Kim's representatives end Orser's coaching relationship threads merged

[prettykeys]

The interviews and quotes I've read from Brian Orser lead me to believe that Orser made his public announcement on August 23 because there was already tension and stress in the atmosphere of the Cricket Club (most likely since that August 2nd meeting) that was affecting the rest of the skaters and their daily training there.

Now there is less tension and stress in the Cricket Club after the way Orser made his announcements. Right?

LOL

 

[Sylvia]

Orser and Rippon are both away at Champs Camp right now, so yes, that's probably true at the moment.

 

[prettykeys]

Orser and Rippon are both away at Champs Camp right now, so yes, that's probably true at the moment.

I didn't know Orser and Rippon were the only people at the Cricket Club.

 

[janetfan]

Hopefully by the time CC skaters begin the important part of their season they will be over this.
Yuna has always been described as a good training partner - i can't speak for all of the skaters at CC but Christina and Adam are very fond of Yuna. They will miss her for sure and NO WAY did they not know something was up. Just the fact that Brian was not taking an active part in Yuna's training had to let them know. They all saw MJ had to stop training with Brian too.

I repeat again, forgetting whose fault(s) we want to make this life goes on. Brian has a resposnibilty to his skaters and Ms park should have been smart enough to see Yuna could not remain at the CC. I don't think it mattered as much a few weeks ago but the skaters should be really intensifying their training now. They need mental focus and not just skating. Distractions are not needed.

 

[bekalc]

Hopefully by the time CC skaters begin the important part of their season they will be over this.
Yuna has always been described as a good training partner - i can't speak for all of the skaters at CC but Christina and Adam are very fond of Yuna. They will miss her for sure and NO WAY did they not know something was up. Just the fact that Brian was not taking an active part in Yuna's training had to let them know. They all saw MJ had to stop training with Brian too.

I repeat again, forgetting whose fault(s) we want to make this life goes on. Brian has a resposnibilty to his skaters and Ms park should have been smart enough to see Yuna could not remain at the CC. I don't think it mattered as much a few weeks ago but the skaters should be really intensifying their training now. They need mental focus and not just skating. Distractions are not needed.

I actually agree with you about Yu-na being at the Cricket Club, and if everything went down the way Brian says it did, she should have left earlier.

For the record maybe leaving Brian won't be so bad for Yu-na. Maybe another coach could help her improve that triple loop, which she may need with Mao getting her act together. Orser's a brilliant technical coach but I'm not sure teaching the loop is one of his strong points. Considering it was his problem jump, and well Christina isn't a strong loop jumper either. While the jump was always a problem jump for her, she actually landed that jump quite a bit as a Junior, never at Junior worlds but at other competitions. So maybe with someone who doesn't have his own issues with it, she might be able to improve it or get confidence with it.

Every coach has their strengths and weaknesses, and sometimes leaving a coach even a great one, can help you improve on your other areas.

 

[janetfan]

I actually agree with you about Yu-na being at the Cricket Club, and if everything went down the way Brian says it did, she should have left earlier.

For the record maybe leaving Brian won't be so bad for Yu-na. Maybe another coach could help her improve that triple loop, which she may need with Mao getting her act together. Orser's a brilliant technical coach but I'm not sure teaching the loop is one of his strong points. Considering it was his problem jump, and well Christina isn't a strong loop jumper either. While the jump was always a problem jump for her, she actually landed that jump quite a bit as a Junior, never at Junior worlds but at other competitions. So maybe with someone who doesn't have his own issues with it, she might be able to improve it or get confidence with it.

Every coach has their strengths and weaknesses, and sometimes leaving a coach even a great one, can help you improve on your other areas.

I am not one of those who thinks Yuna can't succeed without Brian. And you may be right - even generally speaking a coaching change might be good for Yuna's skating at this stage in her career.

If my posts take a negative view towards ATS - well that is just how I see it. I don't think Yuna is at fault. I wish Brian had acted better - as Mr B was saying a few days ago "just stop talking."

But I think it really takes a giant leap of faith to think skaters at the CC did not know something was not good between Brian and Yuna. Brian, whether a good coach or not does not need to be working in such a strained atmosphere, nor do the skaters and other coaches. I am not saying it was Yuna's fault or anybodies fault. It's just the way it turned out.

Yuna and Ms Park had every right to fire Brian and they do not owe us an explanation. But ATS could have handled this better and should have had contingency plans ready. Apparently they were as shocked by Brian's behavior as he was by being fired.

This must be very tough on Yuna but she does not have to compete anytime soon - or ever again if she so chooses.
For MinJung it must seem like the end of a dream. Yuna's best skating friends at the CC must be very upset.

I don't want Yuna away from the CC as some form of punishment but Ms Park, Ms Choi and Yuna's being there can't be good for the training atmosphere. Brian could resign but even most Yuna fans understand he is the Director of skating there and should not be forced to leave his job. If Yuna wants a change then she is the one who should make the changes.

 

[Tonichelle]

(Although that statement did snarkily note that no reason had been given for the dismissal.)

in defense of the statement - if there is no information that can be confirmed, then it's the journalistic ethics that say you need to say 'there is no information'. in this case 'no reason was given' is something that had to be stated otherwise there would be an open ended article. it's better than speculating as we are.

 

[bekalc]

I don't want Yuna away from the CC as some form of punishment but Ms Park, Ms Choi and Yuna's being there can't be good for the training atmosphere. Brian could resign but even most Yuna fans understand he is the Director of skating there and should not be forced to leave his job. If Yuna wants a change then she is the one who should make the changes.

Well obviously the above. I'm not disagreeing with you, don't regard it as a punishment etc. Leaving is the classy thing to do, and what I would do. The thing is there was a poster over at FSU who claims to have a source very close to Yu-na says that Yu-na is really retiring. And she's not really going to Worlds etc, and because of this she doesn't feel she needs Brian or Tracy anymore. If this is the case I'm frankly not sure how the entire scandal! happened, and it may have been miscommunication. Of course in such a situation Yu-na wouldn't really feel she needed Brian anymore. But then I could see why she would think that maybe she could still skate at the Cricket Club and enjoy her friends there. The entire scenario in that sense is just weird. I mean it wouldn't even be a firing.

But absolutely considering Brian is the Director there and the other skaters that our his students cannot be expected to move that its best for everyone that Yu-na leave. Maybe in lets say a year or so after things have calmed down, she could go drop by for a visit and work on some choregraphy. But for the foresable future she should leave. And absolutely not as a punishment for Yu-na or to be mean, but just because its easier for everyone.

 

[Mathman]

From the get-go of this unfolding drama, it seems apparent that this is an issue of "breach of trust" on the part of the coach to entertain the possibility of coaching a rival skater, and not telling the Yuna camp about it until a month later after swirling rumors, post WC.

I do not see any evidence that Orser ever for the briefest moment entertained the notion of coaching Asada.

Anything is possible, I guess, but certainly all public statements by Orser were to the effect, "I received some informal feelers, but obviously my first priority is to Kim, so I turned them down flat."

 

[janetfan]

Well obviously the above. I'm not disagreeing with you, don't regard it as a punishment etc. The thing is there was a poster over at FSU who claims to have a source very close to Yu-na says that Yu-na is really retiring. And she's not really going to Worlds etc, and because of this she doesn't feel she needs Brian or Tracy anymore. If this is the case I'm frankly not sure how the entire scandal! happened, and it may have been miscommunication. Of course in such a situation Yu-na wouldn't really feel she needed Brian anymore. But then I could see why she would think that maybe she could still skate at the Cricket Club and enjoy her friends there. The entire scenario in that sense is just weird. I mean it wouldn't even be a firing.

.

Unfortunately this again casts a very bad light on ATS. As I think of it, the lacklustre skater we saw at Worlds was not the Yuna we have come to know.
So who is it that is forcing Yuna to continue competing. Is it Brian? I don't think so.

Who stands to gain the most if Yuna continues competing, skating in shows and having her own agency :think: Who is it that retains a position of prestige and power that is soley dependent on Yuna?

 

[MrBerkeley]

Can someone verify?

I spoke to a Korean acquaintance and she notes the following cultural thing in Korea.

When you fire someone, the emphasis is on how you fire. With a negative slant (fired) or a positive slant (dropped), where if positive implies there were some other reasons that led to this and they may call on you again????

Kind of like dropping a piano teacher (its hard on the party being fired but its like the 1st is personal and 2nd is not? and piano teachers are fired/dropped by parents?) So its not unusual that teachers are dropped by their students (which may explain the lack of uproar in Korea about the face to face thing that's being hashed in the States and the focus being more on the twitter... which is also being criticized in the States lol.)

Whereas in the West, I'm pretty sure when you're fired, the focus is on the fired part? Personal or not. Dropping is like getting laid off?

I'm kinda iffy about this because I don't understand how that would work but who knows??

Edit: If Yuna's mother approached this as the previous example, she wouldn't have been breaking cultural protocol in Korea. Not informing the world about it was just straight up naive. And so when Brian brought it out they were stumbling all over the place? :disapp:

 

[samsarah]

Well obviously the above. I'm not disagreeing with you, don't regard it as a punishment etc. Leaving is the classy thing to do, and what I would do. The thing is there was a poster over at FSU who claims to have a source very close to Yu-na says that Yu-na is really retiring. And she's not really going to Worlds etc, and because of this she doesn't feel she needs Brian or Tracy anymore. If this is the case I'm frankly not sure how the entire scandal! happened, and it may have been miscommunication. Of course in such a situation Yu-na wouldn't really feel she needed Brian anymore. But then I could see why she would think that maybe she could still skate at the Cricket Club and enjoy her friends there. The entire scenario in that sense is just weird. I mean it wouldn't even be a firing.

But absolutely considering Brian is the Director there and the other skaters that our his students cannot be expected to move that its best for everyone that Yu-na leave. Maybe in lets say a year or so after things have calmed down, she could go drop by for a visit and work on some choregraphy. But for the foresable future she should leave. And absolutely not as a punishment for Yu-na or to be mean, but just because its easier for everyone.

MBN broadcast reported yesterday that Yuna has no plans to retire and would soon be moving to another rink. It seems that she is getting a new coach as well. Maybe a coach with better loop jump techniques ?

 

[R.D.]

Well, arrangements like this often blow up eventually.

Every child needs a parent. Every child star needs a management team. What nobody needs is a manager who is also his/her parent.

Yu-na is now without options except to tough it out as best she can. She does not have the option of sitting down with her management team and saying, "look, guys, you dropped the ball on this one and damaged my reputation in the process. You're fired."

There you go.

 

[ilunga1965]

I do not see any evidence that Orser ever for the briefest moment entertained the notion of coaching Asada.

Anything is possible, I guess, but certainly all public statements by Orser were to the effect, "I received some informal feelers, but obviously my first priority is to Kim, so I turned them down flat."

In his e-mail to Yuna, he said, 'her agency did inquire me (and theam) working with her...I heve to say that I was flattered she has an interest but your skating comes first."

Most people think that Yuna's mom fired Orser, but mine is different. I also think she's not professional, but I 'm sure that she's a good mother/friend who knows what is the best for Yuna.
Yuna's side said that it's Orser who said that he would not be able to coach Yuna any longer.

 

[MrBerkeley]

Well, it seems a bit much for the Yuna side to say that Brian did it deliberately to hurt the skater. Why on Earth would he want to do that? I dunno, like I said, course on press releases, folks.

I think Brian will be fine and that skaters will still want to flock to him unless something much more terrible is revealed. I only hope that Yuna is able to keep it together if she keeps competing. It would be awful to see her skating affected by this. She is just too wonderful a skater.

Someone over at FSU posted this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbdUietVUBk.

Gives some insight into why it may have been considered a big deal. :sheesh: I'm sure they'll get over it though.

Basically, Orser knew about the surprise element, Yuna's wishes. I don't think he meant it to hurt the skater, that he got carried away. But that's an opinion. I'd hate to think that but if he did, I'd say I'd excuse him just as I did Yuna's twitter.

Emotions make us say things and do things we regret. Like my Dad used to say "Don't listen to much to the bad things people say about you, you know how you also say things when you're upset or angry" or something like that. (Probably Better put though than that junk I just wrote lol)

 

[bekalc]

Yu-na is now without options except to tough it out as best she can. She does not have the option of sitting down with her management team and saying, "look, guys, you dropped the ball on this one and damaged my reputation in the process. You're fired."

Well she might not be able to fire Mama, but I'm sure Mama can see the money slipping away. Surely the translator, the person who wrote the press release can be fired. And maybe they can hire someone to actually run the company, who knows how to do so, and Yu-na can handle the firing of any more Western coaches (it is different in Asia) herself.

Well then with the translator they may want a "softer" landing considering she knows personal stuff, and maybe they can get her a job that's not translating.

 

[MrBerkeley]

it is both yu-na fault and brian fault-=plus IMG why-img-they are big in u.s -think they are going to sit idlely by and let the news pass up without letting yu-na look bad. why=-they have an agenda as well--what--promote their shows, and lets not forget the USFSA/and IMG agreement. they have a stake in this-show wise-Most of the U.S. top skaters are Img if they want to get their skaters in shows with the money IMG chooses them to have lets bring down yuna and her show and her mom-yes they helped by starting it or brian .
i don't care which person started this or which camp. it is bad on both accounts.

lets take stock-
1) will skaters now trust brian to tell them things that they might want to keep out of papers in future if /when they reach the top.
2) did both sides do enough communication wise to understand what each other wanted and said. to me sounds like a major breakdown of communciation.
3) was brian really shocked by yu-na dropping him after she won gold with what she was getting after all -he was a skater . he knew skaters quietly drop coaches after winning medals at olympics. so was he really surprised.
--i think he was more hurt because yu-na wouldn't or couldn't tell him personnally -why she was afraid, she like him to much , she didn't want to hurt his feelings , who knows.
4) the tidbits shouldn't be this bad if anyone paid attention the feelers were out there regarding yu-na mom and how she has been handling the situation since "yuna" made it in the senior ranks.
5) yu-na want to be world wide-this is part of it-take good with bad.
if they though michelle was handled kid gloves they should have look at earlier papers and see how the nailed her. not to mention now-if you read some U.S. papers they mention michelle and frank and basically stated they wanted more information to pass around and make michelle look bad and they are upset about it.- so now they are after yu-na and brian-why she wants to be big in the u.s. --it comes with the territory.
6) fans-did they really think yu-na would stay amatuer /stay competing if she won gold with what she is getting--get real--when does she have time to practice. -tell me what is her incentive.
7) did we really know yu-na-. her coming up the korean federation kept her at arms length we only saw and knew what they wanted us to know. the media wanted to find out a few things and couldn/t wouldn't be able to get close to her. she is was packaged to us from day one.
8) media-they love blowups-they make people look bad for copy-for ratings. for talk/ for anything. they don't care who or what they hurt
9) Img- what do they get --more support for them and their shows and skaters-maybe loss of money for yu-na show-maybe.
10_i could go on-right now all out of ideas.
the normal public don"t care . it is the same old same old coming from the sport. nothing new.
draws attention-yes-keep attention no.
more of spoiled brats on both sides spewing.
i

I don't think IMG is this secret corporation controlling the figure skating world. Sure they don't particularly like Yuna because she brings in the money and she left IMG Korea and is now taking on their agency with shows that bring in more money.

I think Brian and Yuna's team messed this up all on their own. Media wasn't their friend and they fed the sharks into a feeding frenzy with too much information.

 

[Layfan]

I do not see any evidence that Orser ever for the briefest moment entertained the notion of coaching Asada.

Anything is possible, I guess, but certainly all public statements by Orser were to the effect, "I received some informal feelers, but obviously my first priority is to Kim, so I turned them down flat."

Yes, but when I read that e-mail that Orser sent to Yuna I did wonder how it came across to Yuna. He tells her that the rumors are true and that he told Mao's people that Kim is "his first priority." He never says, I would never ever ever coach Mao. He never even says, "I told them no." Then he goes on to ask Yuna what her plans are for the upcoming seasons and ask if they should talk about it.

From that e-mail I gathered several things
1. Brian and Yuna didn't have the kind of relationship, for whatever reason, where they could just pick up the phone and talk to each other about things in a straight forward manner. Brian, for whatever reason, didn't just call Yuna and say, btw, Mao sent out some feelers but don't worry I said no. Yuna did have to hear about in the media, and that had to have been weird. Then she gets this e-mail which Brian might have THOUGHT was clear but maybe wasn't. Meanwhile, Yuna hadn't been speaking to Brian about her competitive plans.
2. It seems that Brian was trying to say to Yuna, I would never even think about coaching Mao while I coach you. But in the meantime, Brian doesn't know if Yuna wants to keep competing. Sort of sounds like he might have left the door open to coach Mao IF Yuna decided to stop competing. Nothing wrong with that, in theory. But maybe Yuna didn't understand that from the e-mail and wondered if Brian had actually considered coaching Mao. Or maybe she understood perfectly well and thought Brian was pressuring her to make a decision and letting her know that he was getting other offers while she was trying to make her up mind about her career. I doubt Brian was trying say that, but it MIGHT have come across that way to Yuna. Just saying.

Isn't speculation fun?

 

[MrBerkeley]

NO. Brian threw the first punch by making an unilateral public announcement through IMG that he was a victim of wrongful termination. And IMG timed the release to be on the first day of ticketing of Yuna's first ice show in the U.S.

WOW... REALLY? I didn't even notice the date overlap.

Still the show is going on. I DOUBT that IMG thought it could bring down Yuna and Yuna's show with this scandal LOL.

Did you see the rest of the cast?

They've got the gold medalists for EVERY discipline except Men's and they get Weir to take that spot.

I don't know. While the timing is awfully suspicious lol, I just don't think so.

Unless their ultimate plan was to bring down ATS. Which might be a good thing all things considering their handling of this situation (unfortunately for poor Yuna).

 

[Mathman]

In his e-mail to Yuna, he said, 'her agency did inquire me (and theam) working with her...I heve to say that I was flattered she has an interest but your skating comes first."

I still don't see the part where he ever considered accepting the offer.

What do I see is that he turned down the overture from Mao's camp because of his loyalty to Yu-na.