I have to try to find an article about Fluffy where it talked about her work as a choreographer. I was stunned to read about all the people she had worked with. Very interesting. She's pretty amazing.
Oh, please share, if you find it! She seems like such an interesting person and I know so little about her work outside of what she does for Shoma.
Definitely would not want to mess with their recipe for success going into the Olympic season, but I can see where all these new experiences for Shoma are terrific.
Hmm, while the Olympic season is usually not when most skaters would want to take huge risks, I think that this might be the right time for Shoma to broaden his horizon artistically and a helpful way of doing that would be to work with (a) different choreographer(s), who push(es) him out of his comfort-zone. Although he already has a distinct style it would be an opportunity to even further distinguish himself from the rest of the field!
After all his primary role model was never afraid to challenge himself when it came to expressing himself in new ways, even in the 2009/10 Olympic season and it worked out splendidly for him! Shoma has proven to be a remarkably ambitious guy - both technically and artistically, so I think he could pull sth. like that off too. (succeeding while straying from his "safe" repertoire)
Not to take anything away from the awesomeness that is Team Higuchi/Yamada
- they're highly experienced and gifted and because they understand Shoma's weaknesses and strenghts so well, always bring out his best qualities - it would still be great to see Shoma taking his own spin on other people's work. (His new David Wilson choreographed EX is a promising start in that direction.) It's a sign of greatness, if you can take ANY choreography and make it your own - he has the talent to do that and I'd love to be able to witness this as soon as possible. For the Olympic season it would be great to see him try sth. edgy in his SP (he already headed into that direction with "Legends", which I think worked pretty well) and then he can still play it relatively "safe" in his FS. Maybe Kenji Miyamoto, Pasquale Camerlengo, Shae-Lynn Bourne, Tom Dickson or Massimo Scali would be good choices - I think they're all tried and tested enough and very apt at creating sth. unique, which is closely tailored to their clients' strengths.
But then again, because he's already so accomplished - I think we, or at least I, sometimes forget, that he's only 19 and the artistic maturity he displays for that age is - with very few exceptions - head and shoulders above his peers! Most skaters start developing that side much later. Taking the technical difficulty he incorporates in his programs into account, he's probably even peerless atm in combining the two. Can't repeat it enough: He is magnificently exciting and has so much potential, that it feels like the sky is the limit, so I just wanna see him fly as high as possible!
Honestly, people from overseas should come running to the japanese coaches and not the other way round.
100% agree with this. Look at all the emerging riches Japan has to boast in the choreography department alone: Machida, Suzuki, Miyamoto, Reed, Higuchi - they're all still shamefully underrated internationally! Not sure, if it's due to a lack of confidence on their part though. I guess one of the biggest challenges is the language barriere. Kenji is the only one, who has forayed a bit into international territory so far and his popularity might rise even further now that he has the YoI credit on his resume. Hopefully more foreign skaters give the other ones a chance as well - they definitely deserve it! Cathy even has the advantage of being fluent in both English and Japanese!
Kudos to Coach Fluffy and Shoma, of course! Love seeing it in slow motion!
To me this year's SP is closer to a representation of "his style", while imo "Legends" was a successful experiment, that I would love to see more of.
I just find that hilarious
