- Joined
- Feb 24, 2012
As I have said before, and will probably get pummelled for this, we are a very unique, and small group of people, who are really into skating and have extreme opinions and biases. We, in general, are often prone myself included ) to really get off topic and desirous of getting our point across often in themes ie pro certain skaters. The actual topic here is the new element of Duhamel and Radford that being a throw quad lutz. I know a lot of teams and skaters claim they are working on improving things or adding new elements; I will probably get beaten up here and I am not trying to break any rules on this board, but the real issue is can they do it when it counts? We have D and R talking throw quad lutz and I do believe they like everyone knows they need a wholistic approach to skating with IJS so tech elements are important but so are pcs and each competitor works on this. We see many clips of skaters landing or doing certain tricks in practice but sadly as we have seen the percentage of them actually doing it in competition is much lower otherwise skaters that said they could do a quad and we assume consistently not when the moon is blue and there is world peace would be trying them in competition and not just talking about them in their arsenal. D and R have been impressive with their tricks. I think their triple lutzes (individual) really should put singles skaters to shame - they are very consistent in landing them and no edge issues unlike the top female individual skaters. Obviously certain things or appearances are more aesthetically pleasing or in keeping with "traditional" values as to what is artistic or attractive in skating but you have to work with what you have. Liz Manley, Midori Ito used their personality to overcome bodies that were not in the traditional balletic form, Surya bonaly and Debi Thomas showed a muscular body could show beauty and strength in its own way and Nancy Kerrigan's spiral really does not show great flexibility but she owned it. I think it is one thing to criticize from your perspective what someone chose ie music or costume but physical issues is well taboo. I mean if your nation believes in Human Rights and Charters or Constitutions one can argue that there is a duty to accommodate all body types (okay let's don't go down the road of but you can mark or judge based on appearance as to what is beautiful skating). This new element if landed could make things interesting with the other teams including V and T and push them all technically and artistically / pcs. ONe of my concerns though is injury - it might be just me but for years we were in triple toes, triple salchows (individual) and throw loops and flips ore even salchows were the measure now we have individual lutzes and throw quads and twists. Huge jump. Is this too fast of a development?
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