So now it looks like the seminar is in Shenzhen?
Jason, you are confusing us. (me, you are confusing me)
He was still in Kansai this morning. He seems to be enjoying seeing things. I think the Osaka seminar is over. Maybe he has others? He looks very relaxed and happy.Jason does love his airplane trips.
And since Labor Day is later this year, he can do both Friends on Ice and the Labor Day shows at Sun Valley. For which I am sure the Brown family will vacation as well.
www.instagram.com
And according to his IG stories, Coach Dani left flowers in his room. So that's why she was referring to the previous class (I assume).
He did the Shenzen seminar last year. He went back and is doing it again this year. So second trip, but over two years. He is there now.
It will be beneficial for him, unless others with actually poor Spins and Step Sequences get high scores for them, a problem which have constistently annihilated his technical superiority for many years.
This is definitely a problem. The base values will be higher and he usually does get good GOEs, but PCs can be manipulated as they are vague. But I can see him deciding to test the system this season and see what he can do with it.
Grades of Execution and technical calls too can be manipulated, we can take the example of a (not competitively skating anymore) Skater who would always (always!) have an invalid Spin in the Short Program (deserving a V in the Free) and who was always given a Level 4 with a high GOE (which he wouldn't deserve for any Spin either, as far as I can remember). This uncalled Spin error alone would generate at every Competition, an undue bonus of five points in the Short Program and over two points in the Free, plus the overscoring on the other Spins and the undue Level 4 and high GOE on the Step Sequence... where Jason Brown was given only his due because he was really deserving his high scores on his Spins and Step Sequences. This, and not only inaccurate Component scoring, has long allowed a narrative of "technical inferiority" about Jason Brown while there was in fact a clear technical superiority. Jason Brown is an exceptional athlete, his athletic/technical superiority doesn't lay in Quadruple jumps but in everything else, that's all. In addition to the artistry, of course, which assessment makes only a small part of the Components, but while I do believe (maybe I don't know him well enough) that this artistic part is very important to him, I do believe too that he accepts very well that this is only a very small part of the scores and it will be assessed by not-very-artistic judges; and likes very much the athletic challenge in Competitive Figure Skating. I think that if this wasn't the case, he wouldn't be optimising that well his athletic assets in his programs. I believe that Rohene Ward wouldn't imagine such programs if it wasn't in full agreement with Jason Brown. He's so incredibly strong for perseverating in showing the athlete he is, in spite of the lack of reward!
Bias will always be with us. But Jason's mission has been to push artistic skating forward and given the new rules it may be motivation for him to continue if he can handle the jumps at a high level. Last season that was a problem for him at times. But I felt that it was mainly due to the pressure he put on himself. It was a mental issue due to that. He has not announced anything official, but my comments were based on my musing that he might actually want to test these new rules and will continue competing this season. It's also clear, that he is preparing for the next phase which is likely to be retiring from Senior Level competition. But that doesn't mean that it will be this season. I am sure that he would like to have one more successful Nats before he retires. Bad judges will continue to exist. The ISU hasn't been very diligent about policing that. And there will pressure on some judges to overscore some skaters and underscore others. It's a problem that Figure skating hasn't fixed and is one reason why fandom is not as high as the ISU would like. But higher scores for spins is something that Jason has supported.
I'm not even sure that there's outright pressure, at least direct (and pretty sure that there's no bribery). I believe that we underestimate how powerful is "social engineering" and overestimate our objectivity, and that clever Public Relationship, Press Kits, a few not-overly-scrupulous individuals in some Federations (including a few Judges) with an interest in one or several Skaters, and the ability to promote (to the biggest Competitions) judges with a stronger-than-average ability to get blind to reality when it contradicts what they perceive as an official narrative deemed an infaillible truth, may suffice to produce what I've seen, to the detriment of not only Jason Brown. I do hope that at least his fans can someday get free from this gangue and see him as he is, a very great, complete Figure Skater (I'm sure that all of us, or nearly all of us, do already perceive his artistic pioneering/push).
