I wonder ... I'm not a figure skating expert, but I do know a couple of things regarding training of ski jumpers and nordic combined athletes. Nordic combinded is very difficult to train, because of the fact that the athletes need endurance for cross country skiing and also springiness for ski jumping. Satoko must have great endurance, she's always doing those full runthroughs. I just ask myself - is she doing too much? When it comes to f.e. running you always work on the speed first, then you work on endurance. A jump coach would know those things. Does anyone know wether she's working with a jump coach at the moment? I watched one of her exhibitions and I thought that the first two triple toes looked better than last season, but the third one didn't. I guess she was already a bit tired. It cannot be good for her to jump when she's already tired when she wants to change and improve her technique.
I don't think she's doing too much, because Mie Hamada is very strict with her rules and Satoko always listens to her. If Hamada tells her "enough for today", Satoko will obey. Doing full run-throughs (everything from jumps to spins, steps, choreo) is probably the key to her consistency. It may be too much for other skaters, but not for her. When she finishes her programs in competition (especially her long program) she doesn't look tired at all. She has incredible stamina. Maintaining such stamina is important for her to focus on improving speed, power and jumps.
Yamato Tamura is her full-time jump coach but she often works with Ilia Kulik. In fact, Kulik taught her the take-offs she does now to avoid UR calls; in other words, she was allowed to prerotate so much to stay competitive until she gets power in her leg muscles to jump high enough to not prerotate excessively as well as underrotate. I'm pretty sure she's not pleased with the prerotation on her toeloops; after all, she skated with a serious ankle injury in the second half of 2014-2015, including at Worlds. Mie Hamada said she trains twice as much as Marin Honda, because she has to control and eventually overcome her shortcomings.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons why some people feel like she's not present enough in her performances, not authentic enough. She said every time she skates she is terrified of her jumps giving out on her. It's not as easy as people think. Her small jumps aren't the reason why she's so consistent - rather, the result of a lot of hard work to keep them under control. She always says her jumps are much better in practice because there's no pressure there, but in competition their quality decreases due to her fear of UR calls, falls. I'd say she does a pretty good job at not making that fear obvious.
Mie Hamada has a lot of talented girls in her group; Marin Honda, Yuna Shiraiwa and the up-and-coming 3A-3T sensation Rika Kihira. Asked about what makes them so successful and competitive, all three of them have credited the opportunity to train with Satoko. Whenever they feel like slacking off, they watch Satoko working and follow her lead. Satoko's own role model isn't a skater; it's gymnast Kohei Uchimura, known for consistency and combining difficulty with pristine execution.
