What year did Yu-Na start doing her camel spin?

Does anyone know what year Yu-Na started doing her trademark camel spin in? I was going through videos on Youtube and noticed that Caroline Zhang was using that camel position back in 2006... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4whtBGdapY

Anyone know?

The earliest footage of her doing layover camel would be jgpf back in 2004. She might have attepted the spin earlier than that, but I doubt there's any footage avaiable on youtube.

She did the camel spin at Budapest JGP in 2004
http://flvs.daum.net/flvPlayerOut.swf?vid=AyUMx2uO9x4$
As far as I know this is the earliest footage available on the internet.

It is curious to me how she started doing it. She was (at most) 13 years old and, in Korea, there was essentially no one to teach her such an unknown technique.

Thanks guys, for all the interesting old videos. What struck me is that both young ladies have really improved since then. What's especially heartening for me, as a Caroline fan, is that today's Caroline (at 15) is at least at the same level, or perhaps higher on the whole, than Yuna was at 14 in the 2004 JGPF. Yu-na's jumps were perhaps a little higher (and no mule-kick on the toe jumps, though she did tend to pick with a bent leg), but she had obvious issues with under-rotation and lack of flow out of many of the jumps, and Caroline's spins and spirals are way better than Yuna's at 14. What they have in common are a delicate sensitivity to the music, as well as precocious presentation skills.

Caroline will never be a "power" skater like Mao or Joannie, who are adding more lyrical elegance to their skating as they mature. Instead, like Yu-na, she starts with abundant musicality and lyricality, and, with hard work and the right kind of training regime, will hopefully could gain more power and speed in her skating, and more height in her jumps, in a few more years -- as Yu-na has obviously done over the last four years.

the 'trademark' spin of Yuna's has been around for decades... as was discussed on another thread a while back... just like the Biellman spin was around long before Denise made it famous.

Tonichelle said:

the 'trademark' spin of Yuna's has been around for decades... as was discussed on another thread a while back... just like the Biellman spin was around long before Denise made it famous.

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Yes, I know. But what I am curious about is how she could do it in KOREA where figure skating was next to nonexistent at that time.

That variation of the camel spin was not popular - even if a few skaters did it, they were not as famous as, say Kwan. There was no youtube either so it seems not likely that she or her coach saw the video. Considering that she was at most 13, it is hard to imagine that she herself invented it at some point. Maybe her coach was really good and asked her to do it? I don't know.

steyn said:

Yes, I know. But what I am curious about is how she could do it in KOREA where figure skating was next to nonexistent at that time.

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Who knows but it is very famously reported that Bin Yao the chinese pair coach himself studied video tapes of old pairs skaters in order to try to work out how certain elements are executed and then taught them to himself and later on to his students. I suppose in the absence of anything else people do the best they can with what they have available. Camel spins like that have been done over the years and there is no doubt video footage available somewhere.

Ant

so because she's from Korea it's impossible for her to learn a camel spin??? How'd she learn skating in general then? *rolleyes*

RAWR!!!

steyn, don't be scared off, I understand what you're trying to say. Unlike other places where figure skating is more well known, Yu-Na at the time in Korea had limited resources. I'm assuming interest and funding in the sport has dramatically increased over there with Yu-Na's success.

Did she come up with the spin by herself in practice? It could very well have happened that way, but who knows except Yu-Na? I remember Brian saying Yu-Na is always on Youtube watching other skaters, so my guess is she saw it being performed in an older routine and liked it a lot! They might not have the best ice rinks or skating coaches in Korea, but I do believe they have high speed internet!

Well, I don't have much to add but I just want to make sure that I am not misunderstood.

Tonichelle said:

so because she's from Korea it's impossible for her to learn a camel spin??? How'd she learn skating in general then? *rolleyes*

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No. This is not my point as I have already mentioned in my previous posts. I can easily guess how she could learn standard or popular elements such as jumps or usual camel spin. Some difficult techniques, e.g. 2A after ina bauer, are also a matter of combination of standard stuffs. Textbook jump technique, for which Yu-Na is sometimes praised, is also understandable because there were actually not many who could teach it to Yu-Na so the only thing they could do is just follow the rulebook litterally or follow video footage of some great skaters.

But that particular variation of camel spin was not popular at all among top skaters like Kwan, Slutskaya or Witt. Then you need some kind of creativity or bravery or whatever to do such an unknown or rarely known stuff when there are so many compelling "standard" things to do, because it is not just a straightforward extension of what you know. ( If she was trained in US or any other country where there are many excellent coaches with good knowledge on figure skating, then there would be no problem.) There were even no youtube at that time so they could not just sit down, relax and watch randomly various video footages in their home as we usually do thesedays. This is why I am curious about how she actually learned it, considering her age and environment at that time.

shallwedansu said:

RAWR!!!

steyn, don't be scared off, I understand what you're trying to say. Unlike other places where figure skating is more well known, Yu-Na at the time in Korea had limited resources. I'm assuming interest and funding in the sport has dramatically increased over there with Yu-Na's success.

Did she come up with the spin by herself in practice? It could very well have happened that way, but who knows except Yu-Na? I remember Brian saying Yu-Na is always on Youtube watching other skaters, so my guess is she saw it being performed in an older routine and liked it a lot! They might not have the best ice rinks or skating coaches in Korea, but I do believe they have high speed internet!

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Yes, but at that time there was no youtube which started in 2005. So high speed internet in Korea did not help, I guess. Of course I am sure they used traditional video tapes but in that case I imagine that usually only limited number of footages by some great skaters are seen repeatedly.

My naive guess is that her coach really loved training Yu-Na and he/she did virtually every effort so that being trained in Korea might not be a significant drawback. Another possibility is her mother who has been one of the most influential people to Yu-Na including training.

Actually, video clip trading and tape trading are quite old on the internet. Rinkside and several other boards were operational in the 2000 time frame. Many and many a clip was downloaded over multiple sessions at slow transfer rates.

And video tape trading via skating forums like this one, fsu and the Michelle Kwan forum were going great guns, and even older.

Well, I heard on another thread that the story is that Yu -na was fooling around in practice and came up with the position herself. And used it in all her programs since. I totally believe this is possible... I mean if Yu-na's team was going to be looking at clips of skaters, I don't think it would necessarily be Jose Chouinard/ Nicole Bobek (no offense to those skaters). Plus Yu-na was what 4, Chouinard was skating.

Kim though did go to summer camps in the US/Canada as a child.. Apparently though she did have a coach at a young age who strongly believed in her talent and encouraged her parents to invest in it.

Sometimes it happens where someone can reinvent something and not know that someone else did it too. I must say that Yu-na did a version of that spin when she was younger that I absolutely loved. She use to do the camel, do the invert postiion and than immediatley go into a donut. I thought that was one of the most attractive/lovely entrances into a donut I had ever seen... I'm assuming know that it would hurt her hip to much to do that version of the spin.

I think you can say that while others performed that spin before Yu-na, Yu-na certainly popularized it.

Tonichelle said:

the 'trademark' spin of Yuna's has been around for decades... as was discussed on another thread a while back... just like the Biellman spin was around long before Denise made it famous.

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Yes, but it is nonetheless legitimate to call it a Biellman spin. Tamara Moskvina says that she used to do the spin before Denise did, but that it was OK, just as the Natalya spin (http://pics.livejournal.com/ptichkafs/pic/0008y4wr) was one she saw some little-known team do earlier and adopted it for her star pair.

Is it just me who's been reading this thread and had the SouthPark "What Would Brian Boitano Do?" song going through their head?

Ant

bekalc said:

Well, I heard on another thread that the story is that Yu -na was fooling around in practice and came up with the position herself. And used it in all her programs since. I totally believe this is possible... I mean if Yu-na's team was going to be looking at clips of skaters, I don't think it would necessarily be Jose Chouinard/ Nicole Bobek (no offense to those skaters). Plus Yu-na was what 4, Chouinard was skating.

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Well, it was probably my post that you read before (or could have been someone else's.)
I feel kind of awkward and somewhat silly to quote my own post but anyway I'll do that.

gourry said:

Anyway, here is what I know about Yuna's camel.
I read before that Yuna herself invented that position while she was practicing without knowing similar one was already used by someone else. She's been using that camel spin in every competition since when she was junior. It became her signiture movement for her fans and they started calling it 'Yuna camel'.
Especially last season, many commentators mentioned how beautiful that spin is. And guess what happened next. Some people started calling it 'Button camel'(!) which actually referring flying camel. And then they did their homework and brought Harding and Chouinard.

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Unfortunately I can't provide the exact source except the fact that I read it somewhere before. Sometimes I wish there are Q&A section in Yuna's official website like in Johnny's website. (It is such a pleasure reading his replies on fans' questions.) There are so many things I want to ask her including this one.

I read somewhere that Yu-Na attended some skating camps outside of Korea while she was growing up. If so, she would have had exposure to different coaches, techniques and variations at those times.

The Yu-Na Spin is amazing:agree: