And it's a shame.
And yep, the body types which provided advantages there were completely different.
Is there an ideal "figure" in figure skating?
- Thread starter Mrs. P
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And it's a shame.
And yep, the body types which provided advantages there were completely different.
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lovelly skinny body type and long lines .. POLINA KOROBEYNIKOVA
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I think this was mentioned earlier (too lazy to wade through the entire thread) but there are two kinds of "weight talk" when in figure skating: the kind that speculates about its relationship to the technical side of things (so-and-so might have an easier time rotating with her jumps if she took off a few pounds) and the kind that's really more about aesthetics (so-and-so should lose weight to look more attractive and graceful).
Of the two, the first type doesn't bother me at all. In fact, I often wish people would be less sensitive about it, that we could discuss it the same way we could discuss jumping technique or music choices. The laws of physics are present regardless of anyone's feelings, and in most sports, there are certain physical characteristics that the most successful athletes tend to have. Yeah, there's a range of bodies that can succeed rather than one exact "perfect" one, and technique can count for a lot, and with the new code there's a number of different ways to rack up points so there might be more leeway for different body types. But still, most skaters will struggle if their body fat percentage or overall size gets past a certain point (which is different for different skaters). For all the body comparisons people love to do (usually of female skaters, I can't help but notice), these athletes would look relatively small and thin when seen in the flesh, even the "heavy" or "thick" ones. The skaters that get called heavy might look that way relative to other skaters, but no one would be describing them that way after seeing them in a university lecture, or at a shopping mall, for example. So yes, it appears it skating does favour the small and thin, especially in women/girls.
The second type of weight talk does bother me, though: the idea that to be pleasing to watch, to be considered truly artistic, a female skater needs to be slender and ballerina-like. I do think it's a sign of body prejudice, the meaning we've learned to associate with different body types. These ideas and attitudes are cultural, they're learned, and most people absorb them to some extent. A gymnastics columnist last year spoke of something similar in that sport, how the descriptors of "athletic" and "artistic" have become almost code for describing a gymnast's body type, and how the more willowy-figured gymnasts have an easier time being seen as artistic than the ones with stronger, more muscular builds.
Shawn Johnson Retires: How Gymnastics Talks About Bodies in Code
I think she hits it right on the head in these places, and that these observations can apply to female figure skaters, also:
Of the two, the first type doesn't bother me at all. In fact, I often wish people would be less sensitive about it, that we could discuss it the same way we could discuss jumping technique or music choices. The laws of physics are present regardless of anyone's feelings, and in most sports, there are certain physical characteristics that the most successful athletes tend to have. Yeah, there's a range of bodies that can succeed rather than one exact "perfect" one, and technique can count for a lot, and with the new code there's a number of different ways to rack up points so there might be more leeway for different body types. But still, most skaters will struggle if their body fat percentage or overall size gets past a certain point (which is different for different skaters). For all the body comparisons people love to do (usually of female skaters, I can't help but notice), these athletes would look relatively small and thin when seen in the flesh, even the "heavy" or "thick" ones. The skaters that get called heavy might look that way relative to other skaters, but no one would be describing them that way after seeing them in a university lecture, or at a shopping mall, for example. So yes, it appears it skating does favour the small and thin, especially in women/girls.
The second type of weight talk does bother me, though: the idea that to be pleasing to watch, to be considered truly artistic, a female skater needs to be slender and ballerina-like. I do think it's a sign of body prejudice, the meaning we've learned to associate with different body types. These ideas and attitudes are cultural, they're learned, and most people absorb them to some extent. A gymnastics columnist last year spoke of something similar in that sport, how the descriptors of "athletic" and "artistic" have become almost code for describing a gymnast's body type, and how the more willowy-figured gymnasts have an easier time being seen as artistic than the ones with stronger, more muscular builds.
Shawn Johnson Retires: How Gymnastics Talks About Bodies in Code
I think she hits it right on the head in these places, and that these observations can apply to female figure skaters, also:
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She looks great on the ice, but the jumps aren't so great now that she's grown taller. Polina Korobeynikova's body build - a couple of inches in height would be an ideal figure for a ladies skater.
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Is she taller, like Carolina? I don't think..Both have beautiful bodies..
the new Russian rithmic gymnast world champion..she has a beautiful body for RG. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uppAiAhr4ks
Thank God the skaters don't have to be so thin ..
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I hear familiar music!
What happened to the 2012 Olympic silver medalist? (I think her name was Daria Dmitrieva or something?)
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I hear familiar music!
What happened to the 2012 Olympic silver medalist? (I think her name was Daria Dmitrieva or something?)
yes...not once...
Yes, you remember very well. Probably she is retired, she was all around silver medalist, but she won the clubs final...that's not bad..
beautiful woman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A9Qxn9fpVU
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she's too thin for singles maybe ice dancing
an ideal singles skater can be tall or short but ideally should be narrow like taller skaters Mao or Yuna, or average girls with petite frame like Sasha or Julia
too much body excess like Tuktamysheva or Flatt can cause problems, their weight issues needs to be addressed
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yes...not once...
Yes, you remember very well. Probably she is retired, she was all around silver medalist, but she won the clubs final...that's not bad..
I thought she won the ribbons final. And I think I only remember because she beat Kanaeva in some event in the qualification round and some people were like, "Oh no! Kanaeva is losing her touch!"
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You are right. she won the ribbon final, I checked it.
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Polina K. is somewhere between 168 cm and 170 cm, so yes, she is one of the tallest skaters in the field like Carolina (listed as either 169 cm or 170 cm). In metric that's 5'6" to 5'7", so for a ladies skater, Polina K. is definitely on the tall end, although there do seem to be more tall female skaters doing well these days (interesting how the ladies are getting taller but most of the men doing well are still short, or average height at most, save Lysacek).
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OT:
Oh, thanks!
If anyone wants any, I've got a few extra that I made (but ultimately didn't choose) lying around. Just let me know!
Sorry in advance for a complete off-topic, but I love your avatar, aftertherain!!!
Oh, thanks!
If anyone wants any, I've got a few extra that I made (but ultimately didn't choose) lying around. Just let me know!
It occurs to me that some of the idealization of certain body types is also the style of the time. On TV they showed a few scenes showing Leslie Caron, who was chosen by Gene Kelly to costar with him in An American in Paris. Caron, still a teenager at that time, was a genuine ballerina, trained in Paris. If you look at her figure in any of her early films, one thing is obvious: she does not have the kind of curveless body idealized by Balanchine. She is very trim, but she has hips. So did many of the dancers of the time. And it's not as if ballet was less demanding in those days than it later became. this was just the style of the time. So I'm wondering whether there is not more leeway than we imagine in skaters' shapes as well. Of course today's skaters have to do triple-triples and whatnot, but I think we've proven by looking at Harding, Ito, and others that natural spring is not necessarily gifted only to sylphs.
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I think all discussion of weight should be highly discouraged. Skating has LONG, LONG, LONG been a sport rife with eating disorders (same as wrestling and gymnastics). When you start discussing a 14, 15, 16 year old girl (and there's a large number of them at high levels in this sport) who may be reading fan message boards like this, when people start throwing "fat", "wide", "needs to lose weight" around and they potentially read it, it's going to start distorting their body image. That's when you end up with skaters eating one small meal a day or restricting calories to some ridiculously small amount (a couple hundred calories a day), because OMG, people said I was fat. Someone who's a high level athlete should be at a higher than starvation number of calories a day. A lot of times, when "fans" start with the "skater X needs to lose weight", it's a girl who's proportions are shifting and turning into a woman. It can't be helped during puberty, it just happens, and that little extra goes away if the skater continues on a HEALTHY diet and caloric intake. In addition, there are a number of "fans" who are downright cruel about it and think that anyone who wouldn't look like a concentration camp refugee in person is fat.
Truthfully, a couple extra pounds will not make a difference in whether a skater fully rotates a jump. I've seen "wider" skaters in the adult ranks who land big, beautiful double jumps well into their forties and fifties (who are only praticing 4-5 hours a week, so not elite time commitment) and they are able to do that because they have good jumping technique and proper timing. Some of the greatest lady jumpers in history were smaller in stature but incredibly muscular (Ito, Harding).
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, MSkater! I feel this instinctively but have no expertise to back it up, except anecdotal evidence by looking at the likes of Harding and Ito (and Volchkova). You have seen enough of skating, both competitive and other kinds, to support this viewpoint.
I remember working with a young assistant who was with us for the summer. She was a member of a dance troupe. She wasn't skeletal, but she was compact and long limbed. One day I heard her say, casually and with humor, not desperately, "Sometimes I think I'm too fat to live." I was horrified because although she said it lightly, she clearly meant it, and for such a lovely person to have such an unrealistic view of not just her body but the female body in general made me very sad. How did we get to this point? Would she have been a better dancer if every vein in her arms were visible?
I remember working with a young assistant who was with us for the summer. She was a member of a dance troupe. She wasn't skeletal, but she was compact and long limbed. One day I heard her say, casually and with humor, not desperately, "Sometimes I think I'm too fat to live." I was horrified because although she said it lightly, she clearly meant it, and for such a lovely person to have such an unrealistic view of not just her body but the female body in general made me very sad. How did we get to this point? Would she have been a better dancer if every vein in her arms were visible?
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To be honest, I prefer if the skaters and dancers are thin. For me, that increases the artistic effect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsvtIzebNcw I believe Natalie is a fantastic actress,
but she couldn't have been a great dancer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6xhKxDGWqo Zacharova
You don't look at their dances, look at their arms, and legs, body types..very very important.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsvtIzebNcw I believe Natalie is a fantastic actress,
but she couldn't have been a great dancer.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6xhKxDGWqo Zacharova
You don't look at their dances, look at their arms, and legs, body types..very very important.
That's your personal preference, but not everyone agrees. For some, "too-thin" decreases the artistic effect just as much as "too fat" does for others.
Some of us find variety of body types more artistic than a narrow range.
E.g., in my college ballet class by far the best dancer was a young woman who had undoubtedly studied ballet for many years as a child and then outgrown the body type. She had the lilt, she had the precision -- I'd much rather watch her dance than thinner, longer-limbed girls with lesser talent or skill.
Ballet is not the only form of dance, and ultrathin ballerinas are not the only women who can excel at ballet technique and expression, even if those with less less traditional body types for the genre would not likely be hired as ballerinas.
For corps de ballet and other ensembles where unison is the goal, there is some argument to be made that everyone should look as similar as possible. But there's also an alternative argument that enforcing similarity also suppresses individuality and encourages viewing the dancers as automatons. It could also be seen as racist if required similarity extends to skin tone and other visible ethnic markers. Diversity of size, shape, and color is often a positive aesthetic statement in some aesthetics.
How does this apply to synchronized skating, which emphasizes unison of large groups but tends to welcome skaters of appropriate skill level from a wider range of body types than singles.
For solo or featured performances, or small ensembles focusing on interactions rather than unison, I'd say that individuality would be a plus for dancers.
It is true that singles skating in the post-figures era relies heavily on the ability to execute triple jumps, and some body types are just not conducive to quick rotation in the air. So the sport will self-select for those who can master those jumps along with the basic skating skills. And high-performing elite athletes will need to maintain optimum levels of physical fitness for their own body types -- which is not necessarily maximum thinness. And then it's up to each skater who does reach the elite level, regardless of body type, also to develop aesthetically appealing alignment, extension (with or without extreme flexibility), musicality, etc., if s/he wants to be considered artistic and earn high PCS.
Ice dance and especially pairs are even more self-selective for body type because of the need for the girls to be lifted and the boys to be able to lift them -- even to the point where aesthetics may be compromised by extreme size difference that favors execution of big tricks.
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Yes, but what is too thin? Is Zacharova too thin? For me not, she is a perfect ballet dancer.
I don't remember the American girl's name who learn ballet in Bolshoi, he was a little bit fat, when she arrived in Moscow. Now she completed her studies, I saw a video she became more thinner.
But don't get me wrong, I think Mao, Caro, Yuna and many others have good body types, I like them.
I don't remember the American girl's name who learn ballet in Bolshoi, he was a little bit fat, when she arrived in Moscow. Now she completed her studies, I saw a video she became more thinner.
But don't get me wrong, I think Mao, Caro, Yuna and many others have good body types, I like them.
For me, aesthetically, yes. Obviously, it's a matter of personal taste.
We're not in a position to know whether this is a healthy size for her or not, but it would be unhealthy for most women to try to achieve.
But the important thing is that each athlete or dancer maintains a healthy fitness level for her own body. No one's body can meet the aesthetic ideals of all possible viewers, nor achieve a body shape contrary to her own genetics. So it's not worth compromising one's health to try, and not wise for viewers -- or coaches, officials, employers -- to encourage them to do so.
About 20 years ago I spoke with an elderly skating judge who told me that up to 10 or 20 years before that, when skaters (parents, coaches) asked what they could do to improve their skating and their results, she often suggested that they lose 5 pounds. As more became known about eating disorders, she had stopped offering that suggestion.