Ladies LP

[*Sniper*]

It was just a joke.
Where's your sense of humor?
I'm sure you would feel awkward if someone asked you, "How were you able to fit into Lambiel's suitcase?"

HaHa, alright.

What I meant was, even the most casual skating fan, someone who watched figure skating for the first time in his/her life, after Yu-na's LP, could not have looked around the room and said "...so that's it?", unless he/she was expecting some kind of nudity.

Cuz it was pretty, if not beautiful, for any set of eyes.

Oh boy. That is an incredibly bold and highly subjective opinion, not a fact.
Care to back it up?
Did you take a poll?
Do you speak for the ENTIRE "casual skating fans" that watched this program?
If you do, you forgot to ask me, because I've been one of them for about 15 years.

Since when did a "storyline" become a necessity for a good skating performance, really.

Nowhere have I ever stated her program sucked because it didn't have a story.
Nor do I believe a good performance must include a character.
And have I implied anywhere that her jumps and other elements diminished in quality because it didn't have a story or because of my personal lack of understanding of the program???

BIG FAT NO.

Look.
This program has been skated only once so far, and I watched it on a tiny screen on my laptop.
I didn't exactly get the most memorable first impression as I did from her other programs in the past under the same circumstances, that is all.

I was looking forward to watching her skate again in SA and reevaluating my take on her LP with some useful pointers I gathered from this thread, but I feel kind of stupid and perverted after your post, so maybe I shouldn't bother.

And if that was "just a joke," I apologize for my "lack of humor."

[prettykeys]

Or she can just skip the flip altogether. after all, why bother? She already did her precious combo that places the judges in the palm of her hand. Funny she would never think of "skipping" a flip last year when she had that triple toe to do.

Oh please. I saw Yu-na's interview on NBC afterwards and she sounded upset about missing the 3flip and rather shaken by it. It was not intentional on her part. She thought she saw something on the ground and it threw off her timing.

Honestly, this is the second time I've come across someone making the ridiculous assertion that YuNa deliberately and pre-meditatedly skipped her 3flip, and it's only come from posters who are clearly prejudiced against YuNa in the first place.

YuNa was clearly gliding and setting up to do her 3flip, but stopped. When I was watching, I just thought she blanked out, and giggled a little because it looked cute. After her performance, her face looked shy and a little regretful. As it turns out, she said she "felt something on the ice" and her body trembled, so she opted not to jump.

So please, I don't want to hear anymore accusations about YuNa pre-emptively planning "cautious" performances and being "complacent". Usually when skaters do that, they are calculating what it would take them to win. YuNa pretty much had TEB in the bag.

[prettykeys]

I think World Record is somewhat misleading in this case, because so far, other than Joannie, Yuna seems to be the only one who has team who understands the new system and adapts her program to get the most out of the system. So, while she gets better score than others in this system, that doesn't mean that this is the ceiling point-wise. In other words, I don't think we're at 9 sec in 100m yet.

PCS-wise, I think her 5 or 6 point lead over Mao is actually right, because while Mao's spending 2 minutes on preparing for 3A, Yuna's doing a lot more transition and interesting moves before and after jumps. And I don't think Mao's stumble on 2nd 3A helped either.

Yes, I agree with you.

And Joannie has gotten so good, so strong as a skater in the past 2-3 years!

Mao is a beautifully talented skater with certain skills in certain areas that exceed YuNa's. But her programs have not capitalized on it to maximize the scoring under the new CoP, and that's in large part due to Team Mao, not Mao herself. Which is unfortunate, because the pressure and anxiety that she's probably feeling is not helping her to do what she used to be able to do either.

[Kwanford Wife]

This thread is so interesting... all the different opinions and "I think" and "I don't want to hear..." in relation to the first competition of the season where the winner skated a five triple program, the silver medalist is clearly trying to work out the details of two programs that aren't clicking just yet and may switch out her expo for the short and the bronze medalist popped her shoulder out of socket a couple of weeks ago.

And quiite frankly - the early GPs are always fraught with overscoring. Its become a tradition. By February the judges will have gotten over their individual crushes and group think and calm down. The skating peaks will begin and competitors will start to emerge.

The season is early and we're well into a January tone and texture of the Olympic year on GS... Should be an interesting year for us fans and an extremely busy one for the mods...Yay! Fun for girls and boys!

[sleepymom]

Mao is a beautifully talented skater with certain skills in certain areas that exceed YuNa's. But her programs have not capitalized on it to maximize the scoring under the new CoP, and that's in large part due to Team Mao, not Mao herself. Which is unfortunate, because the pressure and anxiety that she's probably feeling is not helping her to do what she used to be able to do either.

And we have to remember that this is the first event, and Mao was known to be a slow starter. While the score gap might be shocking to Mao, from the event it seems that the level of preparation seems to be pretty different.

So, let's wait and see how she does in next event, which is this week! She might be successful in Russia and we see how her program would look like with good jumps.

[sleepymom]

This thread is so interesting... all the different opinions and "I think" and "I don't want to hear..." in relation to the first competition of the season where the winner skated a five triple program, the silver medalist is clearly trying to work out the details of two programs that aren't clicking just yet and may switch out her expo for the short and the bronze medalist popped her shoulder out of socket a couple of weeks ago.

And quiite frankly - the early GPs are always fraught with overscoring. Its become a tradition. By February the judges will have gotten over their individual crushes and group think and calm down. The skating peaks will begin and competitors will start to emerge.

The season is early and we're well into a January tone and texture of the Olympic year on GS... Should be an interesting year for us fans and an extremely busy one for the mods...Yay! Fun for girls and boys!

You're so right.

[Blades of Passion]

I sort of agree re: TEB, although I think her Danse Macabre was a definite "masterpiece"-level performance. And yes, her Sheherazade at Worlds was more refined. If YuNa had performed her 3Lutz-3Toe with it, as well as not missed her final spin, then that performance would have scored ~139.

She deserved her scores for Danse Macabre, yes.

I'm really annoyed that she has had to switch to this 3Lutz-3Toe combo, though. She should not have been receiving that ! mark for her Flip. So dumb. Her 3Flip-3Toe combination is the best of any woman in history. Only Midori Ito would have been able to match the same level of quality as Yu-Na on that element.

[figurejennah]

She deserved her scores for Danse Macabre, yes.

I'm really annoyed that she has had to switch to this 3Lutz-3Toe combo, though. She should not have been receiving that ! mark for her Flip. So dumb. Her 3Flip-3Toe combination is the best of any woman in history. Only Midori Ito would have been able to match the same level of quality as Yu-Na on that element.

I completely agree with you. I don't understand why she got that "!" mark, after
years of receiving GOE for her 3Flip-3Toe jump. Every single commentator said her jump was text-book perfect. (Even Yamaguchi said if Yuna's flip was to be downgraded, there was something wrong with the judges. :chorus

Moreover, the rules were changed this season so that if you received "!" marks, your points would be taken off. I guess it was very smart on yuna's part to go ahead and change her jump to 3Lutz-3T combination, but the fact that she "fixed" her "problematic" flip jump so easily shows that she didn't have any problem with her flip jump in the first place. In her interview, Yuna said that jumping flip without the combo was so much easier than she had expected, and she could lean more inward to make it look more apparent that she was using the inside edge, not outside edge. As you all know from Mao's and Caroline's case, fixing a wrong edge jumping is extremely difficult, and Yuna somehow managed to fix that allegedly "wrong-edge" jump without any problem.

Now, I see on youtube that Yuna is underrotated, and I honestly don't see where this is going. Whoever is posting these ridiculous videos, shame on you really.

[evangeline]

I'm really annoyed that she has had to switch to this 3Lutz-3Toe combo, though. She should not have been receiving that ! mark for her Flip. So dumb. Her 3Flip-3Toe combination is the best of any woman in history. Only Midori Ito would have been able to match the same level of quality as Yu-Na on that element.

I agree. Yu-Na's 3Lz-3T is good, but her 3F-3T was a thing to behold...it's a pity she's replaced it, because the speed, the height, the distance of her 3Lz-3T is not nearly as good as her 3F-3T.

[evangeline]

But I see a decline in the programs across the board. Yes, they are loaded with difficulty. But because the coaches and skaters are trying to pack difficulty into the program, they are sacrificing the overall beauty and choregraphy that used to make them works of art. During the golden epoque of Michelle, skating was an art form as well as a sport. Since then, it has become a checklist of "to do items." All the programs have a definite sameness about them. Michelle, herself, was doing some of that towards the end of her career. But the vast majority of her career and Sasha's and Irina's was spent putting unique and new competitive programs before the public. it was always exciting to see what they would come up with.

I hope I don't come off as sounding rude, but I completely disagree with you. I think the issue here is that you seem to have enshrined Michelle Kwan's time in competitive skating as "the golden epoch," the be-all-and-end-all of figure skating. Nearly everything that comes after and that is different, by definition, is bound to be inferior. Is that why you've dismissed programs like Lambiel's Poeta LP as mediocre, because it just wasn't during the vaunted 6.0 era?

And really, skating was not an art form as well as a sport in Michelle's era any more than it is now. Sure, Michelle had some breathtaking programs, but I found that she was more of the exception, not the rule. Because for every beautiful program Michelle produced, there were 10 other programs which were empty, filled with nothing but jumping with stroking in between each jump, along with a few half-hearted spins and step sequences thrown in somewhere in the program when the big jumps were done. Oh yeah, and a bit of posing during the rest period of the program to demonstrate the 'artistry' of the skater.

[schiele]

I completely agree with you. I don't understand why she got that "!" mark, after
years of receiving GOE for her 3Flip-3Toe jump. Every single commentator said her jump was text-book perfect. (Even Yamaguchi said if Yuna's flip was to be downgraded, there was something wrong with the judges. :chorus

Moreover, the rules were changed this season so that if you received "!" marks, your points would be taken off. I guess it was very smart on yuna's part to go ahead and change her jump to 3Lutz-3T combination, but the fact that she "fixed" her "problematic" flip jump so easily shows that she didn't have any problem with her flip jump in the first place. In her interview, Yuna said that jumping flip without the combo was so much easier than she had expected, and she could lean more inward to make it look more apparent that she was using the inside edge, not outside edge. As you all know from Mao's and Caroline's case, fixing a wrong edge jumping is extremely difficult, and Yuna somehow managed to fix that allegedly "wrong-edge" jump without any problem.

Now, I see on youtube that Yuna is underrotated, and I honestly don't see where this is going. Whoever is posting these ridiculous videos, shame on you really.

Yea, I think this is getting to a stage, where it is really bothering the ppl trying to be objective and non judgemental about this sport.
I didnt think Yuna's LP was good choreographically (and it left me cold) compared to what I have seen from her. And I didnt like the Bond as much as I loved Dans Macabre or especially Tango (Roxanne).. But, you have to be really biased to see Yuna's technique questionable or her jumps smth you can discuss and put down. She is simply the best out there technically. Period.
Asada has great potential (and my favorite), granted, and I actually enjoyed her LP when seeing live (actually more than Yuna's) but she is having problems technically and I am not sure when or how she can fix it.
So all we can do is adore someone for being so ahead of the game. Yes the judges may be inflating the GOE's, but thats the weak point of this sport. Reputation marking will always be a problem given the nature of the judging this sport requires so why whine about smth that is not new or unique to Yuna..

[schiele]

I hope I don't come off as sounding rude, but I completely disagree with you. I think the issue here is that you seem to have enshrined Michelle Kwan's time in competitive skating as "the golden epoch," the be-all-and-end-all of figure skating. Nearly everything that comes after and that is different, by definition, is bound to be inferior. Is that why you've dismissed programs like Lambiel's Poeta LP as mediocre, because it just wasn't during the vaunted 6.0 era?

And really, skating was not an art form as well as a sport in Michelle's era any more than it is now. Sure, Michelle had some breathtaking programs, but I found that she was more of the exception, not the rule. Because for every beautiful program Michelle produced, there were 10 other programs which were empty, filled with nothing but jumping with stroking in between each jump, along with a few half-hearted spins and step sequences thrown in somewhere in the program when the big jumps were done. Oh yeah, and a bit of posing during the rest period of the program to demonstrate the 'artistry' of the skater.

Yes you are right, once in a while we have always been blessed with great artistic programmes and Poeta is definitely the first that comes to my mind. But I think the original poster has a valid point because with the way PCS are distributed, there is really very little incentive for choreography and interpretation, as we see only real variation in transition and skating skill scores and the rest of the PSCs are basiaclly distributed to the group in which the skater skates. In the old days, due to mere simplicity of marking, I believe we had more fair artistic marking (in contrast to technical marking which was very unfair sometimes). That doesnt mean we get great artistic programmes by many skaters if it is fixed, cos that is another talent on its own but I belive the skaters should be provided with more incentive to work in that direction instead of relying a skaters natural born talent to bring forward the artistry.

[steyn]

Yeah, I have to agree. I preferred Sherezade to Gershwin, but at worlds somehow the entire last spin did not even count and she only did a 3 flip/3toe, not a 3 lutz/3 toe. However, at worlds i think the axel/3 toe combo was in the second half while here it was not.

This is exactly the opposite. At Worlds, 2A/3T combo was in the first half and she got 7.50+1.0GOE = 8.5 points. On the other hand, at TEB she did it in the second half which gave her whopping 10.05 points (8.25 + 1.8GOE). This alone makes 1.55 point difference. I guess the reason she got 0.8 point more in GOE is probably due to difficult coreographies before/after the jump such as spread eagle in this case. This kind of small details add up to such a huge score. I think Orser and his company really understand COP very well and did an excellent job.

[*Sniper*]

Yea, I think this is getting to a stage, where it is really bothering the ppl trying to be objective and non judgemental about this sport.
I didnt think Yuna's LP was good choreographically (and it left me cold) compared to what I have seen from her. And I didnt like the Bond as much as I loved Dans Macabre or especially Tango (Roxanne).. But, you have to be really biased to see Yuna's technique questionable or her jumps smth you can discuss and put down. She is simply the best out there technically. Period.
Asada has great potential (and my favorite), granted, and I actually enjoyed her LP when seeing live (actually more than Yuna's) but she is having problems technically and I am not sure when or how she can fix it.
So all we can do is adore someone for being so ahead of the game. Yes the judges may be inflating the GOE's, but thats the weak point of this sport. Reputation marking will always be a problem given the nature of the judging this sport requires so why whine about smth that is not new or unique to Yuna..

[yangjie]

okey
guys, lets see how things are going on around other skaters when they performed the nice performance like yuna at SA.
imean, lets see whther other top skaters can get high score when they performe a nice skating.
if they cant get a score over 200 at that time, it would be surely XXXX