General Skating Chat

[xeyra]

13 hours ago, LadyLou said:

Little question out of curiosity about Nathan: has he ever jumped a quad out of steps (or with some entry worth a GOE bullet)? I think he still had no step before his solo 4T in the SP at Nats so I'm wondering if he can do them but usually needs to save energy/wants more stability/just has no time while improvising layouts, or he has just never tried that in competition (and correct me if he did have a step that I've missed)

 

 

I remember his FS last season had a spreadeagle entry into his 4T2T2Lo. With all the changes his layout suffered, though, not sure if that wasn't lost along the way. 

[EisElle]

58 minutes ago, xeyra said:

 

I remember his FS last season had a spreadeagle entry into his 4T2T2Lo. With all the changes his layout suffered, though, not sure if that wasn't lost along the way. 

Thank you. You're right, in his Nats FS he had that SE-combo and he also had a (kind of) SE sandwich 3A. In gpf 2016 there was no SE entry inyo 4T tho. He still did SE-4T in 4cc fs (tho he couldn't attach anything) but it was gone by Worlds  and back again for WTT  (on a side note, imo his spread eagles are better now)

[xeyra]

11 minutes ago, LadyLou said:

Thank you. You're right, in his Nats FS he had that SE-combo and he also had a (kind of) SE sandwich 3A. In gpf 2016 there was no SE entry inyo 4T tho. He still did SE-4T in 4cc fs (tho he couldn't attach anything) but it was gone by Worlds  and back again for WTT  (on a side note, imo his spread eagles are better now)

 

I think at Worlds he dropped the entry because he had to change his layout on the fly to compensate for the initial 4Lz fall by doing two 4Ts instead of just one. 

[EisElle]

Actually, he did 2 4T at 4CC, too, but yes, he was changing layout on the fly. At Worlds as 3rd jumping pass  he did a second 4F, while in 4cc and Nats he did the SE-4T. From the programs I've seen he has only done the spread eagle on his first 4T, which usually was the third jump, and never tried on the second 4T, which iirc both in Nats and 4cc was his 4th jump...but in Wtt his 3rd jump was a 3A and his first 4T was the SE-combo in the second half so maybe he can do that on the spot too (or maybe he had the time to plan his entry as he did the spins and steps)... and now I'm getting confused with all those quads and different layouts 

 

 

RE: the crossovers/one foot skating video

I like those graphics at the end of the video! (also love that they pop up after Seimei ) 

to who did the video and

thank you for your work in counting everything @fireovertheice

Omg, Yuzuru and Patrick should really increase the number of quality crossovers! (jk )

More seriously, amazing that Yuzuru is among the best in each cathegory while doing one of the hardest layouts, too  

And Boyang deserves more appreciation from fs commentators.

[Xen]

2 hours ago, LadyLou said:

Actually, he did 2 4T at 4CC, too, but yes, he was changing layout on the fly. At Worlds as 3rd jumping pass  he did a second 4F, while in 4cc and Nats he did the SE-4T. From the programs I've seen he has only done the spread eagle on his first 4T, which usually was the third jump, and never tried on the second 4T, which iirc both in Nats and 4cc was his 4th jump...but in Wtt his 3rd jump was a 3A and his first 4T was the SE-combo in the second half so maybe he can do that on the spot too (or maybe he had the time to plan his entry as he did the spins and steps)... and now I'm getting confused with all those quads and different layouts 

 

 

RE: the crossovers/one foot skating video

I like those graphics at the end of the video! (also love that they pop up after Seimei ) 

to who did the video and

thank you for your work in counting everything @fireovertheice

Omg, Yuzuru and Patrick should really increase the number of quality crossovers! (jk )

More seriously, amazing that Yuzuru is among the best in each cathegory while doing one of the hardest layouts, too  

And Boyang deserves more appreciation from fs commentators.

Well it depends on what you mean by quality crossovers (I know its sarcasm here). 

If the criteria of quality cross over is that it is a step that should help a skater achieve faster speed efficiently/effectively, then there are 2 criteria you can look at. One is the amount of ice covered per cross over. Two the amount of steps done out of those crossovers. If this is the criteria you judge by, then you could count how many transitions steps were done following each crossover, and the duration of gliding done after or between crossovers (this may indirectly go towards the ice coverage criteria). My gut feeling is that Pchiddy, Yuzu and Javi would probably win. But the counting and timing would be insane, so don't do it for the sake of your sanity!

 

On the other hand, the data already kind of corresponds to their speed when you see them live. That Patrick and Yuzu seem capable of gaining speed out of simple movements and fully utilize their ankle/knee/edges. The rest being somewhat in between and Shoma and Nate might be the slowest? 

 

Edit: hmm, Yuzu and Patrick could possibly cheat the system a bit for the quality crossovers count, since they can gain speed from one foot turns.Alright, they should stop screwing up my perfect hypo testing scenarios.

 

 

 

 

[fireovertheice]

9 hours ago, LadyLou said:

 

 

 

And Boyang deserves more appreciation from fs commentators.

 

At least they - and sometimes the judges - could recognize that he tries to do it in the right way, i.e. not cheating or too much underotating jumps, not to too much avoiding difficult transitions and masking the fact with the upper body movements or just only long SE and so forth, all tendencies that we can see in the younger guns who do difficult /with more than two quads layout IMO. Still, if you compare him with the most part of the others top men, surely he has to work more on the knees and edges, posture and arms movements.

 

Then other two cents about some of the other skaters based on the last comps and news.

 

I finally watched also Chen FS at Nat: what a disappointment! Seeing the scores and knowing it was a cleanish skate, I expected something more: no, to be honest, much more. But it's almost unwachtable to me: very slow, and heavy on the most part of the jumps, losing every connection with the music accents (the part between the first set of spins and the beginning of the StSq, and also the end of the StSq are unbereable to me, maybe because I know very well the timing and the music accents of the program for my counts ....) and also with lesser kind of interpretation than usual. I hope that they will not make him win Oly with a perfomance like that, please  .

 

Patrick Chan is about to compete at Nats and declared the he wil mantain only a quad for SP and two quads for LP, all of them 4Ts. He seems now aiming more to the team gold than to the individual one. https://bevsmithwrites.wordpress.com/2018/01/06/patrick-chan-pulling-himself-to-the-finish/

What do you think about it?

[Yatagarasu]

35 minutes ago, fireovertheice said:

Patrick Chan is about to compete at Nats and declared the he wil mantain only a quad for SP and two quads for LP, all of them 4Ts. He seems now aiming more to the team gold than to the individual one. https://bevsmithwrites.wordpress.com/2018/01/06/patrick-chan-pulling-himself-to-the-finish/

What do you think about it?

 

Oh smart call. I think, even with the change, he is pretty much at the end of his rope. I think he wants to go out with two clean programs that still retain a certain degree of difficulty. His Toes are stable and this really increases his chance of bringing his career slowly to an end with two great Olympic showings. With his PCS it will still be enough for a top 10 if not higher if the quadsters start splatting and indeed, it should give Canada a good score in the men. It does increase the Russian chances though, as Kolyada is doing quite well and Samarin may be able to put down a decent short.

[kaeryth]

Everybody needs to listen to Uncle Ted

 

Quote

Ice Time queried Barton about the present judging system (that was adopted in 2004) and the recent talk that too much focus is on the athletic elements (jumps) and not enough on artistry (program components).

 

“You are not going to tell me that the performances, even of the 13- and 14-year-olds girls, the dance with the beautiful pieces of music, and even the vocals isn’t emotional, isn’t connected. These kids are more emotionally connected. This is not a tweak on anybody in the past, it’s just the evolution of mankind.”

 

Quote

Barton believes that to move skating forward on the global stage it can’t rely solely on TV anymore.

“When you leave it to television only, not to be critical of television, Japanese TV does it in Japan,” he said. “It’s the same in America or Canada, but who looks after Kuwait, Chile, Argentina, Mexico and all those other countries?"

 

[Sombreuil]

14 minutes ago, kaeryth said:

Everybody needs to listen to Uncle Ted

 

 

They really do - he's so sensible and down to earth - no posturing or 'in my day' comments and no nationalistic crap.  He just wants everyone everywhere to have the chance to see his sport- and he's dead right about the TV.

[GreatLakesGal]

Regarding Vincent and his issues, my belief is that his primary problem is that he suffers from mediocre coaching. You see problems with all of Tom Z's skaters, including Mirai. It's a shame because I do rather like him; unlike Nathen, I think there might actually be an artist inside him struggling to emerge. But he desperately needs a better coaching team. Unfortunately the US seems to be seriously lacking in that department.

 

 

[getsurenka]

6 hours ago, kaeryth said:

Everybody needs to listen to Uncle Ted

 

 

 

 

Some of my favorites:

Quote

 “We would not have the sport where it is today without this judging system.”

 

Quote

“Dick Button was an amazing athlete. I have his old footage,” Barton commented. “He was a remarkable jumper for his day. He jumped so high. He was straighter and rotating faster. He doesn’t know what he could have done because there were no standards at the time. He was the standard.

“If somebody else was there doing a quad, he probably would have done it easily. Because he was strong and fit and smart and had desire. Those guys were probably way more capable than they thought because human beings today are doing it. The standard is just higher.

 

Quote

“I never want to be an older person in my life criticizing the current day because it was not my day. The past was great. The past was the past.”

 

Quote

“I think what we do can inspire kids, can help educate kids, can help kids be patient,” Barton stated. “Not critiquing them as a TV commentator would do. Giving them the type of support they require.

“We try to bring a little humanity to what we do. As much as we celebrate the sport and are engaged in it, these are kids and young adults and it is difficult what they do. It is important to be honest but fair.

 

[EisElle]

RE: Ted Barton

I really like this bit

Quote

“I think what we do can inspire kids, can help educate kids, can help kids be patient,” Barton stated. “Not critiquing them as a TV commentator would do. Giving them the type of support they require.

“We try to bring a little humanity to what we do. As much as we celebrate the sport and are engaged in it, these are kids and young adults and it is difficult what they do. It is important to be honest but fair.

Ted's commentary of gpf ladies was so good, you could hear the awe in his voice.

And he knows how to point out flaws without being mean and without disregarding skaters' efforts (sometimes I feel I should take a leaf out from his book too) and how to praise what needs to be praised without ending into generic or undeserved gushing.

I like what he says on Russia and Japan. Also, good to see that Ted Barton has nice words for Tutberidze, who is sometimes portrayed as some evil witch who enjoys breaking young girls and commits the deadly sin of exploiting the rules (as if trying to meet the requirements in the rules were worse than completely disregarding them and still get undue credit)

 

Quote

“One of the things I would love to do is a documentary on some of the training centers and teams of the world,” Barton commented. “Certainly come here to Japan. Go to Russia, Canada and the United States. To study how coaches bring up kids. How they bring up the person, the child person into the adult person. The child athlete into the adult athlete. Tell the stories, because they are remarkable stories.”

yes please (starting from TCC and Eteri, Hamada and Mai&Kaori's team...maybe not Wakaba's, I'm still mulling some questionable layout choices...tho they trained Wakaba to who she is now, and that's great. I'd like to know more about Marie France who trains half of the top 6 ID teams, and about Marina Zueva...)

 

Quote

“In a lot of the world I don’t think it is understood how difficult this sport is,” Barton said. “I do not believe that the general public understands the physicality and psychology of this sport in comparison to other sports.

“There is no helmet. There are no other people on the ice. There’s you by yourself and every mistake is seen by all people. Put anybody under pressure like that and it is huge.”

Sometimes I find Japanese documentaries a bit over-dramatized, but they are really good in showing how difficult is the sport and how much committment it requires, how hard it is for the athletes to go out there and show all the hard

work of years and years in those few minutes.

I would also love to watch documentaries explaining e.g. the physics of Figure Skating, too, like they can explain how some animals can survive in the desert or how Egyptians built the Pyramids. Wouldn't it be amazing?

I'd like the same for other sports, too. I'd gladly take that instead of those redundant and pointless soccer debates I get almost daily on all my TV channels

I could even watch a documentary talking about how soccer players have to train and which skills they need to hone. Maybe I could finally appreciate that sport. On a side note, I've been forced to watch watched a soccer match for the first itme in ages during Christmas holidays and I've noticed that following FS trained me to pay more attention to the feet of the players I could appreciate footwork better. I felt very smug)

 

Quote

“I’m very pleased with the judging system, although there are things that need to be constantly worked out,” Barton said. “We would not have the sport where it is today without this judging system.”

Some people would say they liked this sport better under the 6.0

tbh most of the issues we have today are more related to how the rules are applied. When rules don't work they can be fixed (even if slowly). They made some allowances for when jumps combo go wrong and get an invalid element. They have increased the deduction for multiple falls to answer the complaints about programs with lots of falls scoring high, and if the upcoming new range of GOE means that a fall will deducts e.g. 5 points from a quad BV, it will be harder to complain that bad quads still get too many points.

But then you see falls on jumps that don't even get -3 from judges and other scores that disregard what's written (and even bolded) in the rulebook and no amount of rewriting rules or even erasing IJS can fix that.
 

Quote

“The kids are younger. They are learning more and there are more tools for them to see, to witness and learn from,” Barton noted. “I never want to be an older person in my life criticizing the current day because it was not my day. The past was great. The past was the past.”

(tbh that's true outside of skating too)

I wonder if it contributes to Ted's perspective that he's been following the upcoming ranks of young skaters for years. He literally watches them grow and develop, he can glimpse the potential and in events like jr ladies gpf he can also see part of that potential already fullfilled, already shining.

For my part, I find that watching jr or senior non-top skaters is somewhat humbling, it makes easier for me to appreciate the difficulty and skaters' efforts (because, let's say it, someone like Yuzu makes it look all too easy. Only knowing how hard the things he does are one can realize how damn good he is)

 

I find the part on Dick Button very sensible, too:

Quote

“If somebody else was there doing a quad, he probably would have done it easily. Because he was strong and fit and smart and had desire. Those guys were probably way more capable than they thought because human beings today are doing it. The standard is just higher.

“I think these people are hitting it. We are seeing some spectacularly beautiful and emotional performances that are athletically at the highest level.”

As in any sport (and in science and other fields) you build on the past, take inspiration from what's around you and move forward.

Back in those days, triples and 2A where the athletic boundary they were pushing and Dick Button was a leader of technical progress.

Today the boundary has become quads and more quads and (hopefully) better quads. The equipment has changed too. It could change more. We know more about how our body works and about injuries and conditioning, about which training can have better results. Everything led to this era and the skaters themselves are brilliant and talented but they don't just happen in a void. Yuzuru was pushed by Plushenko, then by Patrick, then Boyang and the other youngsters came and now they are all pushing him and he himself is pushing, too, and hopefully inspiring a new generation with his ideal of pursuing the tech and blending it with the art

(tho some people seem hellbent on wanting to destroy that ideal, which makes me really sad, because it would mean to disregard what Yuzuru has been doing all these years and also destroying what makes FS such a unique sport)

 

 

[singcarcom]

On 1/8/2018 at 8:16 AM, LadyLou said:

Omg, Yuzuru and Patrick should really increase the number of quality crossovers! (jk )

 

The reason why they're doing so little crossovers compared to the other men must mean that their crossovers are of low quality! Did you see how beautiful the crossover of *insert younger skater's name* is? Yuzu and Patrick got tons to learn if they want their crossovers to achieve such beauty!

 

 

On 1/8/2018 at 1:43 PM, Yatagarasu said:

 

Oh smart call. I think, even with the change, he is pretty much at the end of his rope. I think he wants to go out with two clean programs that still retain a certain degree of difficulty. His Toes are stable and this really increases his chance of bringing his career slowly to an end with two great Olympic showings. With his PCS it will still be enough for a top 10 if not higher if the quadsters start splatting and indeed, it should give Canada a good score in the men. It does increase the Russian chances though, as Kolyada is doing quite well and Samarin may be able to put down a decent short.

 

Yes, I want to see Patrick goes out with 2 clean programs too. I felt that the push for more quads has strained him both mentally and physically. I'm glad he switched coaching teams and strategy so that his love for figure skating was not eroded away. Right now, I wish for Patrick to retire with 2 clean programs that he can be proud of, that he can enjoy skating to. 

[Sombreuil]

6 hours ago, LadyLou said:

 

 

Sometimes I find Japanese documentaries a bit over-dramatized, but they are really good in showing how difficult is the sport and how much committment it requires, how hard it is for the athletes to go out there and show all the hard

work of years and years in those few minutes.

I would also love to watch documentaries explaining e.g. the physics of Figure Skating, too, like they can explain how some animals can survive in the desert or how Egyptians built the Pyramids. Wouldn't it be amazing?

 

 

 

I too would love to see something like this.  I've seen two documentaries about Uchimura,  one about how he altered his rings technique in order to make it onto the 2010 Olympic team (got silver in the AA with an injured ankle- sound familiar?) and the second an amazing one where they analysed his technique using things like motion capture, MRI scans and putting him in a jet fighter simulator and comparing his reactions with those of other gymnasts.  I don't understand Japanese but they used lots of diagrams and slo motion highlighted sequences so you got the gist.   I've always hoped they would do the same for Yuzuru as he is as much of an outlier in skating as Uchimura is in gymnastics, but I suppose it would be hard to do when he doesn't train in Japan.  It was also a bit over dramatic in places but very interesting.

[WinForPooh]

Sorry to go OT, but could somebody (if you have time) tell me why jump sequences have the BV they do? From what I understand, a 3A in a sequence would get a lower BV but surely it's more difficult to do than as a solo jump. I can't think of any reasons why anybody would want to work a sequence instead of a combination into choreo considering there's a limit on the number of jumping passes and combos, but still, I don't understand why that lowering of BV is necessary. I thought maybe because  the step/change of edge would make it easier than a combo, and so it shouldn't get the same points as a combo, but then I don't understand why solo jumps get the same points.