Quote Originally Posted by Olympia View Post
I always respect your analysis. Mao is my favorite current skater no matter what, but even I can tell that her current jump arsenal may not be enough to keep her competitive. Your thought about reconstructing her actual jump plan strategically sounds very useful, because it deals with her capacities as they exist right now. I have two questions based on your explanation:
1) If she's slowing down before her jumps, is this something that can be dealt with?
2) If she has been training in this new way for about three years, is there a way for her muscle memory be able to revert to "what comes naturally"?
1) Maybe. I think the reasons for the slowing down are because of her new technique and because of training new transitions into the 3Flip. She keeps trying to do different connecting moves into the 3Flip every season, in addition to focusing on a technique that doesn't come naturally to her. If she keeps trying to do new difficult entrances, all while focusing on this different takeoff technique, then pushing for more speed might just result in her falling more.

2) I would suspect yes, but I don't know for sure. I do know that her new Flip technique (trying to take off directly from the inside edge instead of pulling from an outside edge to an inside edge) hasn't paid off at all, though, and I feel like it's never going to at this point. The way she used to do the Flip may not have been completely textbook, but it wasn't something that got her an edge violation either. She is just so much more tentative when going into this jump than she ever used to be. It's a noticeable distraction for me because I see her face leaving the program while preparing for the jump more than she ever used to. The same goes for her Lutz.