Bebe Liang out of Golden West

Joesitz
For all you confused posters of my saying that Bebe is a Sasha wannabe, is really a compliment to Sasha that some younger skater, who imo, would want to look up to. That is indeed, a big compliment to Sasha. Bebe fans should be upset if anyone.

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I know you have been identifying Bebe's style as bravura, Cohen like. I haven't seen Bebe enough to conclude that she has a bravura style. I am not even sure Cohen has a bravura style, in your face kind of style yes. JMHO bravura means more than just presentation on the loud side. But in terms of competition style, Bebe and Cohen are very different. Bebe has the ability to rise to the occasion and then some. At junior worlds she competed through pain/ injury, and was able to land some jumps in the actual competition that she was not able to land due to injury. I thnk Jenny Kirk has the same competition style too, at nationals, she had technique problem and was falling all over the place in practice, but raised her performamce to the occasion in competition and landed those jumps that she was missing in practice, and she had to skate Kwan. Kirk, and Bebe have mental toughness

hockeyfan
for almost a decade, the role model for US skaters has been Kwan, the gentle Lyric

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Kwan to me is not entirely gentle lyric, she is bel canto with soul, that does not mean she is not lyric or she is not bravura. I think she can be both, but more importantly she has soul I still haven't decided what is Bebe's style, but as far as being open about who is her role model, I don't believe she has identified Cohen as her role model.

Interestingly Kostner named Kwan and Cohen as her favorite skaters.

PS:

I know Joe extracts the skating style from ballet, but skating is not exactly ballet. Skating is not opera either, and here I am borrowing the opera term bel canto. But if I may borrow the opera term, bel canto - beautiful singing is more than just lyric, it requires tremendous brilliant technique to give that flow from one element to the next. The question of soul - to me a performer / skater either has soul or not.

PPS Back to Bebe, I wish her the best.

Re: Bebe's Style of Figure Skating

Joesitz said:

Thanks for coming to my rescue, Mathman. Most posters know I classify style in figure skating. It's a ballet habit I developed over the years. The two big classifications I see are Lyrical and Bravura. The latter is brilliant technique with performance aimed at the audience (judges?). The former is supple technique with performance musically inspired. There is nothing wrong with either of these major styles!!!

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I think Sasha is a combo of the two.

rturek - I am not comparing Sasha and Bebe. I am classifying both as bravura skaters. Bravura skaters are not all the same. I classify Hammil as Bravura Elegant; I classify Witt as a Bravura Coquette. In the case of Bebe I have not been able to see another qualifying adjective yet, but the major style is bravura, for me. In the case of Sasha I would say Bravura Classic.

Kwan, of course, is the embodiment of Lyric Classic, however, she has shown she is capable of Lyric Dramatic (Salome) and has now shown us Bravura Classic-Spanish (Aranjuez). giving me a title of Prima Skater for her (but that's getting too ballet minded.)

I credit Kwans talent, of course, but also her age and experience. It takes time for an artist to develop something special. That is one reason, I rarely get worked up over young skaters with triple combos.

To round off the discussion on style, I would suggest that Viktoria Volchkova is Lyric Elegant.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, there are many skaters for which I have not seen any style - good jumps though and skating is a sport as well as an aratistic endeavour.

Joe

maxell1313 said:

I am extremely tired of young, up-and-coming skaters getting sidelined with injuries that could easily be avoided if the demand for jumps, jumps, and more jumps was given the heave-ho.

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Well it isn't going to happen any time soon, I'm afraid. Not when the CoP supposedly rewards a less-than-perfect quad more than a well-done triple. Everyone wants to see more, more, more. As long as there is a want and drive to push the sport forward and try more, there will be a greater risk of injury. I hope the trend will begin to lean towards training smarter, not harder.

Dave Amorde said:

I think the recent increase in ladies trying 3A's is an acknowledgement that the increased risks inherent in the 3/3 combos makes them less attractive. It would be interesting to hear from a medical practitioner if there is a clinical reason why girls seem to be more prone to this type of injury than boys. As someone who has suffered through three abdominal hernia surgeries, I know that the differences between boys and girls can sometimes be painful.

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Dave, an ortho told me a long time ago that it's the angle of the hip joint down to the knee that causes more stress for the girls. Even girls that have a boy-like build still have a different angle than a boy. The greater the angle, the greater the risk of joint injuries of the hip and knee.

peachstatesk8er said:

...the CoP supposedly rewards a less-than-perfect quad more than a well-done triple.

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Yes, but on the plus side, CoP downplays 3/3 combos, which I believe to be the real problem with most of these hip injuries.

Having said that, the reason I got so irritated with the comments directed toward Bebe is because no one on this board knows how Bebe injured herself. While the discussion about the connection between 3/3's, quads, and hip injuries is useful, it doesn't necessarily apply to the original subject of the thread.

The discussion is still germane. Most of the ladies are working on 3/3 combinations, if not 3As and quads because they want to be competitive, and it is likely that BeBe is doing the same. It doesn't really matter how BeBe injured her hip in the first place. An already-injured hip is more vulnerable to further damage.

It seems we are not aware of the extent of Bebe's injury. If it is just minor, I would go with a strain and for me a best thing for a strain is the massage table and rest until it heals.

However minor, one can't rule out the beginning of something serious. as some poster have pointed out Tara's pain began as early as 1998.

Let's wait and see if more reports come in.

Joe