General Yuzuru Chat

[rockstaryuzu]

I spent 9 years of my life making my living by lifeguarding and teaching other people to swim. Based on my experience,  someone with Yuzu's apparent body composition will have an extremely difficult time learning to float comfortably. Their legs and arms will sink more easily, forcing them into a more vertical position in the water from the start. If not taught how to compensate for this by an instructor with a thorough understanding of human buoyancy and the lack thereof, it's  simply harder for a very lean and muscular man to learn how to swim, because they're fighting their body's own physics.

Also, men and women have completely different buoyancy. Females, even very skinny ones, still have a different distribution of body tissue, including fat, which naturally helps them to float in a more horizontal and relaxed position, which facilitates learning to swim. You simply can't compare the challenges, it's two different beasts. 

 

That doesn't mean it's impossible.  Just that it makes things harder than for, say, someone with the physique of a baby seal. 

 

 Understand that I have personally taught a good few hundred people how to swim in my lifetime - many from scratch. I have witnessed the phenomenon I describe multiple times. It's my best, educated, guess that this might be one of the difficulties Yuzu has with swimming, but I can't say for sure as I have never taught him to swim. 

 

I think it's totally cool that Yuzu tried swimming for a way to improve his 4A. Even if it didn't work, now he knows a way that doesn't work  - like Thomas Edison and the ways to make a light bulb. 

1 hour ago, Henni147 said:

This is a bit off-topic, but I feel the need to share it:

This is probably the first time that I can roughly feel how Yuzu must have felt after the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami.

 

Here in my region we had so heavy rainfalls and floodings the last two days, that many of our friends lost their homes and belongings. The cities Hagen, Wuppertal and Euskirchen were hit especially hard. The dam close to Euskirchen has cracked and is in danger to break. I have never experienced anything like this before.

Thank god, our house was not affected, because we live on a plateau, but it broke my heart to see the severe damages in other districts. We tried our best yesterday to help our friends and colleagues to save what could be saved, but we were recommended by the fire department not to leave our house today, because the situation out there is very dangerous and unpredictable. 80 people have died, roughly another 500 are missed in Nordrhein-Westfalen and Rheinland-Pfalz.

 

I pray with all my toes and fingers that the rainfalls will stop soon and everyone stays healthy and safe 🙏

That's terrible. I hope the rain stops for you soon!

[Henni147]

9 minutes ago, rockstaryuzu said:

I spent 9 years of my life making my living by lifeguarding and teaching other people to swim. Based on my experience,  someone with Yuzu's apparent body composition will have an extremely difficult time learning to float comfortably. Their legs and arms will sink more easily, forcing them into a more vertical position in the water from the start. If not taught how to compensate for this by an instructor with a thorough of human buoyancy and the lack thereof, it's  simply harder for a very lean and muscular man to learn how to swim, because they're fighting their body's own physics.

Also, men and women have completely different buoyancy. Females, even very skinny ones, still have a different distribution of body tissue, including fat, which naturally helps them to float in a more horizontal and relaxed position, which facilitates learning to swim. You simply can't compare the challenges, it's two different beasts. 

 

That doesn't mean it's impossible.  Just that it makes things harder than for, say, someone with the physique of a baby seal. 

 

 Understand that I have personally taught a good few hundred people how to swim in my lifetime - many from scratch. I have witnessed the phenomenon I describe multiple times. It's my best, educated, guess that this might be one of the difficulties Yuzu has with swimming, but I can't say for sure as I have never taught him to swim. 

 

I think it's totally cool that Yuzu tried swimming for a way to improve his 4A. Even if it didn't work, now he knows a way that doesn't work  - like Thomas Edison and the ways to make a light bulb. 

 

Thank you very much for your detailed explanation! Yes, that's definitely true that men have different buoyancy than women. Very good point. Since I've never seen Yuzu swim either, it's impossible to figure out the exact issue. So just hands down to him that he tries and wants to make use of it.

 

I also agree that mastering the 4A will probably be a long and exhausting process of trial and error. That's just natural with things that no one else has done before. It's not to be expected that the road will be linear with no dead ends.

But I also expect it to be a bit like solving a Rubik's Cube. You need to temporarily destroy the layers you've already completed (in this case his arsenal of other jumps) to solve the final layer, where everything eventually falls into place. I hope, he can experience that special moment soon 

[Paskud]

So it turns out that after all Zuzu can swim. Next we will hear that he can cook? THAT would be surprising.

[liv]

6 minutes ago, Paskud said:

So it turns out that after all Zuzu can swim. Next we will hear that he can cook? THAT would be surprising.

 

Hey. It's a pandemic year and a half. All sorts of strange things have been happening!!!

[yuzu-san-fanyu]

15 hours ago, lajoitko said:

Every morning I wake up to new Yuzu content. This feels surreal.

 

Number released a short video of the conversation with Ikee. Hopefully someone will translate the whole interview. 

 

 

And Yuzu is supporting Tour de Tohoku also this year.

 

 

And video of Yuzu's skating boots and new Kose merch. Boots must be quite old since they are ice fly. 

 

[NEWS]

So much news!! and his boots are so cool!!

[yuzu-san-fanyu]

5 hours ago, river said:

Huh, I thought he couldn’t swim! I think I speak for all of the former competitive swimmers on here when I say if he ever wants to get faster… we’d all be happy to help. 

same ^^

[river]

2 hours ago, Henni147 said:

 

Well, when I learned swimming at the age of 7, I was extremely thin. Disney could have casted me for a real-life adaption of the skeleton dance. Absolutely 0 fat and muscles, only the ones that you need to stand up, walk and move your hands. And that hasn't really changed ever since. I'm 1.80 tall now and weigh 50kg (ca. 2kg is sculp hair). No matter what I'm doing, how much I eat, how much sports I do, I just keep losing weight. My intestinal bacteria refuse to work for whatever reason. I visited countless doctors and specialists, but nothing has helped so far.

 

However, I really love swimming and in backstroke I even have decent times with 40sec over 50m. Having low body fat percentage doesn't necessarily mean that you cannot stay above water. It's the mix of good coordination of arms and legs, catching the right breathing rhythm and of course power, if you want to reach top speed on competitive level.

 

Yuzu definitely has more muscles than I have (maybe more fat, too, because I have none), so that alone shouldn't be a problem.

 

Oh, I know! I was a tiny, skinny kid who swam semi-seriously. I made the cutoff to qualify for the state championships a few times... even though I needed the help of a kickboard or pull buoy for some drills where I just didn't float well enough to not use one, when my teammates would get along fine without one. (Also, are you a backstroke person? It was always my favorite and I never quite got why all my friends hated it.)

 

I suspect if Yuzu wanted to, he'd be quite capable of learning to swim well, especially with how strong his legs are. But until he learned the proper technique, he wouldn't have much natural buoyancy to help him out.

[rockstaryuzu]

1 hour ago, Paskud said:

So it turns out that after all Zuzu can swim. Next we will hear that he can cook? THAT would be surprising.

Hey come on now! He already knows how to make perfectly amazing hot chocolate confections! 

 

[rockstaryuzu]

1 hour ago, Henni147 said:

also agree that mastering the 4A will probably be a long and exhausting process of trial and error. That's just natural with things that no one else has done before. It's not to be expected that the road will be linear with no dead ends.

But I also expect it to be a bit like solving a Rubik's Cube. You need to temporarily destroy the layers you've already completed (in this case his arsenal of other jumps) to solve the final layer, where everything eventually falls into place. I hope, he can experience that special moment soon 

It must be frustrating for him to be so close and yet so far. Imagine how he'll feel when he finally lands it.

[Pammi]

17 minutes ago, rockstaryuzu said:

Imagine how he'll feel when he finally lands it.

Imagine how WE will feel!! Probably we will feel great joy and excitement at his achievement after all the ups and downs and worries, but also I think we will realise that our time following Yuzuru as a competitive figure skater may well be drawing to a close and that will make many of us sad.....though I think I will also feel happy for Yuzuru, that he can start to adapt to living in a different way, facing different challenges and hopefully many different joys too. 

[Henni147]

54 minutes ago, river said:

(Also, are you a backstroke person? It was always my favorite and I never quite got why all my friends hated it.)

Spoiler

Yup. Love backstroke, because you can keep your face naturally above the water without getting slow or causing damage to your body. It's also a very fast and efficient swimming style. I almost feel like a motor boat in the water.

At the beginning I used to boing against the wall with my head, but I learned to use the colors of the separating lines soon and it's never been an issue since.

 

Personally, I like breaststroke the least, because you need to work so hard and are still so slow compared to the other styles. Also, that frog-kick is so meh aesthetically 

 

 

EDIT

@Pammi To be honest, looking at the current scoring mess and media trash-talk, I might be actually relieved, when Yuzu is finally out and can do what he likes and fully enjoys.

 

I don't think that his retirement from competition will mean a complete bye bye from skating either. I do believe that he will find his happiness in shows or other new exciting projects and maybe we will be blessed with performances that will surpass everything we could have imagined in our wildest dreams. I mean... he now spends a lot of time on practicing different types of quads such as steps and spins that must satisfy the felt 26749801248 requirements for LV4. Imagine what miracles he could do, if he had the time... 

[Paskud]

27 minutes ago, rockstaryuzu said:

Hey come on now! He already knows how to make perfectly amazing hot chocolate confections! 

 

Next C-chan challenge instead of plunking should be about drinking them. We will see who can survive this choco-monster.

[Pammi]

45 minutes ago, Henni147 said:

I don't think that his retirement from competition will mean a complete bye bye from skating either.

Oh I totally agree - I cant wait to see what he does in shows, and I'm so hoping he might do another Continues, he certainly hasn't ruled it out! And Javi better go to that one lol!! AND I have a little hope that Javi invites him to ROI, whenever that gets on the road again once Covid restrictions are lifted/cases remain low etc...artistically he is constantly improving -  Masquerade and Hana wa Saku this season were so amazing - and Spain is near for travel purposes - see you there @Henni147 !!! (we can hope and dream...)

(Hope you and everyone stays safe in the flooding, I feel for those who have lost life or loved ones)

[Yuzurella]

 

Translation of Yuzu's part in the Frau magazine special edition.

[Melodie]

She is out there, living a Fanyu’s best life