Caroline Zhang - Is She an Oly Contender? | Page 8 | Golden Skate

Caroline Zhang - Is She an Oly Contender?

Andalusia

Final Flight
Joined
Oct 7, 2007
I like fast violin-y music! :)

I got it! She's skating to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPBL-kPQzkc

She'd have no choice but to speed around like a rocket whilst skating to this music. ;)

Whatever Caroline chooses, I hope she stays away from Lori Nichol. All skaters should stay away from Lori unless they're Michelle Kwan or Mao Asada. Lori has been giving Caroline nothing but soft, balletic stuff - clearly not what she needs right now. And feraina mentioned Caroline being "given" new programs - why don't the skaters have any input as to what their music choices should be? Only Tom Dickson has encouraged Caroline to break out of the mould - it's no coincidence her "Spanish Gypsy" program has been her best so far. Caroline needs some drama - I'd love to see what David Wilson could do with her.

Philip Mills almost always creates interesting programs as well.
 

feraina

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 3, 2007

OMG, so funny. ;)

How about this Schubert trio?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR5pWFZpx2g&feature=related

I think it would suit her well -- it has some soft lyrical parts, but also some fast dramatic parts, and the best thing is that it has these nice phrases that she'll be able to play with choreographically. It's sweet and passionate in turn, just perfect.

And feraina mentioned Caroline being "given" new programs - why don't the skaters have any input as to what their music choices should be?

I was just thinking the same thing earlier today. I think part of the reason why Caroline skates her exhibitions a lot more expressively than her competitive programs because she has a lot more say over the music choice and choreography. She's great innate sense of musicality, but only for the kind of music that moves her, and the choreographers clearly haven't been choosing good music for her for the most part.
 

antmanb

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 5, 2004
Tinymavy - Next year is a chronological time. The Olys season has started now. Less than a year away.

Well i wouldn't say that. Skating has an off season from April to July/August and then the season starts properly. I always think it is more like an academic where once you've finished your exams you don't say the next year has started, you have the holidays and come back in the next year.

Ant
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
Well i wouldn't say that. Skating has an off season from April to July/August and then the season starts properly. I always think it is more like an academic where once you've finished your exams you don't say the next year has started, you have the holidays and come back in the next year.

Ant
Well, to each his own, but if I were skating competitions,and the Worlds has just completed. I would be thinking of the Olys instantly. However, if you want to not think about the Olys, that's ok.
 

antmanb

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 5, 2004
Well, to each his own, but if I were skating competitions,and the Worlds has just completed. I would be thinking of the Olys instantly. However, if you want to not think about the Olys, that's ok.

To be honest it was just a point about semantics - what you call something really doesn't matter it's the activities that take place that count. I expect every skater has their eye on their preparation for the Olympics right now, but also i'd guess about half of them will either be lying on a beach or resting up at home having some form of holiday after a tough season and getting a break before the off season high peak training schedule kicks in. Certainly the British pairs skaters Kemp &King are in Spain enjoying a holiday right now!

For me the Olympic season will commence when we see the first competitions where the skaters debut their programs for the Olympic season. There's not much news to be heard during the off season anyway.

Ant
 

shine

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
I don't think you need to be too terrified, at least no more about her jumps than about her spins. Her body is unusually flexible, with no special training at all. If a normal person tries to twist into the Pearl spin, you might worry about her back and hips, too, but for her it's no big deal. Similarly with her jumps. Jump take-offs usually involve some counter-rotation to generate the torque. In her case, b/c her body is so elastic, she has to twist a little more to get the same amount of torque.
I find this not very convincing. Mao and Yuna are both quite flexible yet have sound jumping technique, so was Shizuka Arakawa. Elene G. is also very flexible skater with great jumping technique. It's all about learning the right technique when skaters are young.
Even if what you said IS true, the way she slams her entire leg into the ice to thrust herself into the air (instead of relying on speed/momentum and good picking technique to do so), cannot be healthy either way. There's simply too much of an impact to her waist and hip each time she does that.
 
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LeCygne

Final Flight
Joined
Jan 21, 2009
I think part of the reason why Caroline skates her exhibitions a lot more expressively than her competitive programs because she has a lot more say over the music choice and choreography. She's great innate sense of musicality, but only for the kind of music that moves her, and the choreographers clearly haven't been choosing good music for her for the most part.

If this is the case, I wonder why she doesn't get more of a say in her competitive programs? I thought choreography was always something between the choreographer, coach, and skater. Or is it something that happens as skaters get older?
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Or is it something that happens as skaters get older?

I think so, yes. Young skaters may "know what they like" but they usually do not know anything about music. A world class choeogrpher like Lori Nichol has an entensive muscal library and has access to advice from music experts (plus, in Nichol's case, her husband is a classical guitarist, IIRC. :) )

Look at the difference between Nichol's choice of music for Michelle Kwan (Lyra Angelica, the Red Violin, the Song of the Black Swan), versus the type of music that Michelle chose for herself after 2002 (Aranjuez, Tosca, Bolero.)
 

gourry

Final Flight
Joined
Nov 7, 2007
I find this not very convincing. Mao and Yuna are both quite flexible yet have sound jumping technique, so was Shizuka Arakawa. Elene G. is also very flexible skater with great jumping technique. It's all about learning the right technique when skaters are young.

I think there may be some correlation between flexibility and jumps. Anyway it was so in case of Yuna. Yuna's mom once mentioned (during an interview conducted in 2006 maybe) that they(Yuna, her mom and her couch) were aware of her lack of flexibility and tried to improve it but that caused some trouble with her jumps so they decided to stop pursuing too much of flexibility.
It is my guess that maybe the more flexible one gets the more open one's pelvic bones get (and turn out and stuff) and maybe that minutely affects the way one jumps.
But I agree with you. It's about learning the right technique when skaters are young. Caroline picks/kicks very hard to get momentum which she's supposed to get with speed and proper turns. No matter how flexible she is, the impact can't be good for her body. I'm worried about her.
 

feraina

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 3, 2007
If this is the case, I wonder why she doesn't get more of a say in her competitive programs? I thought choreography was always something between the choreographer, coach, and skater. Or is it something that happens as skaters get older?

Well, she's still very young (15). Very few 15-year-olds get a whole lot of say in their competitive music/choreography. She said she didn't really like Sleeping Beauty, for instance. Sucks skating to a program you hate... But maybe as she matures and gains a bit more independence, she'll be able to dictate her own programs more.

As for Caroline's picking technique, she doesn't slam into the ice hard, it's not like she's creating a spray of ice or digging a deep hole, it's rather that before picking she throws her leg up real high. She doesn't even dip down with her upper body all that much compared to certain skaters. Again, I think it's related to flexibility. On toe-assisted jumps, the downward motion of the picking leg creates a see-saw effect -- this helps with creating height in addition to jumping off the front leg. One side goes down, the other side goes up. That works well if the "plank" is relatively stiff. But now imagine it's something highly elastic, then the first side has to decrease a lot in height to create a little bit of extra height on the other side.

Yu-na, Miki, and Joannie are all relatively inflexible, especially in their backs. Inflexibility helps with creating more rigid-body-like movements, which helps making jumps higher and spins faster, and moreover it allows the skater to create momentum more easily by using a little bit of counter-rotation or contraction, etc. Imagine you have two springs, one very elastic, the other very stiff, now squash them to the same depth and see how high one would go versus the other. Then imagine bending one versus the other. Then imagine rotating one versus the other. The stiffer one reacts much more strongly to any small distortion compared to the elastic one.

That's not to say that flexible people can never create a lot of speed/height/angular momentum, but it takes extra work, they have to really work with their back and abdominal muscles to make up for the fact that their joints are so
"weak" in the sense that they don't give as much resistance/support. Mao is very flexible, but she is also quite muscular, I think either she is naturally muscular or she worked on a lot of strengthening exercises. Caroline said she never really did strengthening exercises until this past season, plus her body changed so much in the last two years so she had to spend a lot of time/energy just adapting to her new body.
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
One thing to remember about Sasha Cohen was that her flexibility came from training for Gymnastics, and her jumps were wobbly in those beginning years of skating. However, her jumps did improve as she got older, and she continues doing acrobatic workouts as we saw on TV.

For myself I see Caroline as a work in progress. She is not a wunderkind, and it will take time to iron out the creases. At 18 she will be formidable. I do not see her in the race for this Olys, but if you allow a skater to develop over time, she will be among the best contenders in 2014.
 

feraina

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 3, 2007
Oh, Caroline IS taking music suggestions. :love: She said neither program is finalized.

So, suggest away, please!
 
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