General Skating Chat

[axelnojutsu]

7 minutes ago, yuzuangel said:

 

And finally, I can sort of understand individual medals for things like jumping vs. spinning vs. figures (skating skills). Skaters like Jason can focus on spins, if he prefers, it's certainly something he'd excel at more than the jumps. And someone with million-dollar spins like Yulia Lipnitskaya could still be in the mix even if she can't do 7 jumping passes in a free skate. But artistic vs. technical? What is artistic and what is technical? 

I'd like to see sort of subcategories where you'd award people for that, sort of like an ad-on to how it's now, but I wouldn't try to change the way the programs themselves are done

[¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

1 時間前, yuzuangelさんが言いました:

I saw this too. But they mean free skate placements. (And Yuzu wasn't the bronze medalist but the 3rd place FS place, so that part is incorrect.)

 

Oh. Oh yeah. Hersh did say free skate. Think I got thrown off by the mention of medal color he tagged to Hanyu's name. 

 

1 時間前, yuzuangelさんが言いました:

 

I think Max Aaron is known to be a much more technical skater than artistic skater, though. 

 

But even judging only the technical side of skating, I don't think he's in the top 3 (i.e. Yuzu, Nathan, Boyang are all above him). So I'm not sure he'd be medaling.

 

Yeah I did mean the tech side only, cos I said different events. And if the guy is given license to focus solely on developing his tech skills, he might have been a contender. But I'm only saying skaters like them since these guys would have all been retired by the time this happens, if it does indeed happen.

 

1 時間前, yuzuangelさんが言いました:

And I don't think Jason Brown has better artistry or skating skills than Yuzu, either. Although I guess he'll be *more* in the mix than...currently.

 

Is my bias showing?  

 

Lol. Yeah, quite. I'm a fan of Hanyu's style myself, and I don't follow anyone but him, but there's no denying the beauty and the lovely vestiges of free spirit Brown presents on ice when he's on it.  If I have to pick a purely artistic skater to be my favorite, it'd be him. I prefer his style over Weir's, to be perfectly honest. But hey, this would mean even skaters like Weir would have a chance at an Oly medal. ^__^

[yuzuangel]

3 minutes ago, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

And if the guy is given license to focus solely on developing his tech skills, he might have been a contender.

Yeah, you are right, he has the potential.

[Katt]

4 minutes ago, yuzuangel said:

Artistic program could be the new solo dance, then. Which exists. But is not an Olympic sport. For reasons. 

 

So, maybe there's no need exhibition anymore. Way to save the broadcasting time  

[Murieleirum]

7 minutes ago, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

Got nothing to say about the splitting of programs into tech-based ones and artistic-based ones since this one is still in the embryonic stage of development. If it does come into fruition, however, it does allow skaters like Aaron and Brown to medal at different events in major championships like WC and the Olympics and people like Chan, Hanyu and Fernandez can probably win all-around medals.

 

I am strongly opposed to this. Being all-around skaters is not the same as being good at only technique and being good at only artistry. "Artistry" medals or "Technical" medals shouldn't exist. This sport IS the fusion of technique and artistry.

Separating these two things is like separating the body and mind, the heart and the brain, it's boring, it's making a step back, it's not understanding what being human is all about. It's a tragedy, in my opinion. Even just suggesting it proves enourmous stupidity (of those speaking in the article).

 

Not even talking about how separating it would be completely denying Yuzuru Hanyu's influence and handprint on the sport, completely denying that only the most talented skaters, who can unite body and mind, heart and brain into their programs, deserve to be on top. 

 

I am probably getting a little too emotional, but I am not sure if what I'm saying is understood. You can't be a soloist if you play Paganini's caprices with technical perfection, but no heart (dynamics, interpretation). And you can't be a soloist if you play Paganini while being totally into the music, but messing up the notes. You can't be a musician if you don't master technique and art. Right now, the best skaters in the world are Artists, because they put technique and heart together. This is how music, drawing, photography, cuisine, writing, any kind of Art is made. Denying that Figure Skating is a form of Art, is officially and literally making the sport take not one step back, but several kilometers back. 

 

This, of course, is my opinion and not absolute truth. 

[golden]

Spoiler

i think jason is in a pretty nice position anyway, finishing 7th at worlds without a quad because the top six were certaintly impenetrable. its almost certain that his nationality helps, because there are other skaters doing as jason does, limited by their technical abilities and putting everything into beautiful performance quality and good skating skills who don't have a chance of finishing that high. but thats for another discussion.

 

at the root of the sport is a sense of beautiful power - artistic performance blended with strength and athletic prowess, so breaking the two apart into different segments is taking away from the true essence of figure skating. mastering the two should be any skaters ultimate goal. i think this is why i love yuzuru as a stand out above other skaters - he is putting his everything into both sides of the sport. (not to say that i dont appreciate both solely pcs focused and tes focused skaters though, but from a pure figure skating standpoint, yuzuru takes it for me as a true embodiment of what the sport is and what it means)

[yuzupon]

@¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I appreciate your differing opinion. What I admire most, however, is your faith that there is a genuine motivation behind the proposed changes. Perhaps, I am just way too sceptical a person. But my short experience as a spectator of this sport trying to understand the rules and their implementations has not really been assuring. I still think the majority of what they proposed will be counterproductive at best, at worst something else entirely.

 

And I am going to repeat what I said several posts earlier. The current rules followed somewhat properly, in extremely rare occasions, has shown that it is possible for "quality program that is well skated" to win against "quantity program that is sort of skated", e.g. men's event in Riga JGP. 

[xeyra]

4 minutes ago, Katt said:

 

So, maybe there's no need exhibition anymore. Way to save the broadcasting time  

 

LOL, pretty much. 

 

And what would an artistic program involve? No quads, only a few jump passes, spins, steps? And the athletic? Jump a set of difficult jumps including quads and combos? But aren't spins also athletic and technical? Would you only score skating skills on the first, or on the second too? Would skaters have to decide to pursue one or the other? How to judge 'artistic' programs, anyway? Are we going to have to define what 'artistry' is in a rule book?

[Hydroblade]

The thing that i don't like about this is the separation of the artistic and technical side. One of the reasons i love watching this sport is precisely because i like to see the blending of artistry and athleticism. I like to see that it's perfectly possible to have both, and often making something look beautiful takes a huge amount of work and control over your body. I think it's part of the challenge, and idk about focusing on those aspects separately...

[Murieleirum]

1 minute ago, golden said:

  Reveal hidden contents

i think jason is in a pretty nice position anyway, finishing 7th at worlds without a quad because the top six were certaintly impenetrable. its almost certain that his nationality helps, because there are other skaters doing as jason does, limited by their technical abilities and putting everything into beautiful performance quality and good skating skills who don't have a chance of finishing that high. but thats for another discussion.

 

at the root of the sport is a sense of beautiful power - artistic performance blended with strength and athletic prowess, so breaking the two apart into different segments is taking away from the true essence of figure skating. mastering the two should be any skaters ultimate goal. i think this is why i love yuzuru as a stand out above other skaters - he is putting his everything into both sides of the sport. (not to say that i dont appreciate both pcs focused and tes focused skaters though, but from a pure figure skating standpoint, yuzuru takes it for me as a true embodiment of what the sport is and what it means)

 

Thank you. You just expressed what I wanted to say but made it way less dramaqueen-istic than me LOL. 

[Valkyria]

Even if we leave aside that trying to separate such intrinsec parts of figure skating kind of murders what the sport even is (which, lol ), there's so much grey area there that I don't think they've even thought about what exactly it would entail, yet. Where do you draw the line between tech and artistry? Because there are many things that contribute to both (ideally most of them. Which is what some of the current skaters are trying to achieve and what the system was designed to promote in the first place). These proposed changes seem like the ISU scrambling around throwing things at the wall to see what sticks before even thinking about the consequences.

[yuzuangel]

15 minutes ago, Murieleirum said:

 

Thank you. You just expressed what I wanted to say but made it way less dramaqueen-istic than me LOL. 

I like your drama queen analogies Yuzu would appreciate the extraness 

[Murieleirum]

1 minute ago, yuzuangel said:

I like your drama queen analogies Yuzu would appreciate the extraness 

 

  Now that I think about it, I don't think I've ever seen Yuzu get 'extra' angry about something that didn't concern his own skating! But that's a research for another topic 

[¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

1 時間前, Murieleirumさんが言いました:

 

I am strongly opposed to this. Being all-around skaters is not the same as being good at only technique and being good at only artistry. "Artistry" medals or "Technical" medals shouldn't exist. This sport IS the fusion of technique and artistry.

Separating these two things is like separating the body and mind, the heart and the brain, it's boring, it's making a step back, it's not understanding what being human is all about. It's a tragedy, in my opinion. Even just suggesting it proves enourmous stupidity (of those speaking in the article).

 

Not even talking about how separating it would be completely denying Yuzuru Hanyu's influence and handprint on the sport, completely denying that only the most talented skaters, who can unite body and mind, heart and brain into their programs, deserve to be on top. 

 

I am probably getting a little too emotional, but I am not sure if what I'm saying is understood. You can't be a soloist if you play Paganini's caprices with technical perfection, but no heart (dynamics, interpretation). And you can't be a soloist if you play Paganini while being totally into the music, but messing up the notes. You can't be a musician if you don't master technique and art. Right now, the best skaters in the world are Artists, because they put technique and heart together. This is how music, drawing, photography, cuisine, writing, any kind of Art is made. Denying that Figure Skating is a form of Art, is officially and literally making the sport take not one step back, but several kilometers back. 

 

This, of course, is my opinion and not absolute truth. 

 

It's fine to want all or nothing, your passion is indeed humbling to the likes of me but I just feel differently, since I've always wondered why SPs and FSes aren't given separate medals. Like skaters have to work their asses off just to just get that one medal as opposed to other sports like say, swimming or track or gymnastics (like if that were the case, Hanyu would've gotten two medals at Sochi), and people still have the gall to laugh at FS and calling it not a sport when everything else seems to garner multiple medals so much more simply, and are more popular to the general public to boot. I guess that's the root as to why I'm not as strongly opposed. And since the athletics, especially the more extreme ones, involved in figure skating and how well you do them seem to be quite deeply rooted in the kind of body you were born with (and I don't just mean body type) and not just how hard you train, I'm just not able to think of this as the worst move the ISU can possibly make.

 

Hanyu is a perfect example of someone who is gifted in all the ways necessary to become the kind of skater he is, from the physical right up to the mental, and was able to develop and use them wisely to come into his fullest potential. There could be more people like him out there but excelling in different fields because not everybody happens to grow up having a skating rink built right next door to their homes and then develop a passion for it after following their older siblings to lessons followed by a bunch of very unique but unfortunate circumstances. He's proof of the one time lightning struck the ice and was bottled...and how probable is it that another one will strike again (and even if it does, be bottled)?

 

So I wouldn't go so far as to say his footprint is being denied by this move. If anything, I think this cements it, because there will most likely not be another one like him and the sport as it is will be a lot less for it when he leaves it so I see it as them changing the whole thing massively to cover the loss. They said Kim forced the ISU to change the scoring for elements but how many skaters, in their wake, contributed directly to galvanize both the revising of scores and quite possibly the changing of yet another system? The CoP has gotten its best in Chan, Hanyu and Fernandez. Perhaps it's time to try something new to see what kind of skater will manifest from it? I imagine someone like Hanyu would still thrive in it, since he basically beat the game in its hardest mode. This would be like New Game+ mode for him, or someone like him. But until someone who rises above and beyond this new system the way Hanyu did with the CoP appears, others will still get a chance to take home something and be remembered for what they're good at, even if it isn't as the GOAT.

 

And I think that's not such a bad thing to be happening.

 

I get that I'm most probably alone in this train of thought, even if I'm someone who became interested in the sport purely because of what Hanyu is doing, and that's fine.  I'm not trying to convince anybody because there's no right or wrong to this, I feel. Just different perspectives on the issue.

[Murieleirum]

2 minutes ago, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

So I wouldn't go so far as to say his footprint is being denied by this move. If anything, I think this cements it, because there will most likely not be another one like him and the sport as it is will be a lot less for it when he leaves it so I see it as them changing the whole thing massively to cover the loss.

 

As much as I know Yuzuru is unique, I don't want to believe no one will ever come close to his skating. I believe in him, but we joke when we say that he comes from another Planet. He is a HUMAN, and the more children will be inspired by his skating, the more some of them will try to be like him, and I am sure many have the potential to be as great as him. He is not a prophet, he is not a God, he is someone who can and will inspire the future generations, either in figure skating or other fields. I do agree with you that separating SP and FS is not absurd, since a whole other bunch of competitions in Olympics only differ in time/duration variations. But separating technical skating and artistic skating is something else entirely.