How can Kozuka compete with Chan On PCS?

Violet Bliss · Oct 26, 2011

Last year I said: When someone who doesn't need a quad to win has one, nobody can win without one.

This year: When the reigning record smashing Champion stays on the fast track in improvement, the challengers need to be on the faster track.

Boeing787 · Oct 26, 2011

Bluebonnet said:
Back to Patrick Chan. The first and formost which made me dislike this program was the costume. Why did he have to wear a shinny pants?! It made him look ..."heavier", just like it has made Lambiel look heavier in his: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F893u_lTNVw

This is my guess. Whoever made the costume made the pants too tight. So Patrick has to wear something like a dancebelt under it to ocver you-know-what, or it will be too distracting. That thing make him look heavier.

I actually like his Moondance, it suits his playful personality so well. I don't enjoy lyric men's skating, except for Johnny Weir's.

Violet Bliss · Oct 26, 2011

Patrick's Moondance and Aranjuez costumes are opposite examples in dressing. Light contrasting colours with shiny pants vs all black, including boots, with simple detail on top. It's like two different bodies!

I appreciate the non distracting simplicity of the Aranjuez costume so the focus is on the expression of the music. I like the SP one too from last season. It's subjective but I don't like Kozuka's new LP costume. Maybe a better costume can improve the PCS just a little?

Bluebonnet · Oct 26, 2011

SkateFiguring said:
I appreciate the non distracting simplicity of the Aranjuez costume so the focus is on the expression of the music. I like the SP one too from last season. It's subjective but I don't like Kozuka's new LP costume. Maybe a better costume can improve the PCS just a little?

I like Patrick's new LP costume too. Dislike Kozuka's SP costume very much. If the judges are like us, I guess the costumes could give them immediate first impression in the back of their minds. Though people might not be aware of it.

treeloving · Oct 26, 2011

skatinginbc said:
Based on what I read from the previous posts, here is my conclusion (or summary):

Kozuka should work on:

1. Command on Ice: more bravado, skating big, more projection into the audience, looking up and out—the first and foremost thing he must improve.
2. Reputation and Consistency: This is a hard one. Keep working hard, I guess.
3. Speed and flow: Although only Dragonlady mentioned speed and flow, I would assume her observation to be true. From my (a layperson’s) point of view, Chan’s difficult transitions did not take away his speed and flow, but Kozuka’s seemed to have stifled them.
4. Posture: Some of his postures looked unfinished and sloppy.
5. Dancing ability: It’s getting better nonetheless. The first showing at Japan Open was a disaster, while his SA performance was a big step forward (but strangely it was not reflected in his score).

And I have also concluded: Kozuka's programs are as difficult as Chan's, if not more difficult than Chan's, in terms of their demands for skating skills, transitions and so on (not counting jumps of course). That doesn't mean Kozuka should automatically get a comparable score. It still largely depends on his execution and performance. It's like a concerto competition. One who plays Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor does not always get a higher score than one who plays the easier Beethoven's No. 3 in C minor. In a high level piano competition, it is the execution and performance (interpretation of the music) that count the most. When reaching to a certain level, I found the "easier" piece (like some of Mozart's) paradoxically requires higher skills to execute it well. And I guess it applies to skating as well.

Great summary and observation , you really summarize all th e points that have been discussed and make it easier for lay people like me to read. Your conclusion about the diffculty and score is very interesting as well. Anyway, in my personal opinion even more difficult pieces doesn't have to get better score, but at least the one who skate difficult program one should get some adventage point for their attemp. Therefore, if Kozuka program is as difficult as Chan, even he is more sloppy than chan he should get similar score to Chan in choreography (if we talk only about difficulty, not creativity or how the program go along with the music).

Violet Bliss · Oct 26, 2011

I'd like to know how it was concluded that Kozuka's program is more difficult than Chan's? In what way and aspects? Can someone break down and compare the different areas? Is this an experts' consensus? Is it already the premise to extrapolate from?

gkelly · Oct 26, 2011

treeloving said:
Therefore, if Kozuka program is as difficult as Chan, even he is more sloppy than chan he should get similar score to Chan in choreography (if we talk only about difficulty, not creativity or how the program go along with the music).

But the Choreography component is not just a measure of difficult. The word "difficulty" doesn't appear anywhere in the definition of the Choreography component, only in the Transitions component:
http://www.isu.org/vsite/vfile/page/fileurl/0,11040,4844-152086-169302-64121-0-file,00.pdf

On the other hand, the definition of Choreography does include the phrase "structured to match the phrasing of the music" and it does include the words "creative" and "originality."

So if we're talking about scores for Choreography, creativity or how the program go along with the music absolutely would matter more than difficulty, according to the rules.

Maybe you'd rather focus on the Transitions component instead?

No, I haven't analyzed Chan's and Kozuka's programs this year. Maybe I will as we get further into the season. Since I won't be seeing them live, I wouldn't be able to see all the aspects of choreography that the judges see anyway.

Dragonlady · Oct 26, 2011

treeloving said:
Great summary and observation , you really summarize all th e points that have been discussed and make it easier for lay people like me to read. Your conclusion about the diffculty and score is very interesting as well. Anyway, in my personal opinion even more difficult pieces doesn't have to get better score, but at least the one who skate difficult program one should get some adventage point for their attemp. Therefore, if Kozuka program is as difficult as Chan, even he is more sloppy than chan he should get similar score to Chan in choreography (if we talk only about difficulty, not creativity or how the program go along with the music).

No they shouldn't because it's not just the difficulty of the choreography that's being scored but the execution as well, so if a skater has more difficult choreography but doesn't skate it as well as someone with a slightly less difficult program who performs it very well.

A couple of things:

First and foremost, I'm really uncomfortable with people batting around the idea that a reputation matters because I don't think it does and it certainly isn't supposed to. Where people get the idea reputation matters in the scoring is from those aspects of a skater's performance that you don't pick up from your TV screen: speed, flow, command of the ice. Those things can really only be seen live, so people at home who don't get the full effect of speed and command, get the idea that certain skaters are being marked on reputation, not skills.

That said, one skater I know was told by the judges that they needed to get themselves into the final warm-up group at competitions, because once they made the final flight, their PCS would go up by leaps and bounds. Again, that shouldn't be the case, but this was a senior elite skater in conversation with an ISU GP judge.

Last but not least costumes don't matter. No matter how ugly the outfit, unless is breaks the costume rules and receives a deduction from the technical panel, it really doesn't matter whether one skater has a nicer outfit than another.

These are two of the most persistent myths in figure skating.

Boeing787 · Oct 26, 2011

SkateFiguring said:
Patrick's Moondance and Aranjuez costumes are opposite examples in dressing. Light contrasting colours with shiny pants vs all black, including boots, with simple detail on top. It's like two different bodies!

I appreciate the non distracting simplicity of the Aranjuez costume so the focus is on the expression of the music. I like the SP one too from last season. It's subjective but I don't like Kozuka's new LP costume. Maybe a better costume can improve the PCS just a little?

I thought Kozuka's costume designer did a bad job when I watched his LP in last worlds. And this year she managed to outdo herself! The top is deliciously ugly!

BTW, Patrick's costume is almost a remake of his 2005 costume:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2oCKyvsCJk

jettasian · Oct 26, 2011

Dragonlady said:
First and foremost, I'm really uncomfortable with people batting around the idea that a reputation matters because I don't think it does and it certainly isn't supposed to. Where people get the idea reputation matters in the scoring is from those aspects of a skater's performance that you don't pick up from your TV screen: speed, flow, command of the ice. Those things can really only be seen live, so people at home who don't get the full effect of speed and command, get the idea that certain skaters are being marked on reputation, not skills.

I also don't think reputation plays a part in the score. But after reading so many Chan getting so many favourism from the judges, Chan's the judges pet, even with 6 falls, Chan will still win blah blah blah, I will take reputation over those nonesense

Boeing787 · Oct 26, 2011

My two cents:
1. difficulty is a factor when CH is scored. For example, if a skater only moves his arms (like Joubert often does) instead of his whole body, his CH mark will be low.
2. PCS is more subjective than TES is. So reputation matters. After all judges are human and cannot be absolutely unbiased.

Violet Bliss · Oct 26, 2011

jettasian said:
I also don't think reputation plays a part in the score. But after reading so many Chan getting so many favourism from the judges, Chan's the judges pet, even with 6 falls, Chan will still win blah blah blah, I will take reputation over those nonesense

Trolls spew such nonsense ad nauseum because it will never happen to prove them right or wrong. Do I need to have a million dollars to say, "Show me your flying pig and I will give you a million dollars"?

gkelly · Oct 26, 2011

jettasian said:
I also don't think reputation plays a part in the score.

It is certainly not an official part of the scoring guidelines.

Boeing787 said:
2. PCS is more subjective than TES is. So reputation matters. After all judges are human and cannot be absolutely unbiased.

Yeah. Rules, guidelines, training can all be designed to guard against the effect of reputation on judges' scores. But they're still human beings and still subject to the same psychological effects as everyone else. And then there's also always the risk of overcompensating.

Kunstrijdster · Oct 26, 2011

Dragonlady said:
First and foremost, I'm really uncomfortable with people batting around the idea that a reputation matters because I don't think it does and it certainly isn't supposed to...

Reputation doesn't matter? In figure skating? In your opinion, does this pertain to all eras and all disciplines? (real question

)

BlackAxel · Oct 26, 2011

Kunstrijdster said:
Reputation doesn't matter? In figure skating? In your opinion, does this pertain to all eras and all disciplines? (real question )

To say that Reputation does not matter in scores is not realistic. Is it existent in the scoring of some skaters ? YES. Should it matter ? Not at all.

In my opinion, reputation exists among all disciplines and eras. However as of late, I think it has not been used so much in current ice-dancing. At least from what I see with the top teams their PCS scores seem about right.

Dragonlady · Oct 26, 2011

Kunstrijdster said:
Reputation doesn't matter? In figure skating? In your opinion, does this pertain to all eras and all disciplines? (real question )

I think that in the past, there was protocol judging based on a perceived pecking order, especially in ice-dance. However, I think that what many fans see as a skater getting marks because of reputation, is an inability to properly assess speed, flow, command of the ice and ice-coverage while watching skating on TV.

People used to say that Irina Slutskaya won because of reputation or because she was Russian. The first time I saw Irina skate live, and yes she was competing against Kwan and Sarah Hughes, I was stunned at how much better she was than either of the other two skaters and asked myself “How does she ever lose?”. The next day, she skated rather slowly and poorly and I said “That’s how”, but this was a skater who, on TV, didn’t look to be nearly as good as Kwan.

Plushenko and Yagudin are also skaters who, live, were so much better than the rest of the men competing in that era, that everyone else was truthfully skating for bronze, and yet we have people who say that Plushenko won on reputation.

In the first two seasons that Sasha Cohen skated senior, her fans used to say she wasn’t winning because she didn’t have sufficient reputation with the judges. I saw a skater with weak edges and basic skating, poorly constructed programs, and who needed a whole lot of work on her jumps. She moved to Tarasova, improved the quality of her basic skating and her speed, cleaned up the entrances and exits to her spins, and voila, she was winning competitions. Of course then her fans said that the reason she won under Tarasova was because of TT’s reputation.

So while I agree that it’s may not be completely possible to train out all of someone’s biases, I think the number of cases of skaters getting winning or not winning because of reputation or a lack thereof, are grossly overstated.

Violet Bliss · Oct 26, 2011

I think reputation has a hyper-inflated reputation.

gkelly · Oct 26, 2011

Yes, I think that observers who disagree with results often jump to "reputation judging" as an excuse, even when there are perfectly good reasons for the results based on the actual skating, as Dragonlady details.

Doesn't mean it never happens to some degree, but it should be the last explanation we look to when trying to understand results that are not self-evident, not the first.

skatinginbc · Oct 26, 2011

SkateFiguring said:
Trolls spew such nonsense ad nauseum because it will never happen to prove them right or wrong. Do I need to have a million dollars to say, "Show me your flying pig and I will give you a million dollars"?

Can you please don't label people "trolls" so easily? The definition of "troll" entails a primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response. You are presuming others' motive again and it's really getting on my nerves. You may consider the magic button to hide all my posts if you don't like what I just said, or just answer me back and I will do so to you.

Violet Bliss · Oct 26, 2011

^^^^ I think posting over and over at every opportunity over an extended period of time that Chan will win any event with 6 to 10 falls fits your definition of trolling.

How can Kozuka compete with Chan On PCS?

Violet Bliss

Boeing787

Violet Bliss

Bluebonnet

treeloving

Violet Bliss

gkelly

Dragonlady

Boeing787

jettasian

Match Penalty

Boeing787

Violet Bliss

gkelly

Kunstrijdster

BlackAxel

Dragonlady

Violet Bliss

gkelly

skatinginbc

Violet Bliss

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