Ladies - A Look Back (Video List) | Page 2 | Golden Skate

Ladies - A Look Back (Video List)

Layfan

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 5, 2009
Thanks for the new list and the background. Of course, I knew about the Janet Lynn controversy but I had never seen a a documentary about it. So interesting. I've always been a bit confused about how someone can be a brilliant skater but not a good "figure skater" like Janet Lynn and Midori Ito. I've always wondered why some people were and some people weren't good and school figures and how that translates into their free skating.

Also, thanks for the detail about Sonia ripping up the paper. Heh.
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
Thanks for the new list and the background. Of course, I knew about the Janet Lynn controversy but I had never seen a a documentary about it. So interesting. I've always been a bit confused about how someone can be a brilliant skater but not a good "figure skater" like Janet Lynn and Midori Ito. I've always wondered why some people were and some people weren't good and school figures and how that translates into their free skating.

Also, thanks for the detail about Sonia ripping up the paper. Heh.
I can compare it to the lacksadazical work on a text book Lutz. School Figures were difficult, and still are. There's a rush to be the great free skater and something has to suffer. With Lynne, it was school figures; with many of the present day ladies, it's the time spent on conquering that elusive counter rotation required in the Lutz.

To get to Carnegie Hall, one must not rush, but must practice, practice, practice.
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Oksanafan, thanks for this hard work! I'll watch them as I'm able to. I've never seen Dijkstra skate and have no idea as to her pluses and minuses. Schuba I've heard a lot about, what with her overwhelming advantage in school figures, but have never seen. I do remember Potsch very vaguely, and I kind of liked her style. As I recall, I preferred her to her East German successor, Witt.

As far as skaters who were good free skaters and not great at figures, I don't know enough about the technical aspects of skating to understand the reason behind it. I do remember hearing that the European skaters tended to excel in figures. Someone likened them to a toy being pulled along on a string because they were so precise. I don't know what Janet Lynn's problem was, but I doubt it was lack of application. Her coach was Slavka Kohout, who doesn't give the impression of someone who would put up with slipshod training. Were the other American skaters of the time better than Janet? (I know Peggy Fleming was superb at figures, but I mean from 1969 to 1973, Lynn's peak.) Maybe the Europeans just had special training techniques. I'd love to hear more about this from other posters.

As for Ito, I suspect the Japanese coaches weren't especially good at training figures at that time, and besides, Ito was such a phenomenal jumper that they probably concentrated on that aspect of her skating. I can't blame them! I'm still getting over the video someone here linked to, where Kurt Browning and Midori Ito (in their eligible years) both practiced a triple axel at the same time, and hers was as high as his. And she's about four foot ten! Simply mind-boggling. Who cares if she could do a rocker or a bracket better than anyone else when she had that?
 
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Layfan

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 5, 2009
I can compare it to the lacksadazical work on a text book Lutz. School Figures were difficult, and still are. There's a rush to be the great free skater and something has to suffer. With Lynne, it was school figures; with many of the present day ladies, it's the time spent on conquering that elusive counter rotation required in the Lutz.

To get to Carnegie Hall, one must not rush, but must practice, practice, practice.

Yes, I agree with the Carnegie Hall analogy, which is why I'm so interested. I guess my question is more - how much can you tell from a skater's free skating whether or not they are good at whatever it is school figures teaches (control and edging, I'm guessing). I know the skaters today that have been criticized for their lack of good edges and deep knee bends and ice coverage and all that stuff that I take to mean good basic skating. (Ryan Bradley, etc) Does that mean they would not have been good a school figures? Patrick Chan is always praised for his great basics so does that mean he would have been good at school figures? I'm just not sure how it all translates.

In Janet Lynn's case, it's hard for me to see any bad basic skating there. Maybe Olympia is right and she was an okay figures skater but just not as good as Schuba. From what the documentary says, Shuba was some kind of school figures phenom and nobody could touch her there.
 
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dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
Lynn was a wonderful free skater, but a very mediocre skater of school figures. Trixi Schuba was an awe-inspiring skater of school figures, but a mediocre free skater, so there wasn't a one for one correspondence. Debi Thomas was good at school figures, for example

If I were to guess which lady would be good at school figures, I'm guessing Rachael Flatt would be a great school figure skater-concentration, good head for competition, analytical mind...
 

Layfan

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 5, 2009
Here's a skater who talks about how her skating improved after she got a school figures coach. Very interesting (has some Janet/Beatrix clips. She talks about how her coach told her the loops were an important skill and would help her with the entry into her jumps. The comments on the video are interesting too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnaV1qmJtOw

But now, I'm still confused. If figures help with your jumps how come great jumpers like Ito were not good at figures?

Also, just curious, but anybody know how many coaches these days teach figures? Barely any? Or are there quite a few that require their skaters to practice them?
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
Part of doing figures was actually being able to retrace them accurately. Trixi Schuba actually used to offset her third iteration of the figure a very small distance from the other two, because she cut them so deeply that the rut was too deep to skate over a third time. Amazing.

There was also the issue of nerves-mentally figures competition is a very different skill than free skating. You have to stay very calm.
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
Life magazine had a pictorial of Barbara Ann Scott's circle eights in photographs. She had just finished her third tracings and the circles looked as though they were made on the first tracing. It was uncanny, and she was indeed, a remarkable figure skater.

It would be nice if we had those Life photos of Scott's figures.

The demise of school figure competition is a lost Sport.
 

Layfan

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 5, 2009
Part of doing figures was actually being able to retrace them accurately. Trixi Schuba actually used to offset her third iteration of the figure a very small distance from the other two, because she cut them so deeply that the rut was too deep to skate over a third time. Amazing.

There was also the issue of nerves-mentally figures competition is a very different skill than free skating. You have to stay very calm.

That IS amazing.
 

mskater93

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 22, 2005
A big part of school figures is the body awareness and control which has no bearing on strength and ability to jump. I know skaters (who are now adult competitors) who were very GOOD at figures and equally good at FS. The thing they have is an innate understanding of where their body is and being able to quickly correct it to get back on track to do the skill they were setting up. This has no bearing on rushing to get to the Senior level (heck, in Janet's time it was all about the figure tests and getting through anything higher than 2nd typically took 8-15 months to learn the skills on the test that were new like loops and paragraph figures). There was no rush (even in the early-mid 80s) for skaters to gain triples because if they couldn't pass the figure test (which was the prerequisite for the level) they couldn't compete and if they passed but couldn't compete the figures well, they would never even GET to the freeskate (this would be at Regionals).
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
^^^
Good analyses of where the body is for correcting.

I agree there was no immediate rush in the 6.0 system as there is in the CoP. Those points come bearing down on performance but are good for technical. The definitions of the elements were taken care of with aplomb in the 6.0s. The hype the Nagan winner received for being so young started the rush to become famous at an early age. Movies await the winner. yeah. JMO.
 

blue dog

Trixie Schuba's biggest fan!
Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 16, 2006
I think it is particularly impressive that Katarina stuck around to defend her gold medal. I wonder if we we will ever see that again. Well, I guess Plushenko gave an astonishingly impressive go at it but he took time off in between.
It must be so difficult, once you've won the top prize in your sport, to find the motivation to go through that gruel for four more years. Especially in a sport where your prime years can be so short.

I think this may have been due to the fact that Katarina was very young in her first Olympics, and in East Germany, there was no turning pro. She stated in some interviews during the 90's that she had to win the second medal, in order to be allowed to do shows. Then, of course, the wall came down...
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Also in those days, I think a skater could repeat more easily. This was partly because school figures had a stabilizing influence on skating rankings. (Jumps are a lot more unpredictable.) It was also partly because the East-West split influenced certain judging decisions. I'm no expert on the pressures put on judges, but even today, European judges tended to prefer European skaters for stylistic reasons. I once read that not only Soviet-bloc judges but also any Germanic judges tended to support an East German skater--meaning West Germany and Austria. (Liechtenstein? Don't know if they had any judges.) So Witt was admirably placed in terms of era and geography (not to mention her talent and her extraordinary coolheadedness in competition) to retain her title.
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
But the bottom line was if you could execute decent figures, the Free Skate could do the rest. One didn't have to win figures. Just be in line with the results of figures. It was always exciting to see a skater win against the odds.

Nowadays, the SP, imo, does not have that excitement. A good Technical test with no PCs could do that. And the excitement of a Free Skate, or if you prefer an LP, would produce a memorable winner.
 

mskater93

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 22, 2005
That's not true - Orser skated decent figures but ended up with two Silver medals. The first time, he won the short program and the long program. The second time, his figures had improved but he lost the long...

Politics still went a long way in helping a decent set of figures be placed highly.
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
^^^^^
Well the odds were against him to cap the title while his freestyle was the best. And yes, it was far easier to play politics in Figures. Orser didn't have that on his side. One reason I like the CoP but do not like the abridged Long Program. The LP is oh so bland for me. Sur la plage, everyone looks the same.
 
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