JGP Toruń, POLAND (Sept. 9th- Sept. 12th, 2009)

[oleada]

Well, Yamada was also Ito's coach. I don't know if Midori flutzed (I wasn't around back then) but she had some of the best jumps of all time.

[coconutpunch]

I just wonder if all the skaters under that coach would have the similar defects or not

I guess under your theory, Midori flutzes too, then.

[antmanb]

I guess under your theory, Midori flutzes too, then.

The poster didn't put forward a theory - the person asked a question, the answer to which appears to be - no not all skaters under that coach flutzed.

Ant

[bekalc]

I guess under your theory, Midori flutzes too, then.

Actually Midori did flutz.....

[icedancexpert]

I'm a little surprised at the lack of comment about Ilinyk/Katsalpov. They skated to music from Schindler's List, in Poland, and she's wearing concentration camp garb (oh, and the music sounded like it ended with a gunshot). I'm I being overly sensitive or is that extremely tasteless?

I think they're a good team. They have solid basics and they skate with pretty good speed. I think they're skating skills are better than the likes of Antipova/Kudashev, Cannuscio/Lorello which explains the gap in the component scores....but they seem to lack polish to me. He skates with his shoulders kind of hunched and from what I could see, he doesn't skate with much expression on his face (I have only seen the videos on youtube of them, but I never really get a glimpse into his personality when he skates).

They create some nice lines, and she has a smooth quality to her skating but they do a lot of crossovers. At some points in their fd/od, they do as many as 3 crossovers together (and they don't skate in hold, they do them in an open position (don't know what they refer to that as)). This gives them nice speed, but it creates breaks in the choreo which caused me to lose interest half way through their od.

I was interested to see the fd when I heard they skated to Schindler's List, but I think the whole packaging was done in really poor taste. I was actually horrified. They may see it as theatrical but I found it completely unnecessary. There are gun shots at the beginning and at the end and I feel like her costuming (while it may be accurate) is over the top. The gun shots certainly are. I don't know how audiences will react. I know I would be very hesitant to applaud the program because of the gun shots and the sensitive subject matter that they are portraying.

In terms of the ladies, I am so happy for Kanako, but I am sad for Kate. She had a great Canadians and hopefully she'll be able to improve on her performances.