to the people who only watch FS at the Olympics to hear that YH only does classical programmes- to them he’s used Parisian walkways, the soundtrack to the R&J film score, Chopin and a Japanese film score, with ex pieces set to a Japanese version of Tchaikovskys Swan Lake and an Italian tenor groups version of St Saen’s The swan. So two film scores in quite different styles,  two different arrangements of Romantic/ impressionist scores, one traditionally Romantic piece and a bluesy rock piece.  

That’s all ancient history.  For me he’s the first male singles skater who has made me feel awed at his performance - transfixed by it at times - since I was a child watching John Curry gliding through jumps and steps when others were stiff and muscling their way through.  He’s magic - and the only ones currently with the same magic are Sui/Han in pairs.  I enjoy lots of skaters but after last weekend will undoubtedly cherry pick once he’s gone, rather than following whole competitions as I have done since 2015.

[Whoopiewoop]

21 minutes ago, Sombreuil said:

.That’s all ancient history.  For me he’s the first male singles skater who has made me feel awed at his performance - transfixed by it at times - since I was a child watching John Curry gliding through jumps and steps when others were stiff and muscling their way through.  He’s magic - and the only ones currently with the same magic are Sui/Han in pairs.  I enjoy lots of skaters but after last weekend will undoubtedly cherry pick once he’s gone, rather than following whole competitions as I have done since 2015.

He’s spoiled us rotten for sure. Admittedly, I haven’t been following the sport as religiously in the past as I do now since ‘discovered’ Yuzu a couple of years ago.

 

I remember however the random times I would watch it as a person with ‘conscious memory’, if that’s even a thing. From 14 to 17 years old, Seeing Sasha Cohen, Stephane Lambiel, etc, I liked watching them because of how artistic they were. I even liked Brian Joubert to some extent but that was me being more physically attracted towards him than because of his skating 

 

But only with Yuzu I realised  what FS really means and I really can’t see myself downgrading from that anymore. Someone just as special or even more needs to show up for me to follow them like I do with Yuzu.

 

ETA: and YES to Sui/Han. I really can’t get enough of their 2019 WC program

[barbara]

2 hours ago, shanshani said:

Yeah, country-level boycotts are decided by governments, not sporting bodies, so it wouldn't be a sport-specific thing. The Biden administration would be the ones making the call, and I really doubt Joe Biden cares very much about the Olympic title everyone assumes Nathan is going to win. However, to my knowledge the Biden administration hasn't really indicated any desire to go through with it. If the USA boycotts, there's a not-insignificant chance Japan will too, so the Russians might finally have a chance at a medal in men's lol. Still, it seems like a fairly low-probability event at this point.

Any 2022 Olympics boycott is going to depend on what happens with how things go down in Hong Kong - probably more so than the human rights issues regarding the Uyghur.  Hong Kong, any moves on Taiwan, more moves in the So China Sea and religious genocide.  Hong Kong is far more important to the Biden administration than it was 4 months ago.  I don't know what other countries might boycott purely on the destruction of democracy in Hong Kong - certainly not Russia - but it is a very real possibility.

[barbara]

5 hours ago, Terrapin said:

You cannot say Nathan won over Yuzu here because he was overscored. Sure his score may benefit from an inflation which is partly a result of his consistency, but Nathan won fair and square here. And once again, consistency is something Yuzu has always striven for, constantly pushing himself while suffering from asthma, lacking stamina and being prone to ankle injury. Nathan seems to have a better constitution than Yuzu on this point, while Yuzu fought to erase his weaknesses. His stamina drastically improved but he is still likely to be bothered by his asthma and the last years saw him facing injury over injury. This also explains why consistency-wise, he is a total wild card. There haven’t been many competitions in which Yuzu was perfect in both the short and free programmes. I was pleasantly surprised he was for Japanese nationals, and I’m sure this is because he had given his body the necessary rest and had reached the right balance in himself, while he overworked himself on the 4A before coming into worlds, which could also explain why he was asthma acted up this way. Knowing Yuzu’s history, I wasn’t sure he could repeat the feat he did at nationals while I had no doubt Chen would be as consistent as ever. I really wished I could have seen a perfect free programme from Yuzu to see whether he could have won : and I’m

sure it was within his reach. Last thing : I saw Nathan vs Yuzu live twice, and although my heart has always been with Yuzu, I have to say he tends to lack speed once he’s tired or had a really bad fall, while Nathan seemed quite fast and very much at ease. Sure the artistry is incomparable, but at the end of the day Nathan does the job. 

Lacks speed?  What?  You don't think Nathan's SP was overscored?  Go back and watch it again.

[Figure_Frenzy]

1 hour ago, Whoopiewoop said:

And I’m just rambling at this point, being it my 2nd birthday on my own because of COVID and having drank 1/4 of a bottle of red wine after not drinking much for the past year. Cheers.

 

Happy Birthday 🎉🎂🎈🎂🎉🎈 

[Pammi]

 

Brian knows what we all know - there is something special about  Yuzuru, something extraordinary.  Brian calls it something on a spiritual level...I have often described it as Yuzuru having a magic about him, he is magical, and whatever that magic is it touches our hearts and our souls, so yeah, pretty much agree with Brian!

This post has been tagged by yuzuangel as [NEWS].

[Terrapin]

39 minutes ago, barbara said:

Lacks speed?  What?  You don't think Nathan's SP was overscored?  Go back and watch it again.

I was not referring to this particular skate, and as I said sure Nathan benefited from inflation but the free programme sealed the deal anyway. Now I said my honest opinion from what I could gather from the years I’ve been following Yuzu and I will leave it here. 

[Veveco]

11 minutes ago, Pammi said:

 

Brian knows what we all know - there is something special about  Yuzuru, something extraordinary.  Brian calls it something on a spiritual level...I have often described it as Yuzuru having a magic about him, he is magical, and whatever that magic is it touches our hearts and our souls, so yeah, pretty much agree with Brian!

 

The part about Yuzu is around 41 min.

[Whoopiewoop]

31 minutes ago, Pammi said:

 

Brian knows what we all know - there is something special about  Yuzuru, something extraordinary.  Brian calls it something on a spiritual level...I have often described it as Yuzuru having a magic about him, he is magical, and whatever that magic is it touches our hearts and our souls, so yeah, pretty much agree with Brian!

I’m too tipsy for this  he almost makes it sound like Yuzu is lonely and all I want to do is give him a hug

[barbara]

58 minutes ago, Pammi said:

 

Brian knows what we all know - there is something special about  Yuzuru, something extraordinary.  Brian calls it something on a spiritual level...I have often described it as Yuzuru having a magic about him, he is magical, and whatever that magic is it touches our hearts and our souls, so yeah, pretty much agree with Brian!

Yuzu is my zen.

[memae]

7 hours ago, rockstaryuzu said:

Totally ignores the fact that Kolyada is fully capable of challenging and even beating Nathan, not to mention so could Shoma on a good day. 

 

Also... Yuma has another year. He's 17. He's going to grow as a skater more than any of them just because he's young and he's only just stepped up into senior. Apparently he's training 4Lo and 4Lz. I don't doubt that after a year of serious training he'd have the stamina (since he's a spring chicken by comparison) to do a 5-quad layout like Nathan was capable of at that age - the difference is that Yuma's performance qualities and skating skills are already better than Nathan's were at that age. People seem to forget how far Yuzuru came in the year before Sochi. 

[Melodie]

7 hours ago, Paskud said:

1. I have a trauma.

2. He didn't train 4s3t for 3 years already.

3. The difference between 4t and 4s, both in BV and GOE factor, is less than a point. Not worth it.

4. I have a trauma.

I get that you have a trauma cos I’m the same LoL, but he wants all the edge jumps for Ten Chi, hence my suggestions (not really based on points LoL). But yeah, he can totally keep the second half as is.