Figure Skating Pet Peeves

[skatinginbc]

Do you really, really dislike an aspect of skating (e.g., a required element, a scoring criterion, a certain style of costume, a particular skating style, etc.) that you wish to express without having to face challenge or contention from other posters?

Let me start with mine:

I dislike the fact that CoP did not penalize visible errors severe enough.
I dislike skating in a feathery costume, literally poultry in motion.
And I dislike “Plushenko style” (hence Gachinski’s skating as well) beyond logical explanations. Every time I see it, I feel the urge of switching the TV channel or fast-forwarding the tapes. By all standards, Plushenko and Gachinski are excellent skaters. For some reasons unbeknown even to myself, I just don’t like the way they skate.

(Note: If you dislike a skater as a person, sorry, it is not the thread for you. It is not a “free space” for one to express his/her hatred toward another. Golden Skate Guidelines shall be observed at all time).

 

[Mathman]

Here's my take on your list.

1. To me, errors that are so obvious that every casual viewer can see them ought to receive higher penalties than errors that are discernible only to experts -- or to errors that are so subtle that panels of experts disagree on as to whether an error occurred or not.

2. "Poultry in motion." Can't agree 100%, though, because of Camille.

http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/04/01/swan.jpg

3. No, no, a thousand times no! What the sport needs is a gang of new Plushenkos. (Or even the old one back. )

 

[Spun Silver]

1 Swing music like Take 5, Sing Sing Sing, and many others. Only Jeremy Abbott's suspenders program can suspend my dislike.

2. Playing with suspenders. This goes to show what a masterpiece Jeremy's program is if I can like it in spite of the dang suspenders.

3. Long stretches of mandatory one-footed footwork done by every skater regardless of whether they do it well or the choreography is of any interest.

4. Cutesy shoulder- and hip-wiggling by female skaters. It happens a lot with very young skaters but alas, they don't stop when they're in seniors. To me it's cheap-looking. I mean, really - what does it have to do with skating?

5. Costumes for girls that don't cover the butt and costumes for ice dancers that have long raggedy skirts that look like they're going to get tangled up in a blade. (Kostner and Bobrova, I'm talking to you!)

6. Most exhibition skates and the props, hats, and pop songs they use. I usually skip galas and SOI-type shows. I miss some wonderful show numbers, but I also miss a lot of ____ like the great Shen and Zhao doing a clown routine. There's always Youtube for the occasional wonderful one that I hear about on GS.

 

[skatinginbc]

Long stretches of mandatory one-footed footwork done by every skater regardless of whether they do it well or the choreography is of any interest. Costumes for girls that don't cover the butt. Most exhibition skates and the props, hats, and pop songs they use.

Agreed, especially the props. I hate props.

 

[mmcdermott]

• Weird spin positions, particularly in pairs. Like that one that Duhamel/Radford and I think Volosochar (excuse my spelling) and Trankov do where she's sort of in a sit position with her leg up towards her head. But neither of those ladies are particularly flexible so it looks really bad. I also hate that wilted camel position that only looked good on Yuna Kim.
  
  
• Come to think of it, I also hate it when skaters attempt to show off flexibility they don't have.
  
  
• Exhibition programs to Josh Groban or similar type music :disapp:. Does everyone have to use that? With pretty white costumes and all? At the GPF exhibition there were, like, four of them in a row. Yuzuru Hanyu's Justin Bieber routine was a relief after that.

 

[ivy]

My biggest pet peeve is when skaters stop and pose and maybe flail their arms around - I just want them to SKATE!

Others are:

Overly complicated spins
Animal prints in costumes
Lack of turn out in spirals and layback
Skaters I don't like winning

 

[Poodlepal]

Women's skating competitions where every song is ultra-slow, ultra-soft and the "emotion" conveyed is skating slow with a tortured face.

Women who are supposedly powerful jumpers who skate to this ultra soft, slow music and look weak and pallid even as they do triple axels. (Kimmie and late Mao--I'm looking at you).

Agree 100% with Math and Skating about the visible errors. A fall is so obvious it ruins the "perfect" look of a program, whereas a flutz or underrotation does not. Yet the judges seem more worried about the latter than the former. (Yes, I know, you have to reward people for trying the harder jumps, but since they all basically do the same ones at this level, what reward is there, really?)

How did Virtue and Moir get their highest short program score for the season when they fell, but did not fall at their previous competition
Why did that program with the fall score higher than their previous one? The scoring system in general is odd and seems to inflate as the year goes on.

Also, I don't like it when pairs have unmatched costumes. I also don't like dresses that are impossible in real life, like when the top is illusion fabric, but it wouldn't stay up if it were really skin.

Oh-ETA. I don't like skating movies that are obviously unrealistic for anyone who watches tv. Like in Ice Castles remake, she did a program with only double axels. Like 8 of them. And everyone was raving over her. She'd only get like 5 points if she did that in real life.

 

[Mathman]

1 Swing music like Take 5..."

How times and perceptions change! Take Five was avant guard cool jazz in 1959, Dave Brubeck would turn over in his grave if her heard Take fFve described as swing.

Take Five is in the unusual 5/4 meter. But the best song on that album (note to the young -- an "album" was what people had before they could download music from ITunes to their smart phones. It was similar to a "forty-five," but bigger. ) -- the best song on that album was Rondo a la Turk in 9/8 time. :yes:

When looking this up on Wikipedia just now I read that saxophonist Paul desmond, the composer, donated the rights to Take Five to the Red Cross. They have received $100,000,000 in royalties from it.

Edited to add: Wait a minute! I Have Dave Brubeck in his grave prematurely. He is still very much alive at age 91.

 

[macy]

THE RUSSIAN LAYBACK
music that everyone uses
boring skaters
spins with too many positions
bad choreography
very slow, badly positioned spins
costumes that go up their butt (kostner...)
popping
dick button

 

[tulosai]

Hideous death spirals that seem to have emerged under COP
Equally hideous pairs lifts in pairs skating that also seem to have emerged under COP (I'm okay with the dance lifts, just not the pairs ones)
The elimination of the spiral sequence in the ladies short program that often leads to even longer, ever more uninspired footwork
As others have mentioned, the 'Russian' layback where there is no turn out
Costumes that are overly bright, or just plain ugly

 

[demarinis5]

Oh boy where do I start. I reserve the right to supplement my post.

Quad jumps- I am sick of hearing about the quad, the value of the quad, who did the quad, was it rotated, was it two footed, blah, blah.

The name "Russian Babies" describing the young talented young female Russian skaters. They are not babies they are young well trained athletes.
I know it is meant as an endearment, but it drives me nuts.

Any criticism of my man Dai, cuz he is the best in the world, just had to throw that in here.

 

[Spun Silver]

Mathman, you have a gift for the humorous correction. I would think you're a fantastic lecturer... but about numbers?? :think:

Anyway - I stand humbled. Whatever Dave Brubeck's genre of jazz is, I don't care for it. But what an incredible story about the composer. I wonder if he ever tried to take it back. : ) Never mind, I see in Wikip that he donated the proceeds after his death.

Too many ITAs in this thread already to list!

I will add: jump combos (ETA: or solo jumps) that are done solely to rack up points. Seeing a man do a 3-2 or (ETA: solo) 2A is almost never interesting and seeing almost anyone squeeze out a 3-2-2 (each jump smaller than the last) is usually dreary.

 

[Olympia]

I'm with you about Daisuke!

Skatinginbc, I'm still giggling over "poultry in motion." That is one inspired pun. I'm going to be able to crack up an entire room of co-workers with that one.

Gee, I like "Take 5." And didn't Torvill and Dean skate to it? But then, I like a lot of "done to death" music, if the right person or teams use it. However, I'm with all of you on the slow, schmaltzy love ballads.

I'm also with Spun Silver, who mentioned ladies skating in a long or full skirt. My heart's in my mouth the whole time for fear they trip over it.

Of the peeves mentioned here, my greatest one is the one about judges' not deducting for obvious mistakes while deducting for things that only experts can understand.

Poodlepal, your point about skating movies: as with dance movies, I wish there were a way to make a movie where the person could actually skate, so the filmmakers didn't have to do arty tricks to convey skating--showing stunt doubles silhouetted against the spotlight, showing people from the ankles down, that sort of thing. With all the skaters who have studied acting, I wish someone could think of a way to film a skating story using a skater, the way The Turning Point was able to find leading actors who were the real thing. (One of them being Baryshnikov. Talk about hitting the jackpot!)

And one more--I am peeved that no one shows very much skating on TV in the U.S. I miss it.

 

[skateluvr]

Horrible lay backs
broken leg camel spins
women who flex their feet and don't point their toes
men with feathers, sequins and illusion fabric. they should just choose 1 max.

 

[CoyoteChris]

Lots of what you folks said, although I think no one can beat "poultry in motion".
Treatment of fans as afterthoughts at events.
Coaches peering over the boards like they were Tiger Woods going after a blond.
Skaters giving their wedding rings to other skaters who are not their wives while still skating with your wife.
(You know who you are)
Female dance skaters becoming enraged at their partners after the original dance.
Wives of skaters who are also the coaches of said skaters giving their husbands the cold shoulder after the mens short.
Japanese coaches beating their students bloody with their own skate protectors or making them walk barefoot around the
rink for an hour.
Rude fans
Fans laughing at female skaters who have costume failures
The fact that MK and Rudy for some reason cant both be elected to the Hall of Fame at once.

 

[jenaj]

Overuse of Biellmanns/catchfoots and I-spins. I think these moves should get negative points (just kidding!).

 

[Buttercup]

Cutouts in ice dance costumes.

Muzakked versions of great music.

Catchfoot anything, especially catchfoot lift positions - at least we appear to have gotten rid of the hideousness that was the catchfoot death spiral.

Skaters and choreographers who think they will be the ones to come up with the definitive version of *insert warhorse name here*. Buy a new CD already.

GFB exhibition programs, and Adele gala numbers. There are artists other than Adele.

Upper body movement in step sequences. A little goes along way, now show us whether you have good posture instead.

The 3-2-2 jump combination.

Skaters getting high P&E and SS marks for sloppy programs. A program can - in theory - have good IN, CH and TR even with mistakes, but I don't care if your edges are nice; if you didn't display them to advantage in your program, try again next time.

References to PCS as "Artistry". It's half tech stuff.

The greatest CoP evil of all: the Zamboni step sequence. You know, the one in which the skater(s), in order to get all the bullet points in, perform a step sequence that emulates the Zamboni and covers all the ice, instead of going in a straight line as it's supposed to. And at least the Zamboni does not meander back and forth, or attempt upper body movement.

 

[skatinginbc]

Japanese coaches beating their students bloody with their own skate protectors or making them walk barefoot around the rink for an hour.

That sounds barbaric. Is that something that actually happened before or some kind of joke I failed to get?

the Zamboni step sequence.[/B] You know, the one in which the skater(s), in order to get all the bullet points in, perform a step sequence that emulates the Zamboni and covers all the ice, instead of going in a straight line as it's supposed to. And at least the Zamboni does not meander back and forth, or attempt upper body movement.

Now that you mentioned it, I cannot think of any elite skater doing a straight line without meandering back and forth. Your post gave me a new idea: Besides the traditional step sequence patterns (i.e., straight line, circular, and serpentine), we should simply have a new pattern called Zamboni, covering the whole ice from one end to the other with an irregular, meandering pattern. But I wonder what its base mark should be--higher than straight-line?

 

[seniorita]

Pet peeve: rude fans of a skater for other skaters. Especially in a competition. And the phrase: it is figure skating, it is not figure jumping. Old and boring. And when I read She has artistry, my mind goes to She has one kilo of oranges. Maybe cause artistry in greek is a very abstract word to "have" it.

And I laughed with Buttercup's zamboni sequences

Olympia,I watched the Red Shoes just the past weekend, I remember you had proposed to me some time ago and I finally saw it and loved it

 

[iluvtodd]

butt spins (ITA with Peter Carruthers on this one)

over emphasis on the quad to the exclusion of everything else.

skaters being held up on reputation (and not being judged for the actual current performance)

"shredded" costumes

I want the music/composer to always be identified in a skating broadcast!