I want to know which video you used to review this? I had the no-commentary one but the angles are not really good so it would be nice to know which one you used.
I used B. Eurosport with Korean subs for the SP. For the FS I used the no-commentary version (with the too-warm colors).
But I cheated a little bit: I was so torn on the SP StSq, and the video quality wasn’t the greatest, so I think I used the CBC video (?) to rewatch it in higher definition.
She had a bad landing on her flying spin that she wasn't able to change edges I believe. Again, I'm not knowledgeable when it comes to this so it would be nice to point out exactly what mistake she made there.
I’m honestly not sure with the FCSp. It’s weird. Unfortunately I can’t find 12-13 but I think they’re the same spin Level rules as 2013-14, so with that in mind, I *think* that she was going for the following level features (in order she performed them):
1. Backwards entry (since replaced by “difficult entry”)
2. Difficult variation (the Yuna camel position)
3. Difficult variation (catch-foot)
4.
Clear change of edge (also during the catch-foot)
You can see she enters on a back edge, gets into the Yuna camel (which I love, btw) and then goes into the catch-foot. She loses control a bit, and never quite gets it back although the spin remains centered. In the middle of the catch-foot you notice she changes from an outside to inside edge… but she doesn’t do it well, and the edge sort of wobbles on the flat and even kind back to a back edge at one point, so I believe she lost credit there. However, this was at the end of the spin, so not directly related to the poor flying entry except inasmuch as it threw her off generally. I think it's more related to the poor catch-foot.
She got FCSp4 in Sochi in the short program, where she did the change of edge cleanly.
I thought her StSq under the new scoring system would at least give her +3 since I'm on the side who thinks that her turns and steps, for the most part, matches the music. She has a natural flow throughout those steps and turns that didn't really leave the tempo of the music (unskateable as it was) and had at least made the rhythm of the music readable, even if she really didn't enhance it. This may not be her best showing of her musicality (which is still great relatively to her competitors), but I think it was still highly stylized to level with the music, which she performed well.
Well, some of it did. But I think she does most of the balance-challenging moves (which she needed for the Level 4) at inappropriate times. There are some full-body moves in a more low-key section of music which is immediately followed by a more dramatic music through which she just does a set of nice, gliding steps and turns with upright posture on one foot. Why weren’t those sections switched? We’re talking instances of like one second, or singular moves or steps, but I just felt the whole timing of the sequence was a little bit off… it was generally arranged to the music, but there were such obvious instances that were just *off* and *wrong* to me in this regard that I didn’t feel like I could award the GOE bullet.
Ha! As someone who's very critical of Yuna's layback spins and most of her spins post-Vancouver (she doesn't get the much arch, and not enough speed), this is really surprising indeed. But I guess since the communication did say good, instead of let say very good or great, it's not really controversial for her to get those +.
And this is where the frustration comes in. I'm not sure I'll accept the +5GOE score on her layback spin that
easily.
I’ve said somewhere else that I thought the ISU made it too easy to get +GOE on spins and to a lesser extent, steps, and this reinforced my view. (Not that it applies to Yuna… as I think I gave all but maybe one of her spins credit for “maintain a centered spin”… but it especially bothers me that that isn’t a core GOE bullet.)
I would probably not give her laybacks "Good controlled, clear positions" (her haircutter is frustrating, and her arabesque isn't the best), and "Matched to the music" is probably only superficial in these two laybacks. I know that's where we are with the CoP, but yeah.
Well, I didn’t give her “matched to the music” for the SP. For the FS it is a little bit superficial, but in regards of element placement timed quite well on the whole – I don’t really think there was any better place to put the spin in that program, and it’s fairly effective.
I don’t mind her haircutter – it doesn’t get the sort of hyper-extension you see on something like a pearl spin, sure, but she transitions into the position quickly, maintains her speed, and doesn’t make it look effortful at all. The positions in both layback spins were certainly well-controlled, at the very least.
She doesn’t do an arabesque in either Layback; that’s a Camel position, and I didn’t give her credit for good positions in her Flying Camel spin. I do very much like her bent leg layover (the “Yuna camel”) position, which also counts for a Level feature.
I did hesitate a little, though, over whether her positions were enough to qualify as "good." They're definitely not
bad, except for the catch-foot camel.
On the other hand, I really didn't catch up those sloppy turns (aside from some of her jumps and spins) that you mentioned though it's probably because I'm so distracted with her upper body.
It’s not a chronic problem. But I thought there were just a few times where’s she’s dangerously close to skating on a flat, and she doesn’t always exit her moves very cleanly, either. I thought the illusion in the StSq was a little bit uncontrolled, and didn’t love the edge on her kneel-down-lungey-move (he says, to demonstrate his amazing mastery of technical vocabulary), for instance.
Overall, I'm actually torn when it comes to Kiss of the Vampire. For the most part, I think it's her musicality that saved this program, even though her performance of it is something I am hesitant to call inconsistent because I thought she projected well enough all throughout. Maybe not enough to connect to the audience (I think I also gave her relatively low scores in PE) but enough for me to say that she performed with a level of abandon.
Yeah… it’s such an interesting concept, and some parts of it are excellent. I want to love it, because I feel like it had so much potential, but at the end of the day I just don’t think it worked. The dark parts aren’t dark *enough*, the intense parts aren’t intense *enough.* It didn’t help that she seemed, to me, to be distracted from her performance at several points (especially during the step sequence, I don’t think she projected well enough throughout, although the beginning was nice), and at other times the choreography as it was just fell flat, even when she seemed to putting in the effort.
Overall I'm astonishingly surprised though that this broke the 70-mark (though I shouldn't be retrospectively). Even though I personally like this program, I thought this is not a 70 worthy program even with the new scoring system. Those GOEs on her jumps really helped on this case, no?
The GOE helped enormously, especially on her 3F, and she earned numerically much more in GOE than she did in the actual event for the 3Lz+3T (by a full 1.55 points!) and 2A.
But I was surprised to see it break 70, as well. I usually get lower scores when I test with the new system. I scored these both ages ago, and have lost them since, but I want to say she got something like 68 and 140 back them, so these score are quite the boost.
She does a sideways-leaning position, into a classic layback position, into the catch-foot/haircutter. It’s literally just a classic layback. 
But yeah, I guess different strokes.
