- Joined
- Dec 9, 2017
2014-2018 Mens in Review: Rise of the #sQuad
- Thread starter Danny T
- Start date
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2018
LOL I mean I know his age but sometimes I forget too and just lump him with the newer kids
Actually, I'm still tickled that Yuzuru is with the uncles squad now along with Patrick&Javi, while not that long ago he's the young kid
Yuzuru and Mikhail are just in a weird gap in between I guess.
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2017
Oh goodness baby-faced Uncle Yuzu
Shoma and Boyang have three more years lol
Shoma and Boyang have three more years lol
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2017
LOL I mean I know his age but sometimes I forget too and just lump him with the newer kids
Actually, I'm still tickled that Yuzuru is with the uncles squad now along with Patrick&Javi, while not that long ago he's the young kid
Not too young, not yet old enough.
They're that Britney song, only in a FS version.
Thank you for this awesome topic!
I so love it and I needed it so bad to make a reference to this pack of guys. I had to learn the proper spelling!
It’s not just that they jump quads. Who doesn’t these days? (Well, I know who but this is a different topic.) The point is, they are the skaters – or, shall I say the generation of skaters? – whose competition is setting the benchmark and moving the boundaries for quadsters. So, sorry Kolyada, Aliev, or possibly Tomono and whoever is rocking the junior ranks, you are not there yet. It was awfully interesting to read the insights about who is about to join the elite quadsters but still!
I must say that I can’t express how happy I am about the current quadster squad. In the era of previous generation when one quad jump was a big deal and two quads felt like from beyond imaginable, there was more trash talk about quads than actual jumping. I won’t mention any personal names but the owners of these names used to set my teeth on the edge a lot. Today, we have a guy who jumps six quads in a program just so – and he is humble! This generation of quadsters is very, very professional about their jumping job. More than that, they all have artistic ambitions. I mean, Uno has an artistic ambition, Chen has an artistic ambition, and then Jin has no choice but to have some kind of an artistic ambition, too. Can I be other than happy? Nope.
What about the questions, all four of them, it’s Nathan Chen. For the question two, it might vary for specific elements/components but still, it’s Nathan Chen. He is a frickin’ figure skating Mozart! I like his physique. It’s so compact! He is born to do the modern well-packed jumping. He also has a spirit to push himself over the hard part and he speaks well in the interviews. I was most impressed by his Nemesis SP; it showed that he had made a progress that I would never expect him to make. I mean, we have always divided skaters into “the jumpers” and “the artists”, right? And now, this guys with his talent and his attitude just doesn’t give a sh*t about the boundaries! I don’t think that we have seen the best of Nathan Chen yet. Apparently, he has received lots of hype in the US but you know what? He’s underrated. I’m telling you!
Shoma Uno is yet another miracle. He is a short “jumper” body type with the most obvious artistic ambition of them all. However, for the artistic class of Yuzuru/Daisuke that he is approaching, he has an artistic individuality problem. I mean, when we think about Daisuke, we remember tango and the Electric Swan Lake. When we think about Yuzuru, we remember that other non-electric swan. When we think about Shome Uno… I personally remember all second places that he’s been taking. But he is still young. In fact, he is objectively too young to be Yuzuru/Daisuke class (as is Chen, too, once we talk about it).
What about Boyang Jin, I love him. I keep telling everyone that “he will improve his artistic performance” (to convince myself I guess) and when he fails, he doesn’t leave me frustrated. He makes me laugh. I think it’s because of his attitude. He is the type who is capable to laugh away failures and it’s infectious. But he has made a significant progress in his artistic performance since he first showed around. That’s a fact.
And now, I will go back to the first page of this thread and read all these amazingly insightful replies for the second time.
I did.the #sQuad (squad of quadsters - say that ten times
I so love it and I needed it so bad to make a reference to this pack of guys. I had to learn the proper spelling!
It’s not just that they jump quads. Who doesn’t these days? (Well, I know who but this is a different topic.) The point is, they are the skaters – or, shall I say the generation of skaters? – whose competition is setting the benchmark and moving the boundaries for quadsters. So, sorry Kolyada, Aliev, or possibly Tomono and whoever is rocking the junior ranks, you are not there yet. It was awfully interesting to read the insights about who is about to join the elite quadsters but still!
I must say that I can’t express how happy I am about the current quadster squad. In the era of previous generation when one quad jump was a big deal and two quads felt like from beyond imaginable, there was more trash talk about quads than actual jumping. I won’t mention any personal names but the owners of these names used to set my teeth on the edge a lot. Today, we have a guy who jumps six quads in a program just so – and he is humble! This generation of quadsters is very, very professional about their jumping job. More than that, they all have artistic ambitions. I mean, Uno has an artistic ambition, Chen has an artistic ambition, and then Jin has no choice but to have some kind of an artistic ambition, too. Can I be other than happy? Nope.
What about the questions, all four of them, it’s Nathan Chen. For the question two, it might vary for specific elements/components but still, it’s Nathan Chen. He is a frickin’ figure skating Mozart! I like his physique. It’s so compact! He is born to do the modern well-packed jumping. He also has a spirit to push himself over the hard part and he speaks well in the interviews. I was most impressed by his Nemesis SP; it showed that he had made a progress that I would never expect him to make. I mean, we have always divided skaters into “the jumpers” and “the artists”, right? And now, this guys with his talent and his attitude just doesn’t give a sh*t about the boundaries! I don’t think that we have seen the best of Nathan Chen yet. Apparently, he has received lots of hype in the US but you know what? He’s underrated. I’m telling you!
Shoma Uno is yet another miracle. He is a short “jumper” body type with the most obvious artistic ambition of them all. However, for the artistic class of Yuzuru/Daisuke that he is approaching, he has an artistic individuality problem. I mean, when we think about Daisuke, we remember tango and the Electric Swan Lake. When we think about Yuzuru, we remember that other non-electric swan. When we think about Shome Uno… I personally remember all second places that he’s been taking. But he is still young. In fact, he is objectively too young to be Yuzuru/Daisuke class (as is Chen, too, once we talk about it).
What about Boyang Jin, I love him. I keep telling everyone that “he will improve his artistic performance” (to convince myself I guess) and when he fails, he doesn’t leave me frustrated. He makes me laugh. I think it’s because of his attitude. He is the type who is capable to laugh away failures and it’s infectious. But he has made a significant progress in his artistic performance since he first showed around. That’s a fact.
And now, I will go back to the first page of this thread and read all these amazingly insightful replies for the second time.
Not too young, not yet old enough.
They're that Britney song, only in a FS version.
So I involuntarily imagined them skating to this song and I can't get it out of my head now
P.S. I mean I imagined Yuzuru and Kolyada doing that song... Damn, I just imagined Boyang Jin dong that song!! I need a break...:rofl2:
- Joined
- Feb 28, 2018
Lol I love your comments about Nathan...
Oh goodness baby-faced Uncle Yuzu
Shoma and Boyang have three more years lol
Hey, I got your DM but can't respond to you directly because GS says you chose to not receive private messages. Respond to me either on Discord or activate your DMs please!
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2017
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2011
Count me into the group of people who aren't very fond of this whole "sQuad" business. I get why comparing Nathan - Shoma - Boyang is generally very popular - they're the younger half of what people also called the "top 6". But if we go by "pushed the boundaries in term of jump difficulty" Yuzu is up there too, and pushing a sport forward has no age cut off. Or someone like Javi, who did 3 quads in his LP for longer then the "sQuad" are even seniors 
Anyway, I'll go into the opening questions including a few other skaters (mostly those that "came up" the senior ranks during the last quad), because they are part of the top guys too (and the simple fact that I like them
)
1) Who is your favourite?
Boyang. From the "other" guys I really love Mika, Dima & Deniss too, and although he has trouble with consistency (in big part to the most horrible luck I can imagine ._.) I'm very fond of Daniel Samohin and hope he'll manage to live up to all the promise we saw in his JWC win.
2) Who do you think has the best jump & spin techniques? Skating skills, transitions, interpretation, performance, composition? On skating skills, how would you break them down, and how do the three differ from each other (strengths/weakness in any particular areas)?
Best jumps: Boyang, as he has the best mixture of great technique (most even on all his jumps too), difficulty & quality IMO. Generally, the best technique when it comes to take-off can be found with Boyang, Nathan and Mikhail. Mikhail has the best jump quality when he lands them - his jumps are big, most often without any doubt on rotation, he has good running edges out of them which allow great flow/speed, and while not exactly A+ in transitions into the quads, he's better then the other two here (and generally doing okay). But he's having troubles with his non 4T quads and lacks the 3F completely. Nathan has the most difficulty and the fact that he has both the quad lutz & flip on correct edges is amazing. However, his jumps don't live up to the others when it comes to quality. He's not as big a jumper, his jumps are quite telegraphed and rarely done out of transitions. The biggest weakness though IMO are his landings - his knees are very stiff, not allowing him a good running edges out of his jumps and his posture on the landing is also rather weak, with him often not keeping a straight back but dropping forward. Also, his 3A is just scary in basically every aspect ^^" Boyang has too telegraphed jumps too, but they are bigger and he has improved a lot on the landings. He used to wobble quite a lot on the landing instead of holding the edge well, but look at his 4CC LP - those landing edges were really good, giving his jumps a smoother and more effortless look. Someone upthread said Boyang slows done into his quads while Nathan does not, and that is pretty much the opposite of my impression from seeing them live (both at the last 2 WCs). Boyang has better speed then Nathan in general, and goes into his jumps without slowing down, which is part of the reason he gets better ice coverage (according to the analysis from Performance Live, Nathan CoR 4Lz had ~2,5m length, Boyangs at last years WC had ~3.6m. That's already more then a meter more, and I'd love to see a more recent analysis as I think Boyangs ice coverage has actually improved).
This is the area where Vincent and Shoma lose out most. Both have questionable technique when it comes to the beloved ( ) pre-rotation topic and also struggle with under-rotation issues (although they're not always called on it). Shoma additionally has the least height on his jumps, and many of his jumps suffer from a mistiming between upper and lower body on take off. But he does for some of them have interesting transitions (3A, 4T) and the very unusual 3A-1/2lo-3F combo. Vincent OTOH telegraphs his jumps too much, although his jumps are bigger then Shomas and he doesn't have the scary knee-torque-landing. His 3A is weaker then Shomas though.
Spins: Shoma & Mika are the better spinners out of the ones mentioned so far. Generally they have good positions and nice speed, although Shoma sometimes struggles a bit with centering. In this area though I'd like to mention Deniss, his amazing sit spin alone deserves to be mentioned. Boyang & Nathan to me are relatively similar again, with Nathan maybe having a slide edge.
Regarding PCS, I'd like to keep this a bit shorter, because there is already so much text wall:
Skating Skills: From the ones mentioned so far it's IMO: Deniss > Mika > Shoma > Dima >> Boyang > Nathan >> Vincent.
I know, this will not agree with many people My top 3 up there all have very good edges, use their knees well and show generally good flow and speed across the ice. Deniss is IMO a bit ahead of the other 2 when it comes to maintaining speed & flow throughout more complex step sequences and shows a bit more variety in steps, one foot & multi-directional skating. I put Mika ahead of Shoma mainly because his turns are cleaner - Shoma has deep edges in general, but when doing quick turns he often is on a flat edge directly exiting the turn and only goes onto the right edge (and deepens it) a bit later. Mika looks sharper to me there. He's also a bit better in multi-directional and one foot skating IMO.
Dima doesn't quite have the same speed, but his flow across his ice is lovely and looks effortless to me, and he's quite well rounded in the SS areas.
Boyang over Nathan, well... just looking at what they are doing on the ice: Boyang has better use of his knees then Nathan, who's knees look rather stiff. He gains speed better doing a similar amount of crossovers and keeps that speed well too - I was honestly surprised seeing his CTHD live how little he slowed down during his step sequence, even during parts where he didn't include hops or other little tricks to gain speed back. He looks a bit more effortless to me at this point too, although I'd give Nathan more precision and better foot placement in general. Both could do with more one-foot skating and more multi directional skating (interesting in that case: Nathan started out a bit better there in the beginning of the season, at least in the SP, but his programs got emptier and emptier, while Boyang went the opposite direction, putting him a bit ahead of Nathan at the end of the season. Boyang generally also has a bit more variety and difficulty in the steps he's doing, although the difference isn't huge).
When it comes to Performance and Interpretation, I think Deniss is the best both combined. He projects well to the audience, has good carriage, shows a nice range and variance of movements & energy (also usually well fitted and timed to the music) and very good musical timing. He also differentiates well between different feelings & rhythms of the music. Bite me, but I'd put Dima next - he's way up there when it comes to IN of music, being able to grasp and translate the feeling of the music well, having great musical timing and paying a lot of attention to details. His movements are elegant, finished nicely and used to highlight the music well. Where I'd put him behind Deniss is in audience projection and energy variation/contrast. Mika OTOH is a bit the opposite compared to Dima, he's better in projecting to the audience and has nice energy & power, but I don't feel the same emotional involvement with his music and I don't think he brings out changes in the music as well. So I'd put Mika over Dima in PE, but Dima ahead in IN.
Shoma in general has good energy and projection too, he has quite the presence on the ice. His musical timing is very good too. Where he loses a bit for me compared to the other guys mentioned first is in translating the character and feeling of the music. To put it simple, Shoma looks the same to me no matter what music he skates to. His upper body movements are also often praised but a bit too tense for me, at least on certain parts of the music I'd think if he relaxed his upper body/arms a bit more it would work better. Boyangs biggest problem is IMO that he still sometimes drops the performance, at least during the LP (probably the weak LP he's had this season doesn't help). His energy kind of comes and goes a little. In the SP, his attention to detail is fine, but it needs more work in the LP. Where he really shines though is audience connection during the more upbeat parts and during step sequences & choreo sequence. He's also worked a lot on trying to convey different types of music and interpreting different feelings/characters. His CTHD shows that best, with his movements being notably softer during the first part and sharper/more powerful when the drums set in. Contrary to many others again, I guess, I'd put Boyang behind Shoma in PE but actually ahead of him in IN. Nathan has similar problems to Boyang, with his energy coming and going a lot, and majorly most of it goes into the step sequence while he's even more focused on the technical side. His movements can be very nice, especially regarding his arms and lines, but I also think he's a bit stiff and doesn't quite project as well (the only exception being his SP step sequence, but also mostly at the beginning of the season, and not as much anymore at WC).
I'll leave it at that because otherwise I'll still be typing tomorrow, and I doubt most people even want to hear talk about ~trrrransitions!!~ anymore
Anyway, I'll go into the opening questions including a few other skaters (mostly those that "came up" the senior ranks during the last quad), because they are part of the top guys too (and the simple fact that I like them
)1) Who is your favourite?
Boyang. From the "other" guys I really love Mika, Dima & Deniss too, and although he has trouble with consistency (in big part to the most horrible luck I can imagine ._.) I'm very fond of Daniel Samohin and hope he'll manage to live up to all the promise we saw in his JWC win.
2) Who do you think has the best jump & spin techniques? Skating skills, transitions, interpretation, performance, composition? On skating skills, how would you break them down, and how do the three differ from each other (strengths/weakness in any particular areas)?
Best jumps: Boyang, as he has the best mixture of great technique (most even on all his jumps too), difficulty & quality IMO. Generally, the best technique when it comes to take-off can be found with Boyang, Nathan and Mikhail. Mikhail has the best jump quality when he lands them - his jumps are big, most often without any doubt on rotation, he has good running edges out of them which allow great flow/speed, and while not exactly A+ in transitions into the quads, he's better then the other two here (and generally doing okay). But he's having troubles with his non 4T quads and lacks the 3F completely. Nathan has the most difficulty and the fact that he has both the quad lutz & flip on correct edges is amazing. However, his jumps don't live up to the others when it comes to quality. He's not as big a jumper, his jumps are quite telegraphed and rarely done out of transitions. The biggest weakness though IMO are his landings - his knees are very stiff, not allowing him a good running edges out of his jumps and his posture on the landing is also rather weak, with him often not keeping a straight back but dropping forward. Also, his 3A is just scary in basically every aspect ^^" Boyang has too telegraphed jumps too, but they are bigger and he has improved a lot on the landings. He used to wobble quite a lot on the landing instead of holding the edge well, but look at his 4CC LP - those landing edges were really good, giving his jumps a smoother and more effortless look. Someone upthread said Boyang slows done into his quads while Nathan does not, and that is pretty much the opposite of my impression from seeing them live (both at the last 2 WCs). Boyang has better speed then Nathan in general, and goes into his jumps without slowing down, which is part of the reason he gets better ice coverage (according to the analysis from Performance Live, Nathan CoR 4Lz had ~2,5m length, Boyangs at last years WC had ~3.6m. That's already more then a meter more, and I'd love to see a more recent analysis as I think Boyangs ice coverage has actually improved).
This is the area where Vincent and Shoma lose out most. Both have questionable technique when it comes to the beloved (
) pre-rotation topic and also struggle with under-rotation issues (although they're not always called on it). Shoma additionally has the least height on his jumps, and many of his jumps suffer from a mistiming between upper and lower body on take off. But he does for some of them have interesting transitions (3A, 4T) and the very unusual 3A-1/2lo-3F combo. Vincent OTOH telegraphs his jumps too much, although his jumps are bigger then Shomas and he doesn't have the scary knee-torque-landing. His 3A is weaker then Shomas though.Spins: Shoma & Mika are the better spinners out of the ones mentioned so far. Generally they have good positions and nice speed, although Shoma sometimes struggles a bit with centering. In this area though I'd like to mention Deniss, his amazing sit spin alone deserves to be mentioned. Boyang & Nathan to me are relatively similar again, with Nathan maybe having a slide edge.
Regarding PCS, I'd like to keep this a bit shorter, because there is already so much text wall:
Skating Skills: From the ones mentioned so far it's IMO: Deniss > Mika > Shoma > Dima >> Boyang > Nathan >> Vincent.
I know, this will not agree with many people
My top 3 up there all have very good edges, use their knees well and show generally good flow and speed across the ice. Deniss is IMO a bit ahead of the other 2 when it comes to maintaining speed & flow throughout more complex step sequences and shows a bit more variety in steps, one foot & multi-directional skating. I put Mika ahead of Shoma mainly because his turns are cleaner - Shoma has deep edges in general, but when doing quick turns he often is on a flat edge directly exiting the turn and only goes onto the right edge (and deepens it) a bit later. Mika looks sharper to me there. He's also a bit better in multi-directional and one foot skating IMO.Dima doesn't quite have the same speed, but his flow across his ice is lovely and looks effortless to me, and he's quite well rounded in the SS areas.
Boyang over Nathan, well... just looking at what they are doing on the ice: Boyang has better use of his knees then Nathan, who's knees look rather stiff. He gains speed better doing a similar amount of crossovers and keeps that speed well too - I was honestly surprised seeing his CTHD live how little he slowed down during his step sequence, even during parts where he didn't include hops or other little tricks to gain speed back. He looks a bit more effortless to me at this point too, although I'd give Nathan more precision and better foot placement in general. Both could do with more one-foot skating and more multi directional skating (interesting in that case: Nathan started out a bit better there in the beginning of the season, at least in the SP, but his programs got emptier and emptier, while Boyang went the opposite direction, putting him a bit ahead of Nathan at the end of the season. Boyang generally also has a bit more variety and difficulty in the steps he's doing, although the difference isn't huge).
When it comes to Performance and Interpretation, I think Deniss is the best both combined. He projects well to the audience, has good carriage, shows a nice range and variance of movements & energy (also usually well fitted and timed to the music) and very good musical timing. He also differentiates well between different feelings & rhythms of the music. Bite me, but I'd put Dima next - he's way up there when it comes to IN of music, being able to grasp and translate the feeling of the music well, having great musical timing and paying a lot of attention to details. His movements are elegant, finished nicely and used to highlight the music well. Where I'd put him behind Deniss is in audience projection and energy variation/contrast. Mika OTOH is a bit the opposite compared to Dima, he's better in projecting to the audience and has nice energy & power, but I don't feel the same emotional involvement with his music and I don't think he brings out changes in the music as well. So I'd put Mika over Dima in PE, but Dima ahead in IN.
Shoma in general has good energy and projection too, he has quite the presence on the ice. His musical timing is very good too. Where he loses a bit for me compared to the other guys mentioned first is in translating the character and feeling of the music. To put it simple, Shoma looks the same to me no matter what music he skates to. His upper body movements are also often praised but a bit too tense for me, at least on certain parts of the music I'd think if he relaxed his upper body/arms a bit more it would work better. Boyangs biggest problem is IMO that he still sometimes drops the performance, at least during the LP (probably the weak LP he's had this season doesn't help). His energy kind of comes and goes a little. In the SP, his attention to detail is fine, but it needs more work in the LP. Where he really shines though is audience connection during the more upbeat parts and during step sequences & choreo sequence. He's also worked a lot on trying to convey different types of music and interpreting different feelings/characters. His CTHD shows that best, with his movements being notably softer during the first part and sharper/more powerful when the drums set in. Contrary to many others again, I guess, I'd put Boyang behind Shoma in PE but actually ahead of him in IN. Nathan has similar problems to Boyang, with his energy coming and going a lot, and majorly most of it goes into the step sequence while he's even more focused on the technical side. His movements can be very nice, especially regarding his arms and lines, but I also think he's a bit stiff and doesn't quite project as well (the only exception being his SP step sequence, but also mostly at the beginning of the season, and not as much anymore at WC).
I'll leave it at that because otherwise I'll still be typing tomorrow, and I doubt most people even want to hear talk about ~trrrransitions!!~ anymore
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2013
What a great thoughtful analysis! I agree with you almost on everything and many things which I felt rather than understood are much clearer in my mind now - like Shoma's interpretation issues.:thumbsup:
