Mao Asada news

[Morning Glory]

another link of Mao's new Chopin EX.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xl0pxc_jazzyyyyy_animals

The Ice 2011 full ver. was aired yesterday, so we will have other videos on youtube soon.

 

[roma]

I'm hoping we see her at all this season. She already is skipping the GP, I think it is a possibility that she will take the whole year off and prepare for Sochi.

I thought that was Miki?

Mao will not be in Japan Open, though.

 

[Okami]

I'm hoping we see her at all this season. She already is skipping the GP, I think it is a possibility that she will take the whole year off and prepare for Sochi.

I think you confused Mao with Miki (who is indeed skipping this season). Mao gave no indication that she wants to skip the GP, on the contrary, all of the news suggested that she is seriously preparing for the new season (reworking her LP, preparing a new SP and 2 exhibitions, returning to her old Weider support team, watching her health).

In fact, just a few days ago Mao posted on her blog that she started practicing 'for the competition' (i.e. switched into the on-season mode ).

I love the new Chopin EX, it's better than I expected. There was a great energy to the program, and the spiral sequence was exquisite. This could basically be an instruction video on how to maintain an excellent posture and keep your toes pointed in figure skating. I loved the steps into 2A and the fact that Mao started doing 3S in exhibitions.
It looks like they skipped a part of the program, though.

 

[Vash01]

I love Mao's new exhibition programs! She looks so much more matured. With the new depth of emotion and expresions, and the apparently solid jumps, she is definitely the best package ever now. I'm rooting for Mao to win every single competitions for years to come! Go for OGM Mao! I'm a fan now.

I have always been a Mao fan. I love the new exhibition, but unlike other posters/fans, I never disliked any of her programs. She performed poorly at times, particularly last season, but there was no denying the beauty of her skating- the ethereal quality, the lines, the posture. Right now she is the one I am rooting for, for the 2014 OGM.

 

[Vash01]

another link of Mao's new Chopin EX.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xl0pxc_jazzyyyyy_animals

The Ice 2011 full ver. was aired yesterday, so we will have other videos on youtube soon.

I don't like that white costume with long sleeves and big skirt on her. It hides her lines. I loved the other costume in the other ex link.

 

[jatale]

I've been watching a number of Mao's past competitive and exhibition skates recently, she is an amazing skater! I'm going to ask a stupid question, but I've read that Mao has been reworking her jumps recently. Why? Her jumps are lovely and her 3A is just a delight to behold.

 

[Vash01]

I've been watching a number of Mao's past competitive and exhibition skates recently, she is an amazing skater! I'm going to ask a stupid question, but I've read that Mao has been reworking her jumps recently. Why? Her jumps are lovely and her 3A is just a delight to behold.

The judges were slamming her jumps under the COP rules. They were being too nitpicky (JMO) about her jumps and not giving her enough credit for her lovely qualities. The 3A does not get the huge credit it used to in the 6.0 system, which was also more forgiving toward underrotated jumps (as we saw Sarah Hughes win the OGM with ur jumps). Mao is a fighter and she decided to correct the flaws in her jump technique so that she can do different kinds of jumps more consistently and do them well. She started reworking her jumps last year and it cost her a lot in terms of wins and medals, but apparently she is persisting with this undertaking. I admire her for it. She is already a 2-time world champion and an Olympic silver medallist, but she wants to get better, and hopefully win the OGM in 2014.

 

[genki]

I Know. Judges have been so hard on second triple loop too and literally killed it. Even a most talented jumper like Ando stopped trying it.

Rules have changed so that guys can try a lot of quads,but it did not do too much for female skaters like Mao who always try so hard to improve.
Mao's 3A should be regarded with much higher respect, because it is so difficult for female to achieve.

Anyway, I like what I saw in Mao this season very much. Jumps are sharper and skating is smoother. Expression is also improved.
Hope she will dominate till Sochi.

 

[Olympia]

My admiration for Mao is boundless. It's not every day (or maybe ever) that you get someone with those jumps who is also among the most graceful of skaters. Gorgeous carriage, arms, soft knees--and she regularly does triple axels in the bargain. I often think the judges are looking a gift horse in the mouth, as the expression goes, when they slam her for small details as they do. She and YuNa together are like a golden age of women's skating all by themselves. No one else (except maybe Miki on really, really good days) can match them. You can love one or both of them, but both are to be admired for what they have brought to skating. (I of course love both and can't believe our good luck as skating fans that we get to see such riches.) I don't know what it is the judges want from a skater that they think Mao isn't giving them, but I wish they'd figure out a way to make the rules encourage gutsy skaters like her with unparalleled gifts. It's not as if she bulldozes her way clumsily around a rink and then spits out a jump or two, either. She skates an integrated, artistically compelling program. She doesn't coast on her talent, either. She works like a dog and is even trying to remodel her jumps to please the powers that be. I hope this year she gets all the rewards she so richly deserves.

 

[Vash01]

It irks me that the judges have reduced Mao to just an above average skater, by marking her very harshly. She does not get rewarded for her grace, lines, posture, spins. Instead she often gets her 3A downgraded to a 2A, which is a HUGE downgrade. The ladies quit doing the 3R as their second jump of a jump combination and the judges pretty much stopped the progress of the skaters and of the sport.

Until the 2010 Olympics it seemed like they did not want any competition against Yu na Kim. I like Yu na a lot, but it was totally unnecessary to slam Mao to push Yu na ahead. Yu na has her strong points as Mao has hers. Even some fans just focus on what Mao cannot do or does not do well. Last year they were writing her off and she was the reigning world champion! She did struggle with her jumps, but she should not have been put into a position to have to relearn all her jumps. I admire her perseverance, but I am afraid the judges are just not going to let her get to the top. At the 2010 worlds, they actually placed Yu na with a fall higher than Mao in the LP. Mao won only because Yu na made major mistakes in the SP and could not catch up. It's great to have a rivalry between two great skaters, but it needs to be a fair rivalry.

 

[dlgpffps]

Instead she often gets her 3A downgraded to a 2A, which is a HUGE downgrade.

A 3A< is now worth as much as a decent lutz.

The ladies quit doing the 3R as their second jump of a jump combination and the judges pretty much stopped the progress of the skaters and of the sport.

Adelina, Hae Jin Kim and probably some other Russian wunderkids.

It irks me that the judges have reduced Mao to just an above average skater, by marking her very harshly... I admire her perseverance, but I am afraid the judges are just not going to let her get to the top.

Mao has been "reduced" to just an "above average skater" on protocol because her jumps and consistency have gone awry. You can't expect her to be a viable competitor when she can't get herself together. Mao Asada lost to herself and her own strategies. Talent-wise, she and Yu-na are on equal plane, but Yu-na is the far superior student of CoP. Mao put all her eggs in the 3A basket, let her other skills deteriorate as an expense and bombed skate after skate leading up to the Olympics (except 4CC), failing to even make the GPF. Yu-na Kim, on the other hand, was riding a golden tide, kept herself together the entire journey and maximized her points by adhering to CoP logic. Take Miki Ando as another example. She is arguably the lesser skater of the two, but still beat Mao in every competition in 10-11 because she was CoP-smart. Miki Ando let go of her quad and 3Lz-3Lo, compensated with improved spins and overall quality and instead focused on delivering consistent and clean programs. Mao could take a few tips. No one's forcing her to take the losing strategy.

 

[cosmos]

It irks me that the judges have reduced Mao to just an above average skater, by marking her very harshly. She does not get rewarded for her grace, lines, posture, spins. Instead she often gets her 3A downgraded to a 2A, which is a HUGE downgrade. The ladies quit doing the 3R as their second jump of a jump combination and the judges pretty much stopped the progress of the skaters and of the sport.

Until the 2010 Olympics it seemed like they did not want any competition against Yu na Kim. I like Yu na a lot, but it was totally unnecessary to slam Mao to push Yu na ahead. Yu na has her strong points as Mao has hers. Even some fans just focus on what Mao cannot do or does not do well. Last year they were writing her off and she was the reigning world champion! She did struggle with her jumps, but she should not have been put into a position to have to relearn all her jumps. I admire her perseverance, but I am afraid the judges are just not going to let her get to the top. At the 2010 worlds, they actually placed Yu na with a fall higher than Mao in the LP. Mao won only because Yu na made major mistakes in the SP and could not catch up. It's great to have a rivalry between two great skaters, but it needs to be a fair rivalry.

Are you saying judges were intentionally harsher to Mao than to others just to push YuNa to win? What a non-sense? I don't understand why you think so. Do you have any reasonable ground for your claim?

 

[jatale]

I'm just an amateur viewer, so I often don't see the minor faults of technical skating elements like a skating judge is trained to do. More obvious faults like double footed jump landings etc. I do often spot, but under-rotated jumps are details I probably often miss. If Mao does suffer from some of those problems, then she is certainly correct in trying to fix them. I've heard skating commentators mentioning that a number of skaters suffer especially from the under-rotation problem, so this is a common problem. I think most skating judges take their job seriously and try to be as objective as they can be when judging competitions. But judges are just ordinary people like you and I, and we all make mistakes sometimes, that is just the way it is. I do think that accusations of judging bias against certain skaters is more in the mind of frustrated fans than anything else.

 

[miki88]

I'm just an amateur viewer, so I often don't see the minor faults of technical skating elements like a skating judge is trained to do. More obvious faults like double footed jump landings etc. I do often spot, but under-rotated jumps are details I probably often miss. If Mao does suffer from some of those problems, then she is certainly correct in trying to fix them. I've heard skating commentators mentioning that a number of skaters suffer especially from the under-rotation problem, so this is a common problem. I think most skating judges take their job seriously and try to be as objective as they can be when judging competitions. But judges are just ordinary people like you and I, and we all make mistakes sometimes, that is just the way it is. I do think that accusations of judging bias against certain skaters is more in the mind of frustrated fans than anything else.

Wow. This seems so deja vu. Didn't you ask the same question about Mao's jumps before, which then sparked a debate, and thereafter, you provided a similar opinion defending the system and the judges?

 

[Okami]

I've been watching a number of Mao's past competitive and exhibition skates recently, she is an amazing skater! I'm going to ask a stupid question, but I've read that Mao has been reworking her jumps recently. Why? Her jumps are lovely and her 3A is just a delight to behold.

Her jumps became much better now, but she had severe issues with her jumping technique which sadly were ignored in her junior days, and they influenced her consistency when her body matured.

The most noticeable was "hammer toe" (borrowing te explanation from Wikipedia: hammer toe occurs when the free leg rises unusually high, typically near (in some cases above) hip height, before descending to strike the ice. This can make the jump easier to rotate but sacrifices height and some control).
As a young skater, Mao depended on the quick body rotation to fully rotate her jumps. When she started growing, it became more difficult for her to rotate her flip and Lutz jumps, and the "hammer toe" started becoming more and more pronounced:
http://jelly.ionic.pl/upload/3f-take-off.jpg
Because lifting the free leg to that position takes time and influences the skater's balance, the whole jump is affected. Instead of using the momentum gained during the mohawk turn, after executing the turn Mao used to slow down, trace a curve with the inside edge while lifting her free leg and getting arms in the position, and only then slam the free leg down and execute the take-off.
http://jelly.ionic.pl/upload/mao_2010oly_3f.gif
Note that executing the curve caused Mao to pick in such a way that her assisting leg was no longer aligned with the "edge" one; but instead placed inside the curve so that her entire body was tilted to the inside. This body tilt made it extremely difficult for her to maintain an outside edge while attempting 3Lz and, in 09-10 season, caused her flips to become unstable (as shown in the gif above).

Now here's a gif from her practice session:
http://jelly.ionic.pl/upload/mao_3f_nag_01_nor.gif
Note that she takes effort not to drop her upper body / lift the free leg too high and takes off immediately after the mohawk turn.

Another thing Mao's team is working on is to have more speed going into the jumps, to improve ice coverage and to avoid underrotations. This obviously will take more time, and so far is the most obvious while looking at her 2A:
http://jelly.ionic.pl/upload/mao4cc2a.gif
It used to be more "up-and-down", now it covers much more ice.

Then there's 3S, which she now includes in her Chopin's Waltz to improve consistency. According to the reports, she nailed every attempt this summer.

Mao has been "reduced" to just an "above average skater" on protocol because her jumps and consistency have gone awry. You can't expect her to be a viable competitor when she can't get herself together. Mao Asada lost to herself and her own strategies. Talent-wise, she and Yu-na are on equal plane, but Yu-na is the far superior student of CoP.

I've got to agree with dlgpffps. Even aside from the jumps, Mao's programs simply weren't CoP-smart. If you read the PCS guidelines, you'll notice that CoP awards programs with variations in mood and tempo, good ice coverage, a choreo that interprets the changes in the music, various linking elements and transitions. Mao's programs were set to gloomy, monotonous music with little change in tempo and mood, the transitions were scarce (aside from lovely reverse spreadeagle into 2A and nice steps into 3T in the LP) and all the interesting choreography was reserved for the long step sequences. To add insult to injury, the programs (and the costumes )didn't even take advantage of Mao's greatest strenghts: her beautiful posture, elegant positions and arm movements. On the contrary, Mao mentioned that she found it extremely difficult to skate to Masquerade and Bells, because of the fast, monotonous tempo and no space to breathe. As TAT said, she was supposed to "Overcome" the music.

YuNa's programs, OTOH, were extremely CoP-smart and suited her style and strenghts. She didn't have to "overcome" the music; the music carried her.

I don't think the judges were bent on holding Mao down - they gave her equal or higher scores for spins, spirals and step sequences.

Mao put all her eggs in the 3A basket, let her other skills deteriorate

I don't think it's fair to accuse Mao of depending on 3A too much. Mao herself always wanted to have a full set of clean triples. A part of her difference of opinions with Arutunian was the 3Lz dispute - Mao wanted to fix it ASAP and even started to work on it on her own, Rafael believed it wasn't fair to introduce the flutz deduction in the first place.
TAT went to the other extreme - she believed that Mao is an incredible jumping talent and will be able to execute upper-tier jumps even with her old technique. To give TAT credit, she brought back Mao's 3S and improved her edges. But otherwise she concentrated on the upper tier jumps and combos (3A-3T, 3F-3T, 3L-3L, 3L-3L-2L 3F-3L-2L, 'Tano jumps...) without fixing the hammer toe first. Some of these combos didn't even make sense CoP-wise - why waste time practicing 3L-3L, if the planned repeated jumps were 3A and 3F? And 3Lz from that time was wonky, to say the least - while, technically, it took off the outside edge, the body position on the take-off was rather unconventional:
mao_lutz_2009_sp.gif

And then Mao hit a minor growth spurt. The hammer toe-ish jumps went AWOL - 3Lz was a goner and 3F became unstable. There was an interesting documentary aired after the Olympics which showed clips from Mao's practices with TAT and alone before the Olympics and it really showed how much she struggled with 3F jump. I can't say how impressed I am that she managed to get it almost consistent in time for Olys and Worlds (the only mistake being the turn-out in the Olympic LP).

Now because 3F was shaky at best, she could no longer do 3F-3T or 3F-3L. Because of that, she could no longer do 3S - it was more CoP-efficient to do solo 3L. And 3A remained in her programs not so much because Mao ignored other jumps in favour of it (judging from the practice clips she actually spent the most time practicing the elusive 3F), but because next to 3L and 2A it was actually the most consistent jump for her.

Take Miki Ando as another example. She is arguably the lesser skater of the two, but still beat Mao in every competition in 10-11 because she was CoP-smart.

And here I must disagree a bit. I liked Miki's programs and spins in the 10-11 season, and I think it was smart of her to let go of 3F and 3-3s for one season - she gets injured so often that she could end up burning out way before Sochi if she plans to continue until them.
But such a strategy wouldn't work in the long term. It's enough to look at the results from 4CC LP. Miki was flawless (not one -GoE) - Mao had multiple mistakes (on 3Lz, 3F-2L-2L, 2A-3T and 3S) and their scores were barely 1,87 apart. It would be enugh for Mao to land 3S cleanly to win the LP (and Mao already proved this off-season that 3S became much more consistent for her).

In that particular season Mao wasn't aiming for immediate win - she just started the process of making her programs and elements CoP-efficient. And, as Mao herself said, it might take a season, or two, or three, but she is willing to sacrifice temporary results to achieve her final goal.

 

[Olympia]

Well, I concede that Mao could choose better music sometimes. That oppressive "Bells" rendition! You seem to be right that Miki and YuNa have done a better job of figuring out exactly what's needed to excel under the CoP. Thank goodness Mao hasn't given up. Like you, Okami, I'm tremendously impressed that she is willing to work so hard to fix whatever isn't right. It seems that Nobuo Sato is the right coach for the job, as far as I can tell. Isn't it exciting to look forward to this season for her new programs?

 

[kwanatic]

Mao is a remarkable talent. Her carriage, lines, presentation, flow, gracefulness and elegance is unmatched by any skater. The first thing that shocked me about Mao the first time I saw her was how she moved across the ice...she just floats. It's an amazing quality that I've never seen before.

Mao's jumps were a lot bigger and faster when she was younger, but she's had issues in the past few years. I do think her strategy under TAT doomed her and took her out of the running for gold in Vancouver...at least in the judges' eyes. What makes Yu-Na so remarkable is her balance between technical difficulty and artistic presentation; you get 3-3s and 2-3s in addition to intricate and COP-tailored choreography. Mao's 3As were incredible, but aside from that and the waaay too long footwork sequence, there was not much else in the program (I love that Mao is capable of such intricate footwork, but at times it seemed wasteful to me to put a full 50 seconds of footwork when you still get the same amount of points as someone who did 30 seconds of footwork :sheesh. TAT's strategy skewed more towards the big technical tricks...that was about it and that always upset me because Mao is so much more than a 3A.

The lack of balance really hurt her. Last season I was beyond thrilled to see her return with better balanced programs. I think her SP was another TAT misfire, but her LP was incredible. There's a good balance of difficulty and artistry. Right now, she's just working on getting all of her jumps back. Slowly but surely, she's finding her way.

I admire her for taking the time and putting the effort in to become a better skater. She has time and she definitely has the will to make it happen. The good thing is we know she can do it. She's capable of 3As and 3-3s; she's capable of delivering inspiring and captivating performances...Once she's able to successfully combine the jumps with the artistry, she'll be unstoppable. Just imagine: a program with a 3-3, a 3A and the to-die-for choreography and presentation of a program like Liebestraum...gives me chills! :thumbsup: The judges won't be able to ignore that...

 

[prettykeys]

Wow. This seems so deja vu. Didn't you ask the same question about Mao's jumps before, which then sparked a debate, and thereafter, you provided a similar opinion defending the system and the judges?

Where? I looked through jatale's posts and I don't see it.

Okami, thank you for your insights. I am annoyed to hear that Arutunian didn't support Mao's desire to fix her 3Lutz earlier. He is probably right in that it isn't a make-or-break issue (especially for a skater with such diverse talents as Mao) but when the athlete is on board and motivated, he really should have been behind her. Thank you also for not defending Bells - while I can sympathize with the desire to back one's favourite skater's choices/programs, that one just doesn't do it for me and kind of wasted her best features and talent (i.e. it wasn't her fault, there are no skaters I can think of who would have made that look good except maybe a powerful male skater.) I hope she tries another dark and dramatic program in the future at least one more time, but styled better; I bet she could do it wonderfully.

 

[mskater93]

I suspect that Rafa was against fixing the 3Lz entry during the competitive season (probably once she started getting tagged for it). I recall a comment he made that it isn't right to change your expectations in the middle. That's not the time to be working through technical issues...

 

[jatale]

Wow. This seems so deja vu. Didn't you ask the same question about Mao's jumps before, which then sparked a debate, and thereafter, you provided a similar opinion defending the system and the judges?

I don't remember ever asking that question before. The last thing I want is to spark any debates, I was honestly confused by why Mao was re-working her jumps because to my eyes her jumps look wonderful (as I said).