The Arms Above the Shoulders

[Bluebonnet]

I've gone from being intrigued and having high hopes for Jeremy's SP when I saw the clip from it's debut at ATS ( wasn't it ?) to real dismay at the showing at NHK. He's gone in entirely the opposite direction from the one I imagined he'd need to take to develop it . It seems to me that the hand and arm movements have become even more florid ( perhaps because he's more comfortable with them), and all the ones that have nothing to do with Tango or Flamenco are still there. I thought when I first saw it ,if he pared the hands down a bit , channeled a bit more of the Flamenco /Tango macho attitude , and kept the costume simple..even severe, so as not to distract..he'd have a real winner.

The absolute kiss of death for me, was the dreadful costume. I couldn't believe it was Jeremy. At best , all those half and half costumes ever say to me is ,I don't know who or what I am, or here's another split personality..and cause my sister and I to say to each other " Another half-a**ed costume. " ..It's just a double distraction from the skating. I'll never warm to this program in this incarnation. When I think of the perfection of A Day in The Life , I feel really sad.

Sorry if I'm OT with the costume, it's just part of the whole no-no , to me.

But back to the arms..No, it's not just meaningless flailing ,like we've seen from say, Plushenko and all his emulators ,in the past ( and there are plenty of other examples )..This is purposeful, but it sure doesn't complement the skating.

NHK was a bit let down but I think in COR, he's back. I agree that the costume was a disastrous choice. It took away some of the beauty of this program, not just distracting. Now I have to use the split mind technic to ignore his costume and enjoy his skating.

I do find beauty in this program. If you see the dance with the same music on the floor, Jeremy is getting there. His arms paced amazingly with the pace of the music, which I find it's so hard to do for such a fast piece. I love the footwork sequence section, love the opening of this program which was all about the arm and hand movements. The ending was changed from the ATS version and it's good now. I also love the face touching with a quick head turn right on the beat of the music - I know a lot of you disliked the face touching so much. I have to say that the fact that he could do this kind of dance on ice is just amazing!