General Skating Chat

[meoima]

On 9/16/2017 at 9:15 PM, xeyra said:

 

I feel like that'll be the layout he will do at ACI. To test 5 quads. If clean, though, I expect the 4Lz to enter the game after.

Well, with Nathan and Boyang and plenty of other men including 2 Russian men will do 4lz this season. And all of them have correct lutz edge so it's super easy to call.  

Why Zhenia and Osmond and Daleman don't get their flutz called? Because they're medal contenders from big federations and they all benefit from flutz not get called.

However most men from big federations have correct lutz edge, so there's a high chance they will not let  a big fish go.

 

[Lyyli]

5 hours ago, Murieleirum said:

So, his PCS in SP shouldn't have been higher than 40, imo, and in FS shouldn't have been higher than 88. In total, that sums up to 305 total score, which is an excellent score for two excellent, but not outstanding and not revolutionary, performances. 

 

Thanks a lot for taking time for such a thorough reply! So you would also give him over 300. Not possible for me to read each comment here but from those that I read I started to wonder how low people would rank his performances at Lombardia. It looks like not low at all. I noticed the cross-overs in FS and preparations for the quads but they did not spoil my impression of the performance. As it is still early he can surely do better overall but to me the performances and his skating were already outstanding. My personal grading scale is apparently lower because I don´t really expect programs to be revolutionary. Didn´t  notice the big problem with the interpretation of the music, on the contrary I see him as a musical skater.  All this is naturally subjective and only my opinions. And it is finally up to the judges to make their decisions and now I got really curious about his scores of music interpretation so I will keep an eye on them during the season.

[Murieleirum]

4 minutes ago, Lyyli said:

So you would also give him over 300. Not possible for me to read each comment here but from those that I read I started to wonder how low people would rank his performances at Lombardia. It looks like not low at all.

 

How could we give him low scores? c: He did great. Just, not as great as judges  felt when they gave out all those 9.50. Contrary to what some people think about this site (although I'm not sure who these people are and I don't wanna know), no one bashes no skaters (some rarely did) and we aren't delusional. We have our critics and we give out praises when they're due.  

12 minutes ago, Lyyli said:

Didn´t  notice the big problem with the interpretation of the music, on the contrary I see him as a musical skater.  All this is naturally subjective and only my opinions.

 

It's true, musical interpretation is quite subjective. It happens all the time and it will always be like this. I think it really depends on what you take for reference. If you take most senior skaters who are competitive now for reference, then yes, Shoma is better than most of them. He is in the top 6 for his interpretation as well, after all. 

 

Although I have to say, today we were discussing in the Italian skating group on facebook, and Max Ambesi said that, comparing Honda's Turandot to Shoma's Turandot, for him they were 10 to 0 for Marin.  All I can suggest you to do, if you are curious, is watch different skaters skating to Turandot (you will find hundreds easily LOL) and trying to see the personal interpretation of each of them. Maybe, Shoma will still remain in the top 3 for you, but it's always interesting and educational to watch other skaters skating to the same music! 

[EisElle]

If I may add my 2 cents, yesterday I watched Shoma's FS from Lombardia first, then I went back to watch his 2015 GPF FS to different music cut from Turandot and then the Lombardia FS again.

I did that comparison because I remembered his "old" Turandot was the 2nd program I'd seen of Shoma and his musicality had indeed impressed me (cantilever being the definite highligh), and I did saw a difference in his interpretation/performance, meaning I found his old Turandot better.

Not expecting of course that Shoma could be as good at his new cut and layout as at that one he'd skated for half a season, but I think for a start the old music cut was better at using a certain sharpness in Shoma's arm movements that while well fitting to pieces as Loco I don't quite like for other musics, but still worked quite well for 2015-2016 Turandot imho. I think they have also put a longer section of Nessun Dorma this year that kind of douses the dramatic crescendo, and I also feel that the signature movement of the choreo sequence (the cantilever) has been hammered a lot. I actually played them side by side (old Turandot  had it on the strong male solo "Vincerò" and was very impressive, the new one is on chorus and IMO is feels a bit understated) and while Shoma held them for the same duration (which surprised me because the old Turandot one felt like going on forever), in his 2015 GPF he had much much more speed so he covered much more ice, it was a beauty. I think in Loco the cantilever better highlighted the music, too (or was better highlighted by the music, if you prefer), so for now I'm not fond at all of that section of the program from before cantilever to end.

Overall I enjoyed more the SP than the FS. In Winter the spins (the last two in particular) are very well fitted, while I think in his FS they looked kind of bland (for his standard).

 

Of course Shoma still deserved high scores for his FS. If you do your tech well or with only minor (or not that glaring) mistakes and the BV is huge there's only so much you can lose in GOEs, but as for PCS the scores were too generous, maybe not much skating skills, (two-footed skaing aside, he does skate with deep edges). IMHO way too generous TR and IN, but I'd say PE too if we compare with what he's showed last year.

Now, I certainly expect a big improvement in IN and PE, not so much in transitions, even less if Shoma will go for an even harder layout.

 

Whops I ended writing another too long post sorry

 

[Eclair]

4 hours ago, Murieleirum said:

 

Max Ambesi said that, comparing Honda's Turandot to Shoma's Turandot, for him they were 10 to 0 for Marin.  All I can suggest you to do, if you are curious, is watch different skaters skating to Turandot (you will find hundreds easily LOL) and trying to see the personal interpretation of each of them. 

I'd like to add that for me, Yuna's turandot is the most beautiful and perfect one 😍It's a true masterpiece

[liv]

I have to say that for me, the original Shoma Turandot  was better, performance wise. It is early days, of course, but that is my first impression. 

[Mastyaeva]

17 часов назад, SSS сказал:

let's say Yuzu was happy to see both team Canada and Mom

I was too nervous to memorize the faces, but as it happened in at arm's length from me, I'm pretty sure Tracy was pointing to a Japanese who was sitting near the end of the line.

 

17 часов назад, kamotejojo сказал:

Yeah, it can be heard in the Japanese broadcast (around 11:35 of the 14mins16secs version). But I've noticed Yuzu talks more with Tessa&Scott now.

If your eyes won't hurt, I've posted a pic below. Look for the purple circle. 

  Скрыть контент

Credit: TWITTER

 

Yes, exactly. So, it was his mother? Shame on me. Well, let's say he blinded me and I was not able to recognize her. 

[Mastyaeva]

16 часов назад, CupidsBow сказал:

let's say Yuzu was happy to see both team Canada and Mom

[Murieleirum]

So tonight I decided to watch 2013 TEB with Max and Angelo's commentary. I wanted to know what was Yuzu's Olympic journey from the start, and it sure was mindblowing if we compare how things are going right now. 

I'll just mention a couple of things: at Skate Canada, Yuzu's PCS for his Free Skate were below 80. Since Yuzu still had stamina problems, but a very ambitious program, he dragged himself from one element to the other for the last two minutes of Free Program. At the time, somehow, when a program was empty, it was recognized and harshly judged. Or maybe it's because Yuzu was never favoured, by no one, in all his carreer. 

At TEB, his program became richer with Transitions, and Yuzu acquired some stamina. Still needed to work on the quads though, which he failed both. With a perfect 2/3 of a free program, he gained the surprising amount of 81 PCS.

Oh, and let's not forget: his Technical score was still one of the highest, as high as Patrick's or Takahashi. So, with one of the most difficult technical programs ever, and with one of the highest technical scores ever, yes, Yuzuru had PCS that didn't go above 8.50. 

 

So, yeah, just to put things in perspective. People like Johnny Weir can apparently forget that PCS and TCS are two different scores, but just a brief look at four years ago will show that the reality was way different for other skaters, as young as those of today, with a tech content as revolutionary as those of today. 

[liv]

Ah, so that is where his mom and the other skaters were seated. I always wondered where in the audience Tracy was pointing to, and where mothers/family might sit.  When yuzu is being congratulated by Brian, you can see Tracy looking up behind to the audience and giving a celebratory kind of gesture. I always thought that was meant for his mom, so she obviously knew where Mama was sitting and could show him.  I remember seeing the J broadcast and you could clearly hear Tracy saying, as she pointed, "and your mum is sitting right up there."  You can see Dylan and Gabby, from tcc, right there too... so I am sure if he saw anyone other than his mom, he would have seen them. 

[katonice]

Interesting stats

 

[singcarcom]

16 hours ago, Murieleirum said:

 

Yuzuru has a clearly shorter set up, so that's worth more GOE, but I really liked Nathan's 4Lo as well. So Yuzu's is faster and more unpredictable, but both jumps are big and perfectly landed. 

 

 

Could I give you my opinion as well? c: 

Yes, Shoma did wonderful in both SP and FS, so it's fair that he went over 300. He deserved high points; a bit less that what he got, especially in PCS, in my opinion. With tech like that, you can only really argue a little point here and there for GOE, and his jumps sometimes don't get as low GOE as they should. So, to me, with SP and FS combined, I wouldn't have taken out more that 5 points total. But I don't consider myself a tech expert at all, and I'm not talking with protocols in my hand (although I've read them). 

What bugs me the most is the PCS. You say he has taken step forward in skating skills and 'other PCS areas'. I would like you to pinpoint the precise steps he took, cause I don't see them. You said it yourself the 'empty spots are there because of the quads', so we can take Transitions out of the PCS he improved. Then you have Skating Skills. From the opinion of people who know FS better than me, I take it he is still doing lots of crossovers, so lots of two-footed skating. His edges are good, but not better than last year. Which is normal, if you ask me, since we're still in September. I would expect improvements to come more slowly, but since it's Olympic season everyone is impatient. Think about Jason Brown or Patrick Chan, the attention that they give to every single step they take on the ice, every movement has its meaning, every edge is highlighted. Jason Brown took less total PCS than Shoma. 

Then you have composition and performance, and since Shoma went clean, I guess he does deserves high scores here. Still, since the programs are new, and those empty spots during which he does crossovers or stares into the void are there, I would say it's right to give him room for improvement. To me, a 9.50 doesn't give room for improvement. (Reminds me of high school. My italian teacher was so good, I loved all his lessons and studied hard. My first test I got 7.5, and I got almost upset. It was the beginning of the year. That same year, in June, I managed to get a 10 on my test. Improvement takes time. Excellence takes time.)

Finally, you have Interpretation of music, and this is where I'm harsh. Shoma's interpretation of both classical pieces is the same. For Vivaldi, and for Turandot. This should already explain everything without the need to add more. If a musician played Vivaldi the same way he played Turandot, he would get fired. Shoma is intense and focused, but his intensity is void of concrete understanding of the pieces he is skating to. Which is normal, since, again, we are in September. Vivaldi is not easy to interpret. At least, in the SP, he tried to give shape to something. In the FS, I didn't even see an attempt. He was too concentrated on quads and you could say interpretation wasn't there at all. 

So, his PCS in SP shouldn't have been higher than 40, imo, and in FS shouldn't have been higher than 88. In total, that sums up to 305 total score, which is an excellent score for two excellent, but not outstanding and not revolutionary, performances. 

I couldn't agree more! I feel that Jason definitely should have outscored him at PCS by quite a bit!  Although Shoma has always aimed to surpass Yuzu one day, but I'm not sure if he'll be satisfied if the only way he could do that is if judges give him GOEs and PCS like candies. I'm sure Shoma is able to see the gap between his and Yuzu's skating, right? And even if he does win Yuzu at a major competition (like Nathan did at 4CC last season), it will still be a very long way before he can reach Yuzu's levels.

 

 

11 hours ago, Murieleirum said:

 

How could we give him low scores? c: He did great. Just, not as great as judges  felt when they gave out all those 9.50. Contrary to what some people think about this site (although I'm not sure who these people are and I don't wanna know), no one bashes no skaters (some rarely did) and we aren't delusional. We have our critics and we give out praises when they're due.  

 

  We may get  more easily because we root for Yuzu, but we give credit where it's due. They're all great skaters, just not as great as Yuzu in our opinions. When we complain about overscoring, it's not like we're saying they should get 30-40 points less.

 

1 hour ago, katonice said:

Interesting stats

 

Boyang's Lz is the best so far! Not sure if it'll stay after more skaters, including Yuzu, debut this jump, but I would say its unlikely. 

[Lyyli]

14 hours ago, Murieleirum said:

Although I have to say, today we were discussing in the Italian skating group on facebook, and Max Ambesi said that, comparing Honda's Turandot to Shoma's Turandot, for him they were 10 to 0 for Marin.  All I can suggest you to do, if you are curious, is watch different skaters skating to Turandot (you will find hundreds easily LOL) and trying to see the personal interpretation of each of them. Maybe, Shoma will still remain in the top 3 for you, but it's always interesting and educational to watch other skaters skating to the same music! 

 

In fact I have been following FS from the 70´s so I have seen lots of different Turandots during these decades. Watched also Marin´s Turandot but personally I like Shoma´s version a lot more.

[org]

 

 

[Murieleirum]

20 minutes ago, org said:

FInlandia2013 PCS87.02

WC2013 PCS80.00

PCSGPF2012 PCS85.16

It seems to be proportionate to performance.

 

Mmh not only performance but also coreography and skating skills and, overall, they were balanced PCS. Strict if you compare them to PCS today, or if you compare them to Patrick's PCS or Takahashi's PCS at the time (it was said more times that Yuzu's SS were already as good as theirs, but since he was young, he was held back), but balanced. Had Yuzu been showerd in 90's PCS since he was 18, I don't know if his skating would have resented it. Maybe not. But Shoma said it himself - getting this kind of scores in September makes you worried. They are not helping him at all.