So Nathan's costume actually has some shiny on it along the sleeves

It wasn't evident on the stream. 

 

 

23 minutes ago, Neenah said:

It seems I am in the minority because I liked Nathan's SP last season more than the new one. I can see the potential of the program and I kind of understand where they are going with it but I don't think he is comfortable performing it yet. He still has lots of empty space in the choreography although the beginning and the step sequence are pretty good, and he does need to do something about his posture. I mean even I noticed it, and I never see these things.

 

Yeah, there's still some choreographic spaces I hope he works on but the beginning and the step sequence are pretty good. 

 

I do like that the top 6 men will all have pretty different musical styles in their SPs. Boyang with his more Chinese traditional Hidden Dragon Crouching Tiger OST, Nathan with his contemporary folk/pop singer songwriter song, Yuzu with classical piano, Javi with Chaplin-inspired theme and Shoma with the sweeping Vivaldi. 

 

Edit: I forgot Patrick, with his 80s song realness, which is actually lovely when you see him skate. 

The start of the season is cutthroat so far - everyone is absolutely gunning for it, it's going to be knife edge between technical scores and all about who can be the most consistent at the right time. I'm happy, albeit nervous that it's shaping up to be exciting and heart attack inducing.

 

8 minutes ago, xeyra said:

I do like that the top 6 men will all have pretty different musical styles in their SPs. Boyang with his more Chinese traditional Hidden Dragon Crouching Tiger OST, Nathan with his contemporary folk/pop singer songwriter song, Yuzu with classical piano, Javi with Chaplin-inspired theme and Shoma with the sweeping Vivaldi. 

I agree - it's going to be so interesting and such a treat for first time viewers too, to see how many genres figure skating can cover (I lowkey do worry a little that Yuzu's SP choice is the 'softest', perhaps the most subtle and most easily dismissed as 'boring' by casual fans since it doesn't demand your attention in the same way as the others. But I also have faith he'll make it compelling so...we'll just have to see! T___T also there's Seimei so...he'll have the time to be commanding)

1 hour ago, kaerb said:

I agree - it's going to be so interesting and such a treat for first time viewers too, to see how many genres figure skating can cover (I lowkey do worry a little that Yuzu's SP choice is the 'softest', perhaps the most subtle and most easily dismissed as 'boring' by casual fans since it doesn't demand your attention in the same way as the others. But I also have faith he'll make it compelling so...we'll just have to see! T___T also there's Seimei so...he'll have the time to be commanding)

 

I don't know, the Chopin step sequence portion is pretty attention demanding, that'll wake them all up. 

 

Nathan, did you forget you have Rostelecom first? 

Idk the video of Nate's SP is blocked on my phone - will watch at home later, the BV with two quads in second half will be huge, will be interesting to see the judging at CoR already

1 hour ago, kaerb said:

I agree - it's going to be so interesting and such a treat for first time viewers too, to see how many genres figure skating can cover (I lowkey do worry a little that Yuzu's SP choice is the 'softest', perhaps the most subtle and most easily dismissed as 'boring' by casual fans since it doesn't demand your attention in the same way as the others. But I also have faith he'll make it compelling so...we'll just have to see! T___T also there's Seimei so...he'll have the time to be commanding)

 

I dont think so. Yuzu's music might be soft, but his interpretation is not, as we see how he perform it at Faoi. The transition/choreo are so packed, the spins/jumps are right on the music. I showed his Chopin a couple time to my colleagues before ( none of them know about FS) and they all love it. As @xeyra said, the stsq is attention demanding  Many times the audience tried to clap to the music and often gave up after 10 secs . Tbh Yuzu's SP isn't any softer than Patrick's, and Boyang's SP only grab my attention in 2nd half, when the music is faster during stsq (He really should keep his Spiderman)

My random thoughts on Men’s SP (it’s so random so I’m going to put them in the spoiler):

Spoiler

Nathan Chen

I like his SP. He looked a little bit stiff here and the part after the first two spins until the combination jump looked a bit empty, but overall, the program looked good and promising.

 

Max Aaron

He’s finally got a program which suits his style and personality hasn’t he?

 

Tim Dolensky

Wow, beautiful program! Packed with interesting moves. I always love watching his skate. Can’t wait to see his FS too.

 

Michal Brezina

Kodo is one of my favorite programs of his and I’ve watched this program hundreds of times. The choreography has been largely changed but the energetic stsq was still there. He doesn’t seem to be in his top form now, but this is merely the beginning of the season. Hope he will gain his stamina back and show his best Kodo in this season!

 

Daniel Samohin

First I thought his program had something to do with Yin and Yan

but it didn’t…

I love strange costumes in general and he was a performer as usual but what happened to his jumps? I hope he is OK. Or was it the ice condition…?

 

Takahito Mura

First I thought that he had joined the boob-skirt club

but he hadn’t…

He had an issue with his boots and it was not his best performance, but the program itself was enjoyable, at least for me. Hope to see this program performed with sparkly jumps and confidence in future competitions.

 

Kazuki Tomono

I don’t think Kazuki and Zegeunerweizen is the best match, but I love both, so I hope to see a beautiful and lively Zegeunerweizen later in this season. But I prefer the costume he wore in the footage aired by Fuji last weekend…

 

3 minutes ago, Katt said:

 

I dont think so. Yuzu's music might be soft, but his interpretation is not, as we see how he perform it at Faoi. The transition/choreo are so packed, the spins/jumps are right on the music. I showed his Chopin a couple time to my colleagues before ( none of them know about FS) and they all love it. As @xeyra said, the stsq is attention demanding  Many times the audience tried to clap to the music and often gave up after 10 secs . Tbh Yuzu's SP isn't any softer than Patrick's, and Boyang's SP only grab my attention in 2nd half, when the music is faster during stsq (He really should keep his Spiderman)

 

Maybe Chopin 1.0 was a little soft or delicate but that step sequence is like a force of nature now. I honestly stopped breathing when I saw 3.0.

 

Though Chopin wasn't the first thing I saw (half of injured-foot SEIMEI and then H&L with nothing else in between), as a very, very casual viewer who just chuckled at the Olympics every 4 years, seeing 2.0 blew me away. I don't think he'll have any trouble capturing people's attention. 

 

(And please, please, Boyang, go back to Spiderman! No need to be nationalistic!)

16 minutes ago, Katt said:

 

I dont think so. Yuzu's music might be soft, but his interpretation is not, as we see how he perform it at Faoi. The transition/choreo are so packed, the spins/jumps are right at the music. I showed his Chopin a couple time to my colleagues before ( none of them know about FS) and they all love it. As @xeyra said, the stsq is attention demanding  Many times the audience tried to clap to the music and often gave up after 10 secs . Tbh Yuzu's SP isn't any softer than Patrick's. 

I guess I'm just interested to see how it will do in the overall lineup -- will the fact it's a soft piece make people tune out or take notice because of the contrast? When I'm watching with casual viewers (friends) who may be flicking through channels, I know quite a few might watch the first few seconds before they emotionally check out/change the channel so first impressions are actually quite crucial -- having an 'extroverted' piece at least grabs people's attentions from the start whereas pieces like Patrick's and Yuzu's depends on 'pulling' the audience in with the quality of their skating/jumps/interpretation (which they do but after a 'slower' start).

 

I guess for me, Chopin is a piece where I start out by saying to new viewer 'just wait for it' - it's a piece that unravels and builds into an explosion in the SS - whereas a piece like Seimei is commanding from the get-go, and does not let go of your attention. As a whole, I very much appreciate Chopin for that 'narrative' and progression (and think it's a sophisticated program because of it), I just wonder how it will read in relation to the other skates in terms of audience impression (not legitimately freaking out or anything - as a marketing/media student, it's something I tend to speculate about). 

 

26 minutes ago, kaerb said:

I guess I'm just interested to see how it will do in the overall lineup -- will the fact it's a soft piece make people tune out or take notice because of the contrast? When I'm watching with casual viewers (friends) who may be flicking through channels, I know quite a few might watch the first few seconds before they emotionally check out/change the channel so first impressions are actually quite crucial -- having an 'extroverted' piece at least grabs people's attentions from the start whereas pieces like Patrick's and Yuzu's depends on 'pulling' the audience in with the quality of their skating/jumps/interpretation (which they do but after a 'slower' start).

 

I guess for me, Chopin is a piece where I start out by saying to new viewer 'just wait for it' - it's a piece that unravels and builds into an explosion in the SS - whereas a piece like Seimei is commanding from the get-go, and does not let go of your attention. As a whole, I very much appreciate Chopin for that 'narrative' and progression, I just wonder how it will read in relation to the other skates in terms of audience impression (not legitimately freaking out or anything - as a marketing/media student, it's something I tend to speculate about). 

 

Well, its true that extroverted style/music are easier to grab attention, but to me there's alot of things more than just the music. Its the choreo, the structure of program, the speed, the execution etc.  And the thing with uptempo music is, its easily lost the impact when you make mistake. After all, clean performance always has its own spark, whatever the music is. Of course it has to be a good program at first. I dont think I can enjoy Petrov's SP no matter how extrovert or clean it might be .

As a person who work in media/marketing field for a few years, I think the general audience are often impress by clean performance and the score first, then the highlight/memorable moment of the program. That's why the skating order would play a big part if all of them go clean ( which i doubt it would happen). Back then, when American idol was still on prime, I could often tell who might have best music choice/performance even before the show base on singing order

4 minutes ago, ralucutzagy said:

 

 

Finally! *runs to watch*

11 minutes ago, ralucutzagy said:

 

 

I love it. I don't know why, I just do. The step sequence is really fun. His costume could use some work but it's Mura, it's expected.