General Skating Chat

[SSS]

11 hours ago, meoima said:

Yuzuru often has very good turns, his edge is sharp and clear. However, he does everything VERY FAST. So it makes it harder to judge him as we have to follow his crazy speed. I would say Zhenia is slower and easier to see how she does things. 

Yuzuru at his best he maintain great speed across the program. Zhenia is not the fastest lady, even though she also maintains ok speed across the program. One thing for sure, she definitely is not as fast as Yuzuru. 

I would say Zhenia has better basic skating skills than some male skaters whom I cost so much time to identify their turns and steps. 

Just curious, does Patrick skate faster than Yuzu in competitions now?

[meoima]

11 minutes ago, SSS said:

Just curious, does Patrick skate faster than Yuzu in competitions now?

No, I would say the current Patrick is slower than Patrick at his peak (Olympic Sochi season). While Yuzuru is still approaching his peak. 

[SSS]

1 hour ago, meoima said:

No, I would say the current Patrick is slower than Patrick at his peak (Olympic Sochi season). While Yuzuru is still approaching his peak. 

are you saying Yuzu is approaching Patrick's peak or Yuzu's peak.

[katonice]

1 hour ago, Xen said:

This is where it pains me to say stuff about Shoma's jumps. Because I do not think he's a weak jumper (you really can't if you want to do quads).

In slow mo, there are times when his 4F appears right at 180, but then there are slow mo where his toe has pivoted beyond the 180 (closer to a 4, or 3 o'clock position). He almost never takes off from 90 degrees, it's almost always a minimum of 150 pivot on his right toe  and then press up for the 4F. Think he stretches 180 degrees allowed to the max.

 

Speaking of which, for the ones who did attend Helsinki, in real time who had greater height, Nate or Shoma? 

Oh, now I see. I was looking mainly at his free leg when counting the pre-rotation.

But now that I look at his picking foot in the slo-mo, he seems to pick at 90deg (reference of 0 deg being the direction he is facing when starting the jump) with the side of his blade, and by the time he takes off (i.e., his picking foot leaving the ice) he is almost beyond (in some footage already beyond) the 180deg point.

 

1 hour ago, CupidsBow said:

 

The TP can only apply a downgrade for pre-rotation if the jump is clearly forward facing on take off when reviewed at regular speed. Slow-mo reveals issues but if it's not a clear forward-facing take off at full speed, the PR isn't going to enter the scoring, though it should be dragging his GOE down.

TBH though I think when the TP can see there is a questionable amount of pre-rotation and a landing that looks even slightly UR,  they should be giving a < at least.

 

I wasn't at Helsinki but at 4CC is is pretty clear that Shoma lacks height on his jumps in comparison to the other top men. That's why he struggles so much with his landings.

 

And yeah, part of the problem is the lack of slo-mo. Though I wonder about that too since the slo-mos shown on TV often include the entire jump, not just the landing. I would think it would be easy to get the same slo-mo footage that the rest of us get to see while watching TV coverage.

[katonice]

I just went to the other forum, and gosh I am  so much.

Now I know where all that hullaballoo about jump entries came from...

 

 

ETA: I can't believe this is the post that turned me into R&J level lol!

[CupidsBow]

12 hours ago, katonice said:

I just went to the other forum, and gosh I am  so much.

Now I know where all that hullaballoo about jump entries came from...

 

[edited by yuzuangel: don't call out other members please ]

People in general have been ridiculous in response to this topic/that video blowing it out of proportion and going too far with criticism of a jump attempt/overall jump technique either with their over-zealousness and glee at having an excuse to lay into Shoma, or by conflating his technique with his or his coaching teams character/integrity. The other forum is far worse than here (apparently the conversation has strayed accusing Yuzuru of pre-rotating/under rotating his quads, which honestly just makes me laugh), but here hasn't been much better since some users seem to think this is a safe space to dump their vitriol for certain skaters.

 

I hope we can all keep our critiques in the realm of being realistic, constructive, and free of baseless accusations.

 

I mean, it's August. The season hasn't even started yet.

[katonice]

I do agree that some of the posts here make it seem like Shoma is a scheming, evil person in the way that their arguments have been worded.

But I also agree that it is not a bad thing to speculate and critique on strategy. People should be able to discuss this without other people instantly labeling them as "bashers" or "haters," (which does seem to happen more often than not in the other forum LOL).

 

I guess we should all just keep ourselves in check. I myself am guilty of often being on the brink of saying not-so-nice things about other skaters not named Yuzu lol. I know we all have strong feelings for this sport and for the skaters we love. We all just have to keep reminding ourselves to be respectful of skaters (and of everyone involved in the sport really)... in that way discussions can be more constructive and inclusive of everyone's opinions 

[Xen]

On 8/18/2017 at 0:31 AM, CupidsBow said:

 

[edited by yuzuangel: don't call out other members please ]

People in general have been ridiculous in response to this topic/that video blowing it out of proportion and going too far with criticism of a jump attempt/overall jump technique either with their over-zealousness and glee at having an excuse to lay into Shoma, or by conflating his technique with his or his coaching teams character/integrity. The other forum is far worse than here (apparently the conversation has strayed accusing Yuzuru of pre-rotating/under rotating his quads, which honestly just makes me laugh), but here hasn't been much better since some users seem to think this is a safe space to dump their vitriol for certain skaters.

 

I hope we can all keep our critiques in the realm of being realistic, constructive, and free of baseless accusations.

 

I mean, it's August. The season hasn't even started yet.

It's Olys that's why.... Did they seriously start on the Yuzu over-rotating/underrotating quads thing? How do they know the criticism is coming only from Yuzu fans? 

 

The part that drives me nuts is somehow, somewhere the idea of "fan" has equated to loving everything about a person blindly, to the degree of take no criticism. This feels like a misunderstanding of epic proportions, and when we discuss technique, I would hope we all stay neutral. And I will never like Yuzu's A-spin, and cringe when I see that butt up in the air position (do I need to hand in my badge?).

[CupidsBow]

26 minutes ago, Xen said:

It's Olys that's why.... Did they seriously start on the Yuzu over-rotating/underrotating quads thing? How do they know the criticism is coming only from Yuzu fans? 

 

The part that drives me nuts is somehow, somewhere the idea of "fan" has equated to loving everything about a person blindly, to the degree of take no criticism. This feels like a misunderstanding of epic proportions, and when we discuss technique, I would hope we all stay neutral. And I will never like Yuzu's A-spin, and cringe when I see that butt up in the air position (do I need to hand in my badge?).

 

Apparently~ But I'm not sure where, I just saw someone laughing about it on twitter.

 

I know many Shoma fans. None of them would claim that Shoma doesn't need to improve his jumps, but some people go too far. I like Shoma, I enjoy his skating, I am still aware he has issues with his jumps that need to be fixed. Many Shoma fans are aware his jumps are not great but also know that improvement takes time. I do feel though that this got blew out proportion because the conversation did not really need to go any further than 'yikes that was a really bad attempt at a 4lz, he shouldn't add it'. It was a training video. If he had made that same attempt in a competition and the judges had not given it an edge call or addressed the UR then it would make more sense to discuss his technique and the issues with judging to this level (though hopefully without the nastiness/the nasty suggestions about Shoma) but it wasn't. The problem is not discussing technique but there is nothing constructive, some of the comments are outrageous either in hyperbole or in accusations of intent/cheating, but also that it's an over-reaction to a short clip from a training session. But welcome to Olympic season! Anyone who is a rival to others' faves will get attacked. Yuzu is getting it for his music choices, Shoma is getting it for his jumps, Nathan will probably get it when the season starts for his PCS again...

 

I actually can't think of anything specific I dislike about Yuzuru's skating  

[meoima]

Oh I pretty much like what is happening in that forum right now. When most of Yuzuru's fans are not there, they still get a heap of negative comments towards the cheated jumps from various people who ARE NOT Yuzuru's fans. I am so glad they can not blame Yuzuru's fans anymore, cause we are not there. It's just natural, when someone does not do it as hard as the other people and get same or even higher rewards, of course the rest will get angry over time. 

Now even Jackie Wong, the one who is pretty much lenient with the tech, starts calling out the UR and wrong edge, and even though not directly calling out the bad technique, he does try to imply that purer technique should be appreciated more, even though we clearly know why he said what he said.

Are all of them Yuzuru's fans? Lol no... It's good to not getting involved in the mess. 

[SparkleSalad]

17 minutes ago, Xen said:

It's Olys that's why.... Did they seriously start on the Yuzu over-rotating/underrotating quads thing? How do they know the criticism is coming only from Yuzu fans? 

 

The part that drives me nuts is somehow, somewhere the idea of "fan" has equated to loving everything about a person blindly, to the degree of take no criticism. This feels like a misunderstanding of epic proportions, and when we discuss technique, I would hope we all stay neutral. And I will never like Yuzu's A-spin, and cringe when I see that butt up in the air position (do I need to hand in my badge?).

 

Honestly, I'm shocked that The Butt Spin has a name that isn't The Butt Spin. I would prefer it to not exist, myself. Hopefully he loses it as he works on "even more spin positions," bless his centrifugal heart.

Very eloquently put: "Gosh, I wish he would just not... That is... not... good."

 

[meoima]

Butt spin is the spin that I dislike the most, and it pains me so much when I see ladies do it lol... It's the spin I think should be banned. But of course I am not the one who set the rules.

[SparkleSalad]

4 minutes ago, meoima said:

Butt spin is the spin that I dislike the most, and it pains me so much when I see ladies do it lol... It's the spin I think should be banned. But of course I am not the one who set the rules.

 

Perhaps you should be. I will wait for the day and in the meanwhile dream pleasant buttless dreams.

[obscurite]

6 minutes ago, SparkleSalad said:

 

Honestly, I'm shocked that The Butt Spin has a name that isn't The Butt Spin. I would prefer it to not exist, myself. Hopefully he loses it as he works on "even more spin positions," bless his centrifugal heart.

Very eloquently put: "Gosh, I wish he would just not... That is... not... good."

 

 

That's more eloquently put than what I could ever come up with! Because oh jeez. Oh,,, jeez. that position. Although oddly enough, I think it fits really well into his Chopin sp?? Something about the dissonance of the ending octaves of the Ballade matches the butt spin... somehow..... 

[katonice]

I am not particularly bothered by the A-spin myself lol.

Come to think of it, is there anyone who people would say had a nice A-spin?