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- Aug 4, 2003
The thing about compaing ice coverage of spiralis is that some spirals are shortened to fit to the music more.
Sashas Edges
- Thread starter skatepixie
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- Jul 26, 2003
rtureck said:
Oh, wasn't it a joy
Not to mention the flowing three-turn into 3Loop at the beginning of her LP. And the number of turns she did during the first 2/3 of her LP, without losing speed.
registered said:Yes, I said that Sasha's spiral covered more ice, than Michelle's at COI 2003. Saw it with my own eyes, and had a very good seat too.
The length of time and distance covered depends on the music here. If you remember in MK's exhibition encore, she didn't cover the entire ice because her edge allowed her to make a tight circle around the ice.
rtureck said:
I didn't pay much attention on Junior Worlds. But from what I saw at the Worlds I agree that Carolina has better stroking and flow than on ice than Cupcake and Sasha.
Did Dick Button praise Carolina's edge 'clean smooth' edge? I don't believe every thing Dick and Pegy said. But if they praise some skaters not from US, I'll take it.
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- Joined
- Jul 11, 2003
Carolina did look good to me at DC Worlds. Her basics including excellent edges and flow are all there. Right now her Presentation if not developed but there is time before 2006 rolls around.
Elena does need a lot of work on Presentation, but she does have charm and one can not help but like her.
Joe
Elena does need a lot of work on Presentation, but she does have charm and one can not help but like her.
Joe
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2003
That's exactly, I believe, where the root of harping on Sasha's "shallow edges" lies.
If Sasha kept winning competition after competition, like she did in the beginning of the past season, no one would really pay much attention to the "problem" of her inside edge not being a bit deeper here, or her outside edge being less secure there.
But she makes mistakes, IMO just gets too nervous at the important competitions, maybe more now, than when she used to while being younger, because now she feels like she needs to prove something.
ITA. This is exactly the question that this thread was intended to raise. What Sasha does best she does better than anyone else in the world. Yet she manages to make just enough surprising errors to keep her from winning a slew of national championships and world medals. Why?
I think there are three categories of possible answers.
1. Bad luck (sampling error, LOL). Everybody makes mistakes. If it just so happens that your mistakes come at the wrong time (at Nationals instead of Skate Canada, for example) -- well, that's life.
Luck has a tendency to even out. Sasha's fine. Maybe this year it will be someone else's turn to make a mistake, while Sasha skates cleanly to the gold.
2. Nerves (as Registered says in the quote above). When you are hit with an attack of nerves, one of two things happens. Either your brain gets paralyzed and you suffer from lapses of concentration (Shizuka Arakawa said about one of her performances last year: "Actually, my mind being blank was a good thing. When I came to my senses the program was moving along."); or else that extra little packet of adrenalin kicks in and you overdo everything. I think this is what happens to Sasha sometimes. When it does, she tends to overrotate her jumps, to rush some of her elements, and maybe to attack the ice more vigorously than she is used to in footwork sequences and spins.
3. There really is some fault to find with her basic skating technique. Or, as Rgirl suggests, with her training methods. No matter how pretty your spiral looks you still have to keep your skates under you.
Tara's imperfect technique on her Lutz was sometimes blamed on her early training as a roller skater (the take-off is different for a roller skater because the skates are so heavy, so I have read). Sasha trained first as a gymnast -- hence her extraordinary flexibility for an athlete almost out of her teens now (children, of course, can do all sorts of impossible-looking bendy things). She turned to figure skating exclusively, as I understand, when she was 10. Another gymnast-turned-skater is Surya Bonaly, and we hear the same criticism about her edges as we do with Sasha. (Yet another is Jenny Kirk -- I don't know how the experts regard the quality of her edges, compared with that of other elite skaters' edges. But she can do a backflip, LOL.)
We would be better able to judge this if Sasha did clean compete run-throughs of her programs in practice. If she routinely did her whole program without error in practice, that would give support for #2 above (or maybe #1) and would tend to rule out #3.
Mathman
If Sasha kept winning competition after competition, like she did in the beginning of the past season, no one would really pay much attention to the "problem" of her inside edge not being a bit deeper here, or her outside edge being less secure there.
But she makes mistakes, IMO just gets too nervous at the important competitions, maybe more now, than when she used to while being younger, because now she feels like she needs to prove something.
ITA. This is exactly the question that this thread was intended to raise. What Sasha does best she does better than anyone else in the world. Yet she manages to make just enough surprising errors to keep her from winning a slew of national championships and world medals. Why?
I think there are three categories of possible answers.
1. Bad luck (sampling error, LOL). Everybody makes mistakes. If it just so happens that your mistakes come at the wrong time (at Nationals instead of Skate Canada, for example) -- well, that's life.
Luck has a tendency to even out. Sasha's fine. Maybe this year it will be someone else's turn to make a mistake, while Sasha skates cleanly to the gold.
2. Nerves (as Registered says in the quote above). When you are hit with an attack of nerves, one of two things happens. Either your brain gets paralyzed and you suffer from lapses of concentration (Shizuka Arakawa said about one of her performances last year: "Actually, my mind being blank was a good thing. When I came to my senses the program was moving along."); or else that extra little packet of adrenalin kicks in and you overdo everything. I think this is what happens to Sasha sometimes. When it does, she tends to overrotate her jumps, to rush some of her elements, and maybe to attack the ice more vigorously than she is used to in footwork sequences and spins.
3. There really is some fault to find with her basic skating technique. Or, as Rgirl suggests, with her training methods. No matter how pretty your spiral looks you still have to keep your skates under you.
Tara's imperfect technique on her Lutz was sometimes blamed on her early training as a roller skater (the take-off is different for a roller skater because the skates are so heavy, so I have read). Sasha trained first as a gymnast -- hence her extraordinary flexibility for an athlete almost out of her teens now (children, of course, can do all sorts of impossible-looking bendy things). She turned to figure skating exclusively, as I understand, when she was 10. Another gymnast-turned-skater is Surya Bonaly, and we hear the same criticism about her edges as we do with Sasha. (Yet another is Jenny Kirk -- I don't know how the experts regard the quality of her edges, compared with that of other elite skaters' edges. But she can do a backflip, LOL.)
We would be better able to judge this if Sasha did clean compete run-throughs of her programs in practice. If she routinely did her whole program without error in practice, that would give support for #2 above (or maybe #1) and would tend to rule out #3.
Mathman
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#227 so 275 is possible
I don't think Sasha is any more nervous currently compare to her younger days. I thought she has improved, remember her junior world 2000 and SA 2001 performance?
I am not aware that she actually had gymnast training. Bonaly's edges were terrible, Sasha is better. Jenny Kirk's edges are comparable to Sasha, but Jenny's overall basic skating skills is not as good as Sasha. Jenny however has the ABILITY to stare down pressure and raise her performance level a notch or two in real competition time. Now there are times that she falls etc, but secondary to technique problems. One example was nationals 2003, she had to skate after Kwan, and all week she was falling all over the place in practice, but did better in the competition.
Mathman : "attack of the nerves" ?
ataque de nervios
LOL, Mathman, ah.... be careful about throwing terms like that around
Some Sasha fans may accuse you of "bashing" Sasha by diagnosing her with symptoms of a disease
About Tara, I think her flutz technique is as good as many skaters who flutz, her double axel technique, i.e. the lack of step up is being criticzed because of her roller skating background, but she lands her axels just fine with good run out.
I don't think Sasha is any more nervous currently compare to her younger days. I thought she has improved, remember her junior world 2000 and SA 2001 performance?
I am not aware that she actually had gymnast training. Bonaly's edges were terrible, Sasha is better. Jenny Kirk's edges are comparable to Sasha, but Jenny's overall basic skating skills is not as good as Sasha. Jenny however has the ABILITY to stare down pressure and raise her performance level a notch or two in real competition time. Now there are times that she falls etc, but secondary to technique problems. One example was nationals 2003, she had to skate after Kwan, and all week she was falling all over the place in practice, but did better in the competition.
Mathman : "attack of the nerves" ?
ataque de nervios
LOL, Mathman, ah.... be careful about throwing terms like that around
Some Sasha fans may accuse you of "bashing" Sasha by diagnosing her with symptoms of a disease About Tara, I think her flutz technique is as good as many skaters who flutz, her double axel technique, i.e. the lack of step up is being criticzed because of her roller skating background, but she lands her axels just fine with good run out.
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Mathman said:RTureck, far from bashing Sasha, I hope you noticed that I was up at 3:38 AM trying to help her!
MM
I perfectly understand that you are not Sasha bashing. I said be careful some Sasha fan may accuse you.... Why were you up at 3:38 AM, heeding the call of Eos to rise and shine?
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- Joined
- Jun 21, 2003
RTureck, OK, give me a minute to catch my breath. That clea-r complexion caught me by surprise. You really have to stop posting these. My hard drive only has 2.0 gigabytes of memory (1.8 dedicated to my MK collection).
http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/corbon91/vwp?.dir=/'03+CA+Adventure+Park&.dnm=1664.jpg&.view=t
MM
http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/corbon91/vwp?.dir=/'03+CA+Adventure+Park&.dnm=1664.jpg&.view=t
MM
registered said:
If we're comparing Tara's edges to Michelle's (for whatever reason?) I think we need to remember that one of the reasons Tara beat Michelle was because she had the 3loop/3loop and also that triple sequence. Not only that, but she was consistent with both of those. So while she didn't have the great edges, and wasn't as polished as MK, she focused on her strenghts (her natural jumping ability) and was able to beat MK.
In comparing Sasha with Tara, there is no comparison. Sasha doesn't have the advantage of her technical prowess to focus on as an attempt to beat MK. (I think Sasha has landed only one 3/3 in competition in her career and some thought it was 2 footed) and Sasha doesn't have the consistency that Tara had.
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2003
Well, but Sasha has better edges, than Michelle. She does need to improve consistency of her routines, that are more difficult, than MK's.
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2003
Sasha's edges
I don't think Sasha has better edges than Michelle. I know that both skaters are capable of deep edges. But if you've seen closeups of Michelle's skate, it looks like a boat sailing through calm waters. Sasha somtimes has problems with edge control/security (different from depth). Sometimes she gets wobbly (watch her ankles) or loses control of the edge (the fall on her change of edge camel in her Worlds LP is an example).
I think Sasha focuses more on amplitude than edging. While some might criticize that, amplitude is definitely a high point of Sasha's skating. Why cover up your strengths?
Some mentioned that Carolina Kostner has better basic skating than Sasha? I would have to agree -- Carolina has beautiful crossovers, great speed with a Fumie-like sail effect and strong edges. However, if you move outside of the realm of "basic skating" and look at what goes on above the skate (which is mainly what the casual viewer notices) Sasha is heads and shoulders above Carolina. While Sasha's basic skating is at least decent (for a senior level skater) I found Carolina's choreography and overall presentation to be unpolished and soporific. Of course, last season she was only 16 so she may improve.
I don't think Sasha has better edges than Michelle. I know that both skaters are capable of deep edges. But if you've seen closeups of Michelle's skate, it looks like a boat sailing through calm waters. Sasha somtimes has problems with edge control/security (different from depth). Sometimes she gets wobbly (watch her ankles) or loses control of the edge (the fall on her change of edge camel in her Worlds LP is an example).
I think Sasha focuses more on amplitude than edging. While some might criticize that, amplitude is definitely a high point of Sasha's skating. Why cover up your strengths?
Some mentioned that Carolina Kostner has better basic skating than Sasha? I would have to agree -- Carolina has beautiful crossovers, great speed with a Fumie-like sail effect and strong edges. However, if you move outside of the realm of "basic skating" and look at what goes on above the skate (which is mainly what the casual viewer notices) Sasha is heads and shoulders above Carolina. While Sasha's basic skating is at least decent (for a senior level skater) I found Carolina's choreography and overall presentation to be unpolished and soporific. Of course, last season she was only 16 so she may improve.
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- Joined
- Aug 17, 2003
mzheng said:
In such case, why was Carolina falling so much at Wolds? She was just praised by many for her wonderful edge control and power stroking...
Sorry, this "blame it all on edges" theory just doesn't hold water.
Mathman said:I hope you noticed that I was up at 3:38 AM trying to help her!
MM
Mathman, Sasha does not need your help at all. She has a fan here who turns every discussion that fails to elevate Sasha's edges and skating at goddess level with "Sasha, Sasha. Sasha, she is just better than any skater out there." "Sasha is better than the Olympic gold medalists- Sarah, and Tara" "Sasha is better than Michelle- the 5 times world champion 3 times world silver medalist" "Sasha just has a tiny problem with consistency"
Not too many people here dare to disagree with Mr. fan by now, who wants to be accused of 'bashing" or worse, "have your head examine"
So I think Mr. Sasha fan got it covered. Next time you stay up at 3:38 AM, maybe you can spend the time thinking of the next model of this universe or the black hole or whatever..
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Mathman
I know what you are thinking. I am going to stay ahead of the curve and post a picture of CUTIE Mao
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/acp/soramame/favorites/jn02/asada_3.jpg
I know what you are thinking. I am going to stay ahead of the curve and post a picture of CUTIE Mao
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/acp/soramame/favorites/jn02/asada_3.jpg
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