- Joined
- Oct 5, 2009
Thank you for your above response. I thought I was being too harsh as well.
Caroline Zhang's 2009-10 season
- Thread starter Spun Silver
- Start date
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2006
I don't know why Caroline wanted to go through the agony (physical and emotional) of competing here when she is obviously not ready. Maybe a chance at thr team was too much to give away, but I am half hoping she withdraws before tomorrow evening and saves us the pain of watching her. Right now she has to get well and figure out what she wants to do with the rest of her career, not cling onto a hope of making top 10.
I just re-watched her Skate Canada FS.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNL1zZpD77w
And It is sad that only two things I could say they were good were final two elements,
spiral(not speed but just the position) and spin, then nothing else.
Even her basic skating was very sloppy too.
And it is heartbreaking to see her facial expression like that at the ending.
Yes, It is frustrating for us to see her struggling,
but it is beyond us to tell how much SHE is frustrated now.
If they send her to the Junior Worlds again,
sadly I do not think she is capable to win there
as current top junior ladies are clearly better than her.
As other peope wrote here, I think she should get herself a new coach.
However, I suspect the reason that she has been with her current coach is
that simply Li Mingzhu is Chinese.
Also she trains at the rink owned by the Kwan family.
So for her and/or her family, Chinese connection seems to be very important,
which is understandable considering the fact
she is a daughter of the recent Chinese immigrant family.
But I think she should break away from that though I know that could be very difficult,
people in a minority community feel strong obligation to help each other
and stick to each other to survive.
But for her now, she should break away from that to survive.
Hope things will work out for her,
otherwise she will be remembered only for "PEARL SPIN."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNL1zZpD77w
And It is sad that only two things I could say they were good were final two elements,
spiral(not speed but just the position) and spin, then nothing else.
Even her basic skating was very sloppy too.
And it is heartbreaking to see her facial expression like that at the ending.
Yes, It is frustrating for us to see her struggling,
but it is beyond us to tell how much SHE is frustrated now.
If they send her to the Junior Worlds again,
sadly I do not think she is capable to win there
as current top junior ladies are clearly better than her.
As other peope wrote here, I think she should get herself a new coach.
However, I suspect the reason that she has been with her current coach is
that simply Li Mingzhu is Chinese.
Also she trains at the rink owned by the Kwan family.
So for her and/or her family, Chinese connection seems to be very important,
which is understandable considering the fact
she is a daughter of the recent Chinese immigrant family.
But I think she should break away from that though I know that could be very difficult,
people in a minority community feel strong obligation to help each other
and stick to each other to survive.
But for her now, she should break away from that to survive.
Hope things will work out for her,
otherwise she will be remembered only for "PEARL SPIN."
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2009
Uh, even Chinese who like to start out "sticking together" for the sake of comfort and trust, will usually dump a course of action that isn't getting them the results they want, and will try something else.
Definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result.
Well, I think after this season she's almost certainly going to change coaches (or stop skating altogether). The current situation is simply not sustainable.
I was really happy she was going to another coach, even to Wong (it seemed like anything would beat doing nothing and staying put), and really, really bummed that she went back to Li. I just had no faith whatsoever that Li could help her fix all her problems in one season when she hadn't managed to make a smidget of an impression over the last several seasons. Li simply isn't a strong technical coach. LuLu was just incredibly talented, and lucky too perhaps, to end up with mostly good jumping techniques. Caroline has her positive qualities, but really needed a strong technical coach who could help fix everything that was wrong with her skating. Her bad technique was already so ingrained and beyond what Li could do for her. Caroline's got an unusual body: super flexible and no core strength, and a lot of weird stroking and jumping techniques associated with those things. She probably needs someone with a lot more experience and resources to figure out how to get her body to overcome its particular mix of weaknesses and strengths. No offense, but Li really seems like she doesn't know what to do with Caroline. She comes across lost and timid... And even Caroline looks like she's lost her faith in Li. Even if Li did have good advice, with this kind of teacher-student atmosphere, they were bond to run into a dead end. I bet she wasn't especially thrilled to come back to Li either. It was just that she didn't see any really good options. I so wish that she had gone to Frank Carroll or even Arutunian... *sigh*
- Joined
- May 17, 2007
As much as I adore Caroline, she is one of those "talk the talk but don't walk the walk" kind of people. She KNOWS her problems and has verbally addressed them several times. She understands that she has a major issue with speed, jump entry, and power, but she has somehow managed to maintain her bad habits. We all know old habits are hard to break, and in contrast to what alot of people on this forum are saying, I think she LOVES SKATING TOO MUCH.
Maybe she loves it so much that she doesn't want to take any time away from it to actually focus on the problems she knows she has. After all, her training schedule is so ice centered that it seems like that is all she does, all day, every day.
I hope this can be a wakeup call for her though, like everyone else is saying. I honestly don't want to see her in pairs. I really like her as a singles skater, but she's reached a critical point, a point where she has to make a tough decision. Life is about making choices, the best choices, and the last thing anyone wants is to have any regrets.
I will always have hope for Caroline, and I refuse to count her out.
Here's to a brighter future...
Maybe she loves it so much that she doesn't want to take any time away from it to actually focus on the problems she knows she has. After all, her training schedule is so ice centered that it seems like that is all she does, all day, every day.
I hope this can be a wakeup call for her though, like everyone else is saying. I honestly don't want to see her in pairs. I really like her as a singles skater, but she's reached a critical point, a point where she has to make a tough decision. Life is about making choices, the best choices, and the last thing anyone wants is to have any regrets.
I will always have hope for Caroline, and I refuse to count her out.
Here's to a brighter future...
I was expecting to see a really awful performance, but I just saw Caroline's short on YouTube, and to my surprise, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. She started off with good speed and attack, and (ignoring the mule kick and the corkscrew technique, which are the same as they've always been) went faster than usual into the 3F with quick, clean rotations. In fact, she probably went into it with too much gusto, thus resulting in the turn out before the 2T. The fall on the 3R was just a fluke, as she had been nailing that jump in practice, and she looked understandably slower and "out of it" after that. Still, although she could stand to perform it faster, her footwork sequence is my favourite of all the American ladies this season, as she manages to look mature and elegant in the upper body without any flailing about.
Overall, I thought she looked trained and ready with more defined positions in the spins (especially the flying spin), and even though she didn't do the Pearl, her layback combo spin looked fine although she slowed down too much at the end of it. If she had hit the loop and 3-3, I don't think there'd be any cause for all this hand-wringing - she might not have been in position to make the Olympic team, but she most likely would've been a podium threat.
Overall, I thought she looked trained and ready with more defined positions in the spins (especially the flying spin), and even though she didn't do the Pearl, her layback combo spin looked fine although she slowed down too much at the end of it. If she had hit the loop and 3-3, I don't think there'd be any cause for all this hand-wringing - she might not have been in position to make the Olympic team, but she most likely would've been a podium threat.
I agree, that SP is a good program indeed.
However, it comes to the same issue that her false technique does not cope with the speed.
It is obvious that she thought about only the rotation when she learned those jumps, not the height, distance, speed or the good technique, which is very common among young skaters, but unfortunately her earlier coach did not correct them at all, and probably he/she just praised her ability to rotate those jumps.
As she does not use the speed for her jumps, her jumps are very small, and in order to squeeze those rotation in such a little air time, she has to start to swing her entire body even before the take off, which all skaters do but not that much, that is how she has developed that the corkscrew technique, I believe.
Again that is rather common among young skaters, but it should have been corrected a long long time ago for Caroline. And as her jumping tchnique was developed for jumping without the speed, if she adds more speed, she messes up with them.
Now she has to go back to single jumps to solve this problem, which means learning jumps from the scratch all over again. This is so much more than just fixing flutz, and as you know a very few skaters succeeded to fix one.
Can she do it?
I guess so if she really wants to do it.
But her dilemma is that this will take more than one summer,
and she likes to keep competing.
In order to compete, she has to keep using her false technique.
Then she will never be able to fix it,
or never have enough time to fix it, I guess.
Well, whoever she will choose for her next coach,
I really wish he/she can help her out not only for the technique
but also for making a right decision,
like staying away from competitions for a while if it is necessary.
If she asks Charlene again,
I will say Caroline can not get away from the Chinese connection.
as Charlene's last name is "Wong."
- Joined
- Feb 17, 2007
I wondered about that. So she messed up the triple - triple, and did a triple - double with a turn in the middle. She fell on another jump. Does that deserve to be 20 points behind the leaders? Does poor jumping make everything else look bad?
It wasn't just the jumps. She was also very slow, has worse basic skating and was completely lackluster. It was like there was no life in her program. Mirai flew on the ice and had lovely jumps, Sasha was wonderful and Rachael landed a 3+3. So yes, the quality difference was very obvious.
Wow, bluelutz, this is the best post I've seen that pretty much tells the whole story.
Let me sum it up.
1.) Skater is used to performing her choreography, transitions, and executing her jumps with slow skating.
2.) Skater speeds up her skating, but can't sustain jumps, choreography, and transitions with the new speed.
In conclusion: Opting for speed has ruined her skating as a whole. The jumps are unreliable, the interpretation and execution of choreography has become significantly worse. The overall quality of the skating has suffered.
To her credit, yes, Caroline has seriously attempted to introduce speed into her skating, but lost her contender status as a result. What she needs to do now, other than recovering her jumps, is to relearn to pay attention to choreography: skate with subtlety, sensitivity, and express the music. As is, she's too tense and nervous to do that. Attempting to skate with more power has robbed her of calm and composure.
- Joined
- May 15, 2009
Caroline grew and what worked for her at 4'10 and 75 lbs is no longer good.
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2003
duh! and because of it she didn't get the score she would have had she skated well.
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2009
Which is why she should go to Frank Carol and fix her jumps like Mirai has done. I don't know if she could handle him as a coach though, it seems like she likes to do things her way.
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2009
I don't think Frank would take Caroline: 1) he already has Mirai, a direct competitor, also Carolina Kostner. 2) he won't put up with her wanting to do "things her way." I've heard Frank's pretty clear from the outset with his skaters, it's his way or go elsewhere for coaching.
Well to be fair, Caroline has a lot more stuff to fix than Mirai ever did, that's something I have to say for the record, just to point out that their situations were not as similar as they may seem.
Yes, but is Frank Carroll the only coach on the world who can help someone fix their jump technique?
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- Joined
- Nov 12, 2009
Alissa went to someone else. Her jumps are still problematic but the technique is definitely better now. I don't think Caroline wants to move to the midwest though. What about Rafael Artunian?
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2006
Alissa is a case of nerves and unless the pressure is 100% off she won't skate clean.
I do think that Rafael is the best choice for Caroline right now. He made improvements with Mao's jumps and now that Sasha is no longer working with him, I he has no other big name pupils, so she will get a lot of attention. Moving to Lake Arrowhead would still get her away from her mother and sister but she could still go back on weekends and stuff...far less drastic than moving across country.
Caroline needs a change. I think it may be too late, but she certainly can't stay where she is.
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