A brief compilation of thoughts on Yuzuru Hanyu's 4A

[bubbletea]

a couple of weeks ago on youtube comments section someone asked about 4A and I wrote a huge text about it and I decided to share it here too because I don't feel like its fully correct. I did a lot of research to understand it correctly but im neither a jump specialist nor a long-time skating follower so if there are any skating-fan/nerd/geek is here and correct me then I would very appreciate it. here is the text's slightly organized version.

 

I'll explain as I understand it, please correct me if I'm wrong. For example, yuzuru's 3A jump is higher than the other skaters (that is, when we consider that we place the vertices of the parabola formed by the jump on the coordinate plane, the apex of yuzu's jump is higher), which means that yuzu needs more height to make 3.5 turns. other skaters can complete these 3.5 turns lower than him.(Yuzuru=70cm, others avg=58-60cm) it means his body rotates a bit slowly in the air than other skaters, so he needs more height and, accordingly, more time to stay in the air to complete the same number of rotations. (airtime varies depending on the speed of the toe pick of the skates blade when it comes out of contact with the ice and the weight of the skater and also of course if the jump is edge or toe but for now we are focusing only on the axel jump which is the edge jump) the reason he needs more height than the other skaters is because other skaters just getting speed and just jump it casually but yuzuru doesnt do that because he find this as a ''regular skate'' he want that beauty that elegance and that recklessness in his skate and this is what we call the skate of only hanyu can do. so sake of the achieve that he does his jumps directly with back counter (as you probably know they call it ''out of nowhere'') and most of the time with difficult transitions on the entrance for exists generally do twizziles or complicated step sequences. and all of this makes harder to jump because he doesnt gain his speed directly.  but still this doesn't change the stats. Of course, the same is valid for his 4A jump.

 

Since he couldn't complete the number of turns fast enough in the air (4.5 turns), he tries to go up even more. (the vertex logic of the parabola I just mentioned.) Going higher means doing the jump faster. but this time, even though he completed his turns on the way up and did not have any problem, he would hit the ice faster as he would gain much more acceleration when going down, and he could not fully complete his remaining rotations while coming down (which is why his jumps were never considered full rotation, always a quarter or half turn was considered less). Because of this extreme speed from the acceleration, he cannot control all this speed with one foot and this causing him to either hurt his ankle much more or land the jump with both feet. The speed that he suddenly starts to gain after reaching the highest point already breaks the parallelism of yuzuru's axis when he started to jump. If the angle between your body's axis with the ice when you start and the angle your body makes with the ice during the descent phase is almost the same then you can successfully land the jump. About these two similar angles, I mean the first angle is an acute angle, then if you lose balance or focus while completing rotations, your body will break that curve of axis parallel to the first position. physics only allows you to lower it until the final angle is 90 degrees. If the second angle is a wide angle, you will fall clearly or you will save the situation by making a spread eagle or crossing to other foot, but the GOE you will receive will be minus. however, the jumps of ilia malinin are not like this.

 

Ilia reaches the peak quickly, and when he reaches it, he has already completed most of the rotations. At the same time, since he can rotate his body faster, he does not need more speed than he can control like yuzuru and he can land cleanly. I mean of course his 4A jumps are higher than Yuzuru (someone mentioned its 84cm not quite sure though) but he has more stable body control than Yuzuru and he can make balance. but despite all this, I was amazed at how yuzu could improve the jump so much. He said he did 5T and 5S with harness to simulate that amount of rotation in his head and wanted to experience that feeling. It's amazing that he was able to improve such a difficult jump so much at an age that is considered "old" for figure skating. I'm sure he could have landed the jump much more easily if he had taken this risk when he was younger.  

 

Speaking of preparation, contrary to what I mentioned above, yuzu this time put aside the artistic side (what im trying to say is he tried it without difficult transitions etc) and focused only on successfully landing the jump as the first priority, which is a very logical choice. In other words, we can say that the necessary preparations to gain speed are almost the same. As for the technical part, yuzuru didnt do the prerotations (i mean he didnt want to do it, didn’t want to decrease his quality of his jumps and wanted to land it beatufily.) thats why he struggled too much. about the technique they use is of course very different, yuzuru uses the jumping technique of ghishlain briand (which I think is a great technique that allows you to make complete textbook jumps in a long term), and at the same time, he added small differences to the take off when he was training in sendai on his own during the quarantine period. Ilia's take off technique is slighty different, but unfortunately I don't know which coach he is working with. At the same time, ilia can rotate his upper body faster than yuzu, which is the most important difference between them. I attribute the reason for this difference to body condition. and that is the age gap between them. which is 10 years difference and it is a huge diffrence for figure skating.

 

some resources that I used:

 

3A's height, speed and distance comparisons https://eksiup.com/p/r5509827c64f

this includes great images about the axis and body angle that i mentioned

 

 

 

[evergreen]

Thank you for posting this

[annnara]

I know this is slightly off topic, but this is simply the largest Yuzu 3A I have ever seen:

Does anyone have real time footage of this majestic thing of absolute beauty?

It was performed in the rehearsals of FAOI 2022 Nagoya (or possibly Makuhari), but after searching hard I can't seem to find it?

Straight into legend. I really want to view it properly!

[LAY]

2 hours ago, annnara said:

I know this is slightly off topic, but this is simply the largest Yuzu 3A I have ever seen:

Does anyone have real time footage of this majestic thing of absolute beauty?

It was performed in the rehearsals of FAOI 2022 Nagoya (or possibly Makuhari), but after searching hard I can't seem to find it?

Straight into legend. I really want to view it properly!

Wow! Stretched across 12 seats with his huge 3A🥰

[bubbletea]

3 hours ago, annnara said:

I know this is slightly off topic, but this is simply the largest Yuzu 3A I have ever seen:

Does anyone have real time footage of this majestic thing of absolute beauty?

It was performed in the rehearsals of FAOI 2022 Nagoya (or possibly Makuhari), but after searching hard I can't seem to find it?

Straight into legend. I really want to view it properly!

This is a practice footage if you looked the shows i think you should go and check the practices 

[annnara]

Had a look through PH archives - it's from Nagoya TV!

But the video is cut in a way that removes the 3A replay from that good angle

[Aeris]

44 minutes ago, annnara said:

Had a look through PH archives - it's from Nagoya TV!

But the video is cut in a way that removes the 3A replay from that good angle

 

Here is the alternative angle 3A clip you wanted to see in Part 2:

 

[annnara]

OH IT'S THERE! How could I miss it! ((I'm blind))Thank you so much you just solved my life

[LAY]

On 5/3/2023 at 2:43 AM, bubbletea said:

a couple of weeks ago on youtube comments section someone asked about 4A and I wrote a huge text about it and I decided to share it here too because I don't feel like its fully correct. I did a lot of research to understand it correctly but im not a jump specialist or a lon-time skating follower so if there are any skating-fan/nerd/geek is here and correct me then I would be very appreciate it. here is the text's slightly organized version.

 

I'll explain as I understand it, please correct me if I'm wrong. For example, yuzuru's 3A jump is higher than the other skaters (that is, when we consider that we place the vertices of the parabola formed by the jump on the coordinate plane, the apex of yuzu's jump is higher), which means that yuzu needs more height to make 3.5 turns. other skaters can complete these 3.5 turns lower than him.(Yuzuru=70cm, others avg=58-60cm) it means his body rotates a bit slowly in the air than other skaters, so he needs more height and, accordingly, more time to stay in the air to complete the same number of rotations. (airtime varies depending on the speed of the toe pick of the skates blade when it comes out of contact with the ice and the weight of the skater and also of course if the jump is edge or toe but for now we are focusing only on the axel jump which is the edge jump) the reason he needs more height than the other skaters is because other skaters just getting speed and just jump it casually but yuzuru doesnt do that because he find this as a ''regular skate'' he want that beauty that elegance and that recklessness in his skate and this is what we call the skate of only hanyu can do. so sake of the achieve that he does his jumps directly with back country (as you probably know they call it ''out of nowhere'') and most of the time with difficult transitions on the entrance for exists generally do twizziles or complicated step sequences. and all of this makes harder to jump because he doesnt gain his speed directly.  but still this doesn't change the stats. Of course, the same is valid for his 4A jump.

 

Since he couldn't complete the number of turns fast enough in the air (4.5 turns), he tries to go up even more. (the vertex logic of the parabola I just mentioned.) Going higher means doing the jump faster. but this time, even though he completed his turns on the way up and did not have any problem, he would hit the ice faster as he would gain much more acceleration when going down, and he could not fully complete his remaining rotations while coming down (which is why his jumps were never considered full rotation, always a quarter or half turn was considered less). Because of this extreme speed from the acceleration, he cannot control all this speed with one foot and this causing him to either hurt his ankle much more or land the jump with both feet. The speed that he suddenly starts to gain after reaching the highest point already breaks the parallelism of yuzuru's axis when he started to jump. If the angle between your body's axis with the ice when you start and the angle your body makes with the ice during the descent phase is almost the same then you can successfully land the jump. About these two similar angles, I mean the first angle is an acute angle, then if you lose balance or focus while completing rotations, your body will break that curve of axis parallel to the first position. physics only allows you to lower it until the final angle is 90 degrees. If the second angle is a wide angle, you will fall clearly or you will save the situation by making a spread angle or crossing to other foot, but the GOE you will receive will be minus. however, the jumps of ilia malinin are not like this.

 

Ilia reaches the peak quickly, and when he reaches it, he has already completed most of the rotations. At the same time, since he can rotate his body faster, he does not need more speed than he can control like yuzuru and he can land cleanly. I mean of course his 4A jumps are higher than Yuzuru (someone mentioned its 84cm not quite sure though) but he has more stable body control than Yuzuru. but despite all this, I was amazed at how yuzu could improve the jump so much. It's amazing that he was able to improve such a difficult jump so much at an age that is considered "old" for figure skating. I'm sure he could have landed the jump much more easily if he had taken this risk when he was younger.  

 

Speaking of preparation, contrary to what I mentioned above, yuzu this time put aside the artistic side (what im trying to say is he tried it without difficult transitions etc) and focused only on successfully landing the jump as the first priority, which is a very logical choice. In other words, we can say that the necessary preparations to gain speed are almost the same. As for the technical part, yuzuru didnt do the prerotations (i mean he didnt want to do it, didn’t want to decrease his quality of his jumps and wanted to land it beatufily.) thats why he struggled too much. about the technique they use is of course very different, yuzuru uses the jumping technique of ghishlain briand (which I think is a great technique that allows you to make complete textbook jumps in a long term), and at the same time, he added small differences to the take off when he was training in sendai on his own during the quarantine period. Ilia's take off technique is slighty different, but unfortunately I don't know which coach he is working with. At the same time, ilia can rotate his upper body faster than yuzu, which is the most important difference between them. I attribute the reason for this difference to body condition. and that is the age gap between them. which is 10 years difference and it is a huge diffrence for figure skating.

 

some resource that I used:

 

3A's height, speed and distance comparisons https://eksiup.com/p/r5509827c64f

this includes great images about the axis and body angle that i mentioned

 

 

 

 

Thank you very much for this video clip. This is the one I have been looking for when he explained about his ideal 4A. I have seen it without eng subs therefore, couldn't understand his explanation.

Good luck Yuzu, we know it's not easy to achieve your ideal 4A. Just don't get injure when practising it. We like you not because of 4A jump!

Forever fanyu🤗

[bubbletea]

3 hours ago, LAY said:

Thank you very much for this video clip. This is the one I have been looking for when he explained about his ideal 4A. I have seen it without eng subs therefore, couldn't understand his explanation.

Good luck Yuzu, we know it's not easy to achieve your ideal 4A. Just don't get injure when practising it. We like you not because of 4A jump!

Forever fanyu🤗

Very welcome. its an important video to understand the 4A he wants to do and understand to his goals about this jump before directly judging him for not land it properly.

[bubbletea]

Wow! thank you for 1.1k views everyone!! I didn’t think this can get that much attention. Even 10 views were enough for me hahaha. Anyway happy new year to y’all!!!