Being a hardcore Gracie fan is tough right now.
If this sport were only about skating talent and perfect technique, Gracie would have won every competition she entered. I think Gracie gets so much attention ... which is a double-edged sword ... because a lot of people look for rational and technical reasons for mistakes. Look at Jason Brown, who's a brilliant skater. People dismiss him by saying, "he can't do quads." Hey, he wouldn't be trying them if he didn't do them in practice. Same thing happens with Mirai, Ashley, and Mao Asada in her later competitive years. People scream, "Underrotations! how horrible!" It's a way of discounting them. But also of explaining what isn't just a matter of measurable things.
People around here want to quantify. The mental game is harder to quantify. Even track stars, for whom the physical aspect would seem to be the whole story, say that winning a race is much more about their mental state. And it's not even as simple as having mental strength for consistency. It's about being "in the zone," or in figure skating, "skating dumb." Letting the body do what it already knows how to do. All athletes say this.
Only her and her team know what her plan is and where she goes from here.
True. The most interesting speculation I've seen in the forum is that Gracie will go to her GP assignments to qualify for nationals, by which time she plans to have her whole array of triple jumps. Some people say that's impossible, but anything's possible.
My own speculation: I've had an admittedly crazy idea spinning around in my head that this twilight zone she's in is her process of figuring out how to do what makes her happy, and trying to let go of the desire to make everyone else happy. And I don't mean 'twilight zone' in a negative way. The transition places are the sacred spaces.
I know the choice of Miss Saigon for her long is a bit controversial to some, but I do really like the program, and hope we get to see it in Pyeongchang. Karen, Ashley, and Mirai would make a fantastic team there 
