Ladies LP | Page 19 | Golden Skate

Ladies LP

*Sniper*

On the Ice
Joined
Dec 17, 2006
I'm sure YN will grow into her LP over the course of the season.
As highly scored as it was, that can't be the final version.

But she's definitely got to work on the facial expressions.
Sometimes they looked the same as in the Bond medley, unless she was intending to go for sexy in that LP, too.


And yeah, Mao and CaroZ's jump issues.... man....
It's quite unfortunate.
Where were the coaches when they were first learning?
I hope they can fix it soon, but if it were easy, I'm sure they would've done it by now.

Hope it's not too late. :sad:
 

enlight78

Medalist
Joined
Nov 2, 2005
Is this the fatal problem of Mao as well? With the coaching expertise in Japan, the extraordinary natural ability shown by Mao very early in her skating years, an older sister also demonstrating world class skills, how could she have basic jumping issues today forcing her into this 3x dependency as her only hope? It seems to me that her inability today to skate toe to toe with Yu Na on the CoP basics is because she failed to learn them when she was young. The fact that she can succeed frequently with the 3x is an indication of natural ability not great training. I have seen YouTubes of Mao as a junior completing 3x's. Why weren't her coaches teaching her the basics of each jump?

I'm sure I've got this all wrong but I see no difference in Caroline's coaches never correcting a "mule kick" and Mao's coached never teaching her the basic jumps. Mao looks self taught where Yu Na looks properly coached.

Sorry if I offended Mao fans. I don't mean to. Her skating is a joy to watch.

I most agree; Joannie has pretty good technique too
I think a lot of the jrs use their will and talent to push their way though and coaches just go with what works (results) but solid technique is alway better in the long run; Actually I think a lot of american skaters have slightly off technique;
 

beep_beep

Medalist
Joined
Aug 3, 2007
Just finished watching Yu Na's LP and I thought it was lovely.
She doesn't own it like her SP, but it'll become better with time I'm sure...

Ok, any Mao videos? I neeeeed it.... (and I wouldn't mind the other skaters too :biggrin:)
 

ehdtkqorl123

On the Ice
Joined
Feb 6, 2009
At the interview after LP,

Q: What is your limit?

Yu-Na: Figure skating is not about points. It's all about expressing myself.

:rock:
 

SusieH

On the Ice
Joined
Jul 15, 2008
For Yuna: [...] If she does not just wish to get a OGM but also to be remembered forever with unforgettable performance, I wish her to change her music. I found that her Moonlight Sonata in a show was very impressive. Then we will have a battle of Moonlight Sonata in Olympics, which will be forever mentioned :biggrin:.
:laugh:

LOL :laugh: :biggrin: :p I love Gershwin's music and generally liked Yuna's debut of her LP program and believe she is capable of performing it to its full potential, but this can actually be a good way to go. :agree: OK, half kidding here. I don't think she should change her program as it seems to be well received by the judges so far. Yet to make it into an unforgettable, history-making program which people will still refer to even many years later like T&D's "Bolero" or Yagudin's "Winter," there is still a lot of work cut out for her to do. So go Yuna! :clap:

I like that YuNa's LP isn't too "exciting" at this point in the season.. this is music that demands something different from her interpretation-wise, from any of the programs she's had over the last couple of years (which interpretation-wise all tended to resemble each other, in a certain way). She will have to grow into this program if it is to become something special; I think that is a good thing, because she needs to have SOME kind of challenge for herself this season, seeing as just about everything else in her skating seems ready to go...

Agree with the entire post :agree: :agree: She needs some kind of challenge, and the interpretation of the LP will be a good place to start with. I'm thinking maybe she should take some hints from Jeremy Abbott. He, IMHP, is the perfect skater to interpret this kind of jazzy score.

But I do think other ladies, especially Mao, will catch up and peak in the mid-season to give Yuna some challenges and even a good run for her money. Anyway, the conclusion is Yuna should keep working hard and improving herself, and of course stay healthy :)

The thread grows so fast! I'm glad it's Sunday morning here so I have some time to fool around and read all the posts ;) I don't even have time to watch all the youtube clips and take a look at other threads!
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Ptolemy, that's a scary thought you've brought up about ladies' coaching in Japan. I don't know whether this fact is related to your idea, but interestingly, two of the only "wrapped leg" jumpers to become world or GP medalists have come from Japan: Nakano and the great Midori Ito. (The only other world-class skater with that fault that I recall was one of the Claudias from West Germany: I think it was Claudia Kristofics-Binder.) Maybe it's not a coincidence that those three Japanese ladies, Ito, Nakano, and Asada, all have a triple axel. This seems to reinforce your theory that the Japanese skating program looks for ladies with natural jumping talent, and that some (not all) of their coaches don't force them into the prescribed form. If your idea is correct, Ptolemy, it doesn't bode well for Mao. That's really too bad, because she's phenomenal and it would be nice to have her among the contenders for the OGM.

Isn't it funny: if you just looked at statistics, you'd expect YuNa to be the undisciplined raw talent and Asada to be the technically meticulous one. Here's YuNa, from a country with absolutely no skating tradition and no coaching program--what's more, her coach, Orser, has no previous history of champions that I can recall. On the other hand, there's Asada, from a country that's a huge skating power, especially in ladies' singles, with a bunch of world champions (Ito, Yuka Sato, Ando, Asada), several experienced coaches, and presumably a national skating federation with a strong interest in training young skaters up to standard. And her current coach, Tarasova, has one of the most impressive records of Olympic wins in history! It makes the achievements of Orser and Kim even more impressive when you consider this comparison.
 
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harmy18

Rinkside
Joined
Jun 30, 2008
I most agree; Joannie has pretty good technique too
I think a lot of the jrs use their will and talent to push their way though and coaches just go with what works (results) but solid technique is alway better in the long run; Actually I think a lot of american skaters have slightly off technique;

Joannie's good technique didn't help her gain huge +GOE, however:no:
 

gourry

Final Flight
Joined
Nov 7, 2007
Joannie's good technique didn't help her gain huge +GOE, however:no:

Um, actually that is not true. If you check the protocols, you'll see she gets many many positive GOEs on her jumps. IIRC, she got even more GOE on her 2A than Yuna and Mao at last worlds. (Not 100% sure about Mao, maybe they tied? but it's true in Yuna's case.) It was my impression that maybe Joannie is the second best GOE getter on jumps.
 
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bmelanie

On the Ice
Joined
Nov 16, 2008
Isn't it funny: if you just looked at statistics, you'd expect YuNa to be the undisciplined raw talent and Asada to be the technically meticulous one. Here's YuNa, from a country with absolutely no skating tradition and no coaching program--what's more, her coach, Orser, has no previous history of champions that I can recall. On the other hand, there's Asada, from a country that's a huge skating power, especially in ladies' singles, with a bunch of world champions (Ito, Yuka Sato, Ando, Asada), several experienced coaches, and presumably a national skating federation with a strong interest in training young skaters up to standard. And her current coach, Tarasova, has one of the most impressive records of Olympic wins in history! It makes the achievements of Orser and Kim even more impressive when you consider this comparison.

I think it just goes to show that it's not always about the reputation of the coach or of the skater, it's about how well they work together and complement each other. Yagudin had arguably the greatest coach, Alexei Mishin, early in his career but the coach he won the gold medal with was Tarasova. What I always find interesting is that the original reason Yuna sought out Brian Orser is to improve her 3A technique (which Orser popularized and made a staple in the men's program in his day), and then Orser ended up coaching Yuna full-time and they never even looked back on the 3A afterwards!
I do think communication plays a big issue here; I know Yuna has worked very hard on her English for the last 3-4 years and she has no problem talking to Orser or Wilson, but Mao seems to have issues communicating with Tarasova (not to mention Tarasova can't coach her in Japan, only part-time, and Mao often has to go to Russia); I was watching an interview with Mao and TAT together, and TAT began talking about how they may put a 3A-3T in the program and Mao, after listening to the translator, looked taken aback and confused.

I've always been rather perplexed with Mao's decision to go to TAT as coach; as I understood it, the reason she left Rafael Arutunian in the first place was because Arutunian couldn't be her full-time coach and Mao wanted to train in Japan where she would be attending college, but TAT isn't any better in that sense because she's a) not a full-time coach b) mostly in Russia.

As for the jumping techniqe, I do find it nothing short of miraculous how Yuna has come so far with no huge glaring weaknesses in her technique, considering how Orser only became her full-time coach in March 2007 - her jumps, as many have remarked, are textbook, and while her spins and spirals could all use some honing they're all decent at the very least.My theory as to what might have happened is that Yuna's Korean coaches, having no local precedents to go by, taught her only what they could, which was what was textbook, and Yuna's natural talent helped her along the way.
 

skate4ever

Rinkside
Joined
Feb 15, 2009
Nobody likes blowouts and we want fierce competition that is difficult to predict the outcome of.

I think many of us are disappointed with this year's TEB because we were expecting a nailbiter from a great field that had originally included Yuna, Mao, Sasha, Caroline, Carolina, and Yukano, but ... we all know what happened.

However, this is the first grand prix event of the season, and the last and only time Yuna has won everything was in 05-06 when she was a junior.

No female skater, not even Katarina Witt, was so good that she blew away her competition and strolled up to the top of the Olympics podium. According to Wikipedia, Witt actually lost to Elizabeth Manley of Canada in LP and eked out an OGM based on her short program performance.

Maybe an unexpected American skater will emerge like Sarah Hughes did in Salt Lake City. Yuna might have a back spasm, Asada might find the perfect rhythm and land three 3A (one in SP and two in LP) in one competition, Miki or Joannie might have transformed into a much improved skaters, there might be more things on ice when Yuna skates. Who knows?

For those of you who don't like the fact that this is all turning into Yuna vs. Mao kind of thing, you must admit that a good rivalry is always compelling. Although it might seem that Yuna is a notch above Mao based on what we just saw, Yuna only has a slight edge over Mao in their head-to-head matchups (Kim 6: Asada 5) and it was only last season that Yuna lost to Mao.

It's like Duke vs. North Carolina, Yankees vs. Red Sox, and if you're from Europe, Norway vs. Italy in 4x10 km cross country skiing relay.

All in all, as a figure skating fan, I think this is all fun to watch and I hope nobody takes any of this personally or too seriously. As difficult as it might sound, we should all try to be fans of the sport rather than of individual athletes (unless you're closely related to any one of them, in which case I strongly suggest you stay away from discussion forums) because the athletes will retire very soon but the sport of figure skating will remain for a long time.
 

gourry

Final Flight
Joined
Nov 7, 2007
Nobody likes blowouts and we want fierce competition that is difficult to predict the outcome of.

That's not necessarily true. People also like to see an absolutely dominant person crushes everyone else and keeps setting new records and making history.
That's why people went crazy when Phelps dominated the field and got 8 gold medals.
The only difference I see here is that Yuna is non-American.

You can't really expect Yuna to underperform for the sake of competition being nailbiting. It's up to other competitors to deliver the goods and catch up. Here they failed.
 
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herios

Medalist
Joined
Jan 25, 2004
Um, actually that is not true. If you check the protocols, you'll see she gets many many positive GOEs on her jumps. IIRC, she got even more GOE on her 2A than Yuna and Mao at last worlds. (Not 100% sure about Mao, maybe they tied? but it's true in Yuna's case.) It was my impression that maybe Joannie is the second best GOE getter on jumps.

And I agree with you, Joannie started to get rewarded last year actually quite impressively for her technique. As much, as she scored constantly very good results in each competition (except the GPF).
 

ehdtkqorl123

On the Ice
Joined
Feb 6, 2009
Just out of curiosity, in Kwan's era, were figure skating fans this enthusiastic about the rivalry like the one between Yu-Na and Mao? Not that I am making any comparison between Kwan and Yu-Na.
 

Bennett

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 20, 2007
Ptolemy, that's a scary thought you've brought up about ladies' coaching in Japan. I don't know whether this fact is related to your idea, but interestingly, two of the only "wrapped leg" jumpers to become world or GP medalists have come from Japan: Nakano and the great Midori Ito. (The only other world-class skater with that fault that I recall was one of the Claudias from West Germany: I think it was Claudia Kristofics-Binder.) Maybe it's not a coincidence that those three Japanese ladies, Ito, Nakano, and Asada, all have a triple axel. This seems to reinforce your theory that the Japanese skating program looks for ladies with natural jumping talent, and that some (not all) of their coaches don't force them into the prescribed form. If your idea is correct, Ptolemy, it doesn't bode well for Mao. That's really too bad, because she's phenomenal and it would be nice to have her among the contenders for the OGM.
.

Actually Yukari, Midori, and Mao, phenomenal 3A jumpers with some unconventional techniques, were all coached by Machiko Yamada. Another student, Mie Onda, also landed 3A (I just don't know if she had any technical issues though). Kanako Murakami, a fantastic shining junior star, also is coached by Machiko. She is an absolutely fantastic performer and wonderful jumper, but flutzes and has mule kick, too.
 
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herios

Medalist
Joined
Jan 25, 2004
:agree:
That's not necessarily true. People also like to see an absolutely dominant person crushes everyone else and keeps setting new records and making history.
That's why people went crazy when Phelps dominated the field and got 8 gold medals.
The only difference I see here is that Yuna is non-American.

You can't really expect Yuna to underperform for the sake of competition being nailbiting. It's up to other competitors to deliver the goods and catch up. Here they failed.


I agree with you. This is a sport not a thriller show!, If I need drama, i will go to the theatre. Let Yu-Na blow away the competition if she is that good, The rest have to stand up and challenge her if they can.:agree:
 

skate4ever

Rinkside
Joined
Feb 15, 2009
That's not necessarily true. People also like to see an absolutely dominant person crushes everyone else and keeps setting new records and making history.
That's why people went crazy when Phelps dominated the field and got 8 gold medals.

But don't you think the sport of swimming would have received even higher level of attention if there was another swimmer just as good as Phelps? Yeah, Phelps is good and he was expected to win lots of gold medals and he did... But that was so predictable.

Usain Bolt is quite popular, isn't he?

Ditto with Usain Bolt. I'm sure if Tyson Gay or Asafa Powell finds a way to beat Bolt once in a while, the crowd will become much more involved.

You can't really expect Yuna to underperform for the sake of competition being nailbiting. It's up to other competitors to deliver the goods and catch up. Here they failed.

Who said anything about expecting Yuna to underperform to enhance the level of excitement? All I'm saying is that although there wasn't much competition for the first place at this year's TEB, there can be plenty towards the end of the season.
 

herios

Medalist
Joined
Jan 25, 2004
But don't you think the sport of swimming would have received even higher level of attention if there was another swimmer just as good as Phelps? Yeah, Phelps is good and he was expected to win lots of gold medals and he did... But that was so predictable.



Ditto with Usain Bolt. I'm sure if Tyson Gay or Asafa Powell finds a way to beat Bolt once in a while, the crowd will become much more involved.



Who said anything about expecting Yuna to underperform to enhance the level of excitement? All I'm saying is that although there wasn't much competition for the first place at this year's TEB, there can be plenty towards the end of the season.



For those who want excitement, there still could be in the quest for the silver and bronze, or in the other disciplines. The men's title for example will be extremely disputed.
 

skate4ever

Rinkside
Joined
Feb 15, 2009
For those who want excitement, there still could be in the quest for the silver and bronze, or in the other disciplines. The men's title for example will be extremely disputed.

So are you saying that Yuna virtually has the OGM in her pocket already? I'm a big fan of hers and I think she's good, but not that good.
 
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