Romeo + Juliet 1

[ruruzest]

15 hours ago, Murieleirum said:

I don't feel nostalgic at all. Yuzuru is the same Romeo he was back then. The same pure, naive fierceness and passion. I bet if he put on the Romeo costume today (would it fit? mmmh... maybe too much muscle now xD) and did the program, he would find within himself the same spirit he had back then, and maybe he would be surprised by it too.

 

The only thing I could be sad about is that when he was growing up and giving the world such treasures already, I had no idea he existed and I was living a miserable, lonely life. Not that now I'm happy because of him excusively, but I think he would have been a hope, for me, growing up, and instead I only got to know him when both me and him were already, basically, adults. I hope lots of adolescents and pre-pubescents will get to see him, because he really goes a long way to show that fighting is always worth it, whatever monster you are fighting, whether it is outside of you or inside of you, or maybe both. This program is more than just a figure skating routine. Yuzuru takes you so deeply within his own heart and your own heart, you're really not sure where you are in the end. 

 I feel so emotional reading your post, I hope Yuzuru somehow can know , I'm sure he read lots of inspired letters from fans before, and recently upon his 24H tv show,  and knows how positive of an impact that he makes in so many lives , mine included. IMO, I don't think Yuzu changes much growing up , remember in one interview he said that he wanted to maintain a child-like mindset, not to settle, not to be satisfied but always wants to improve and move forward, but that asides , I still can see his naïveté,his enthusiasm, his unrestrained feeling , his total abandoned moves...

[Lunna]

R&J 1 will always be special for me - it's a programme when I first became caught up in Yuzu's skating and never looked back since then  

I may have a little bit of nostalgia about young Romeo sometimes but I totally adore the skater he has become and that he still carries his emotions through his performances

[yuzuangel]

2 hours ago, ruruzest said:

I love how innocent he was, how he was over the moon for getting silver( versus a kuyashii Yuzu now ), bright eyes and all smiling, his joy was so infectious, didn't Patrick say that even he won but Yuzu was the one that shined the most? Well, well, Patrick , if only if you could foresee the future when Yuzu would shine the most mostly, . Also at the end of his performance, purple lips and all but we can see the determination and fierceness in his ending pose, sending a clear message " you ain't seen nothing yet!"

patrick said this? patrick said good things about yuzu? color me surprised 

[ruruzest]

20 hours ago, yuzuangel said:

patrick said this? patrick said good things about yuzu? color me surprised 

Found the source 

http://www.goldenskate.com/forum/showthread.php?35500-Yuzuru-Hanyu-2011-12-Season/page20

 

Yuzuru) Because it is the existence that I can never overcome. Of course Takahashi too. I don't yet feel like be able to beat other skaters.
At the time of press conference, I was glad that Patrick said to me in this way."You just shined most". I want to catch up with him sometime.

[Yuzkiki]

 

time slip!  XD

[ruruzest]

 

http://yoko71.tumblr.com/post/22808887972/yuzuru-hanyu-interview-part-3-he-began-his-fs

 

“I fell while I was on my left leg. I think my left leg was exhausted because I was trying to protect my right foot. Yeah, I was mad. Excuse me for my word choice, but I yelled ’$#@%^&’ during the following jump.”

 

 so this was when and why we had that famous " kuyashii"  roar

 

[ruruzest]

Baby mushroom ,very fierce , raw, unrestrained with a sprained ankle

[Plumqueen]

On 8/31/2017 at 1:26 PM, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

 

Hmm, I suppose i did get a sense of these two in his performance of H&L at last season's World's but I'm not sure if I'd pick "sad" and "broken" as descriptors for his other performances post-Sochi. I sense more anger, fierceness, streamlined determination, maturity, control and jadedness but that's only natural, seeing as he became the top at a young age and chose to stay on to fight to remain there, while at the same time pushing the very boundaries of the sport itself. That has gotta age a person, much less an athlete.

 

And knowing the person he is now, when seeing the freshness of before, it gets poignant, even if you didn't know of him from when he was younger. Because seeing all his past performances, it's like going through this journey where you see him grow into the the man he is today. And he's not even done growing yet.

 

So I guess that makes seeing both WC performances of R&J1 and H&L one after the other, and seeing all the differences, actually rather jarring. Which I did do, as I wanted to see my top 3 favorites all in one go and H&L rests rather firmly on top. But my favorite performance of it is the one from nhk so I only marathoned the wc perf of it with Nice's R&J once.

 

Either way, he's blossomed beautifully. Which is wonderful seeing as not all that many with lovely potential as young skaters were able to do the same. Certainly there are more that didn't than those that did.

 

And...I'd wager what he's about to become would be beyond any superlatives we can think of.

i agree with all of this.  And, H&L at NHK compared to WC is an interesting comparison.  He looked so free and joyful at NHK even with a fall.  He had a comfortable lead so perhaps he was more relaxed.  The camera work was better too, and you could actually see his facial expressions and some hand/arm gestures that I had a hard time seeing at WC.  But, the smiles at the end of the performance on the ice and the K&C at NHK are worth watching multiple times.  Although, I loved the fierceness, as you put it, that I saw at the end of the WC H&L.  The "How dare you doubt me." look.

And, be patient with me, this is related to R&J1. For some reason I was skimming through the streams of the 2017 ISU JGP skaters at Brisbane and Salzburg.  I had to stop.  So many of the skaters made me cringe.  I thought back to seeing this thread and wondered if these skaters had ever watched any of Yuzu's programs for guidance.  Especially R&J1. Then, I thought I was being unfair.  So,  I watched the 2011 R&J1 version that Kaerth posted where Yuzu is even younger.  Then, I watched the 2009 JGP Final that he won when he was only 14!  His Mission Impossible SP made me realize that I wasn't being unfair.

Yuzu just "works harder" than everyone else and always has regardless of any natural gifts/talents he was born with.

So, all that to say, I love R&J1.  More than R&J2 in every way - the choice of music, the costume, the program.  His enthusiasm and "so glad to be here" excitement at Nice was contagious and hasn't been matched by anyone that I can think of.  

Thank you for this thread!

[Plumqueen]

On 9/2/2017 at 3:48 PM, ruruzest said:

 

http://yoko71.tumblr.com/post/22808887972/yuzuru-hanyu-interview-part-3-he-began-his-fs

 

“I fell while I was on my left leg. I think my left leg was exhausted because I was trying to protect my right foot. Yeah, I was mad. Excuse me for my word choice, but I yelled ’$#@%^&’ during the following jump.”

 

 so this was when and why we had that famous " kuyashii"  roar

 

The end of this 9 page article is familiar, but I don't remember ever reading the 1st page where he explains that he sprained his right ankle the day before the SP due to over training.  And, he never talked about it until this interview months later.  Skating both programs with a sprained ankle - unbelievable!  

[Aotoshiro]

On 2.09.2017 at 9:48 PM, ruruzest said:

 

http://yoko71.tumblr.com/post/22808887972/yuzuru-hanyu-interview-part-3-he-began-his-fs

 

“I fell while I was on my left leg. I think my left leg was exhausted because I was trying to protect my right foot. Yeah, I was mad. Excuse me for my word choice, but I yelled ’$#@%^&’ during the following jump.”

 

 so this was when and why we had that famous " kuyashii"  roar

 

Weren't there another interview in which he described the roar as a "I couldn't breathe, so, I thought 'For now, just let the air out'" and the above gif was the result of that, while the screaming during the jump (3A combo?) was never really shown? (Unless some photographers managed to catch it and didn't discard them as super strange jump faces...)

[kaeryth]

I find it really funny that the consensus for playing Romeo is 'maturity'. Even Kurt Browning was saying during (I think) COR 2011 "Would you choose this music for a teenager?" and Tracy Wilson replied "No, but he carries it so well..." But..... wasn't Romeo a reckless and immature teenager? Like, one of the early critics for Vincent's R+J program and the impetus to change programs is that he doesn't have the 'maturity' for it... It was perfect for Yuzu though because he portrayed that recklessness so well... and while he didn't have an ideal 'Juliet' for the tragic love story aspect of the program, he had Sendai / Tohoku and their people - who have just gone through a tragedy... 

[liv]

Maturity for RJ? Didnt V/M originally want RJ for Sochi, but Zueva said they were too old..?. I can see requiring maturity maybe for Tchaikovsky or Prokofiev... but not the modern movie character and soundtrack. The DiCaprio film definitely shows reckless youth, and the music is more brash and wild,  so Yuzu was perfect for it in every way. Wild, a fall,  a roar with success, and ended with the ultimate defiant ending glare. He was a star from the beginning. I love that World's performance....  the arrival of the baby faced assassin. 

 

 

 

[kaeryth]

Rewatching R+J1s for nostalgia and how did I not realise Lambiel was at Nebelhorn 2011???

 

 

[Plumqueen]

On 9/1/2017 at 5:05 AM, Neenah said:

Funny thing about this program is that I never search for it.. Youtube knows me very well and keeps of putting it in the recommendations out of nowhere 

Me too!!

[Murieleirum]

22 hours ago, kaeryth said:

I find it really funny that the consensus for playing Romeo is 'maturity'. Even Kurt Browning was saying during (I think) COR 2011 "Would you choose this music for a teenager?" and Tracy Wilson replied "No, but he carries it so well..." But..... wasn't Romeo a reckless and immature teenager? Like, one of the early critics for Vincent's R+J program and the impetus to change programs is that he doesn't have the 'maturity' for it... It was perfect for Yuzu though because he portrayed that recklessness so well... and while he didn't have an ideal 'Juliet' for the tragic love story aspect of the program, he had Sendai / Tohoku and their people - who have just gone through a tragedy... 

 

21 hours ago, liv said:

Maturity for RJ? Didnt V/M originally want RJ for Sochi, but Zueva said they were too old..?. I can see requiring maturity maybe for Tchaikovsky or Prokofiev... but not the modern movie character and soundtrack. The DiCaprio film definitely shows reckless youth, and the music is more brash and wild,  so Yuzu was perfect for it in every way. Wild, a fall,  a roar with success, and ended with the ultimate defiant ending glare. He was a star from the beginning. I love that World's performance....  the arrival of the baby faced assassin. 

 

 

 

 

 

I think people are confusing 'maturity' with 'depth'. Romeo is a passionate, reckless teenager living in the Middle Ages, going through tragedies in his family, falling in love and following that love to the death. Portraying someone like that requires either mad acting skills (which are all right with DiCaprio, a little less with skaters who are just athletes after all) or a depth of character that is born from a series of things: a natural sensitivity, courage in opening up one's most private emotions, certain life experiences that make 'loss' and 'tragedy' tangible and real feelings, more than made up, far-away concepts. Yuzuru has all three of these things. This is why Romeo and Juliet, especially in that year, in that period of his life, was the perfect choice. It became a music written for him, for his love, his tragedy, his passion. Maturity is just a consequence of certain life experiences, and it's otherwise a relative concept. One could say Yuzuru was a mature teenager for the way he spoke, but he always remained childish and playful in so many other aspects. It would be more correct to say that in his skating, right from when he was very young, there were "mature themes" being represented: loss, death, tragedy, courage, love in its purest form. But they were represented in an 'immature' way,  a reckless, passionate way, because it was a teenage boy that was fighting with those things. And that contrast is actually what made the R&J program so special. That contrast is what made everyone stand up, crying, that day in Nice. 

 

Aaah, the more I talk about it, the more I feel like crying.