skater Flatt quickly ‘growing up' | Page 4 | Golden Skate

skater Flatt quickly ‘growing up'

Actually, I think that keeps things in perspective as we argue about who's better, Rachael, Mirai, Ashley, Caroline, etc. No U.S. lady has won a thing internationally since Kimmie in 2006. (Not to go Red Dog on y'all, but just sayin'.;) )

Ah, but...

"We are no longer British Petroleum, we are BP."

"We are no longer going by Hewlett-Packard, we're simply now HP."

I am no longer Red Dog, I'm simply R.D. ;)
 
Thanks Janetfan...I saw that video of Rachel at that comp. I try to remember it's early but I could barely get through that program and her jumps were so underrotated. I was surprised she picked something so slow and she comes off so labored.

I have to disagree with you on Michelle's 3t/3t. When she does it, it's usually pretty great to me.:)
 
Thanks Janetfan...I saw that video of Rachel at that comp. I try to remember it's early but I could barely get through that program and her jumps were so underrotated. I was surprised she picked something so slow and she comes off so labored.

I have to disagree with you on Michelle's 3t/3t. When she does it, it's usually pretty great to me.:)

I agree with you, especially about Michelle and the 3x3. They were nice - but I also meant the whole thing about her feeling pressured into doing them after her career was past the halfway point.

And then there is talk Frank was against it back in '01 so all things considered I think adding a new trick caused a degree of anguish for Michelle and her team.

BTW, I will always believe Frank was 100% right about it and that Michelle and Danny Kwan were wrong. Michelle never needed a 3x3 to beat Irina or Sarah at SLC. She just needed one of her better LP's. The talk of Irina's new artistry was just that - talk. :)
 
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FlattFan, you make absolutely no sense. You claim Rachael is technically the best skater in the U.S. right now even though Mirai is 7 points better in the non-jump technical elements. If you don't "know what the difference is" then maybe you shouldn't be making statements as if you know what you're talking about.

If Mirai doesn't do a 3-3 at all she will still outscore Rachael. That's what happened at 2010 Nationals in the SP, remember, and Mirai will not be receiving any bogus downgrades in the LP now that she has established herself as the top female in the country.

Remember, no more Spiral in the SP.
Bogus downgrades? Are people rewriting history now. Mirai had 3 obvious URed triples. Her triple flip should have been downgraded as well. Everyone who saw her performance saw her cheated jumps. Bogus? Bogus? When did she establish herself as the top girl in the country?
 
Just watched that video..:disapp:Boy..yep it's early.
You know this girl just leaves me cold , and well, flat. I don't know why they keep using jazzy stuff for her. I don't think she projects it well. All those little shoulder accents just accentuate how short her neck is. Oh ,I know one doesn't skate with one's neck ( that would really be a dangerous proposition )..it just distracts me when her choreo. makes hers dissapear like that.

And not the greatest arrangement of the music is it ?

Maybe I'll like it better with a bit more wear on it and filmed from a better angle..just don't buy her as any kind of Jazzy Mama, though.
 
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Just watched that video..:disapp:Boy..yep it's early.
You know this girl just leaves me cold , and well, flat. I don't know why they keep using jazzy stuff for her. I don't think she projects it well. All those little shoulder accents just accentuate how short her neck is. Oh ,I know one doesn't skate with one's neck ( that would really be a dangerous proposition )..it just distracts me when her choreo. makes hers dissapear like that.

And not the greatest arrangement of the music is it ?

Maybe I'll like it better with a bit more wear on it and filmed from a better angle..just don't buy her as any kind of Jazzy Mama, though.

I wonder though colleen....... do you think this would be better:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6zKfZVurJY

I guess not :)

I think jazzier music might work as well as anything else for Rachael. I liked her SP last season much more than her LP.

If you were on her team how would you package her?
 
Remember, no more Spiral in the SP.
Bogus downgrades? Are people rewriting history now. Mirai had 3 obvious URed triples. Her triple flip should have been downgraded as well. Everyone who saw her performance saw her cheated jumps. Bogus? Bogus? When did she establish herself as the top girl in the country?

I hereby declare your username should be Flat-Footed; it would more accurately represent the quality of your posts.

Mirai did not have 3 obviously underrotated Triples. She had 1 clearly underrotated Triple (the the second Toeloop) and 1 borderline Triple (the second Lutz). Her first Toeloop and her Flip were fine.

Please don't even talk to me about underrotated jumps with any kind of authority when your favorite skater is Rachael Flatt. Her 3-3's and Triple Lutzes are ALL borderline at best, not to mention those weak Double Axels.

FYI, Mirai established herself as the top female in the U.S. when she defeated Flatt at both the Olympics and Worlds. Most observers felt she defeated Flatt at Nationals as well. But I guess we'll have to wait for the upcoming season to prove it to you.
 
:think::think: janetfan..I guess I'm still in the process of thinking this through..But if I was in charge of Rachael's packaging , I'd do everything I could to get her shoulders down and keep them there..as well as stressing general attention to posture. I'd suggest a soft ,short haircut, well off the neck, maybe some kind of pixie or wedge cut. Keep her shoulders bare as much as possible and never any costume details on the shoulder. I'd use a lot of V necklines,or diagonal bodice detail and ..(not nearly as important) ..it couldn't hurt to try a diagonal hemline, now and then.

Really, her costumes haven't been bad ( the few that I've seen ), and her SP ? costume was beautiful last year,( the sparkly one) but she looked like a kid dressing up in her glamorous older sister's clothes.

I was perhaps a bit too harsh in saying she shouldn't do jazzy..but if she's going to go that route, it needs to be more Gene Kelly and less Bob Fosse, in the interest of keeping those shoulders down. And if going classical ,or at least non-jazzy , stick to long, clean arm lines, a la MK , for the same reason. So, she's doing Rogers and Hart..I actually think Rogers and Hammerstein sort of stuff would be a better fit for her. Carousel, South Pacific, Oklahoma..that sort of thing.. or thinking along movie musical lines..early Judy Garland stuff.. ??
 
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Many good ideas colleen. I am not one to give fashion advice (am lucky when my socks match :biggrin:) but it sounds like you are on the right track. :)

The right classical music could work but as we saw from my previous clip - keep away from the balletic stuff.

I think you are right about Kelly vs Fosse and also about Rodgers and Hammerstein. Such a wealth of timeless material there and the Golden era shows in particular.

It is early in the season - and am sure Rachael's SOTA will get better as she spends more time with it.
 
Most observers felt she defeated Flatt at Nationals as well.

I have watched both of those LPs quite a few times, and I find myself going back and forth. It is certainly true that "most observers" thought Rachael's performance was just dandy and that Mirai's was super-duper-dandy. This category of "most observers" includes the majority of skating experts in the audience and of media commentators as well.

And yet...still, it is a sport, not a popularity contest. The judges -- and especially the technical panel -- have their job to do independent of what the audience thinks.
 
I have watched both of those LPs quite a few times, and I find myself going back and forth. It is certainly true that "most observers" thought Rachael's performance was just dandy and that Mirai's was super-duper-dandy. This category of "most observers" includes the majority of skating experts in the audience and of media commentators as well.

And yet...still, it is a sport, not a popularity contest. The judges -- and especially the technical panel -- have their job to do independent of what the audience thinks.

I think the SP score was off - Mirai should have won by more over Sasha and Rachael.
Overall, the pcs bothered me and we saw the Intl judges disagree quite a bit with the USA judges when it came time to score Mirai and Rachael.

Anyway it is over, Rachael won and since she lost a couple of close ones in the past perhaps it all evens out. But why does that feel so uncomfortable :think:

When in doubt never forget to dust of this tried and true chestnut: "judges are human." :p
 
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If you were on her team how would you package her?

I think that is the $64 question. Somehow they have to cash in on the American sweetheart idea. Maybe a cowboy routine? :)

In classes on music composition they give the students exercises like, here is a little tune -- write a sonata on this theme in the style of Brahams. Now write one in the style of Tchaikovsky.

I think it would be fun to tell a skating class, here is a sequence oif moves in the field. Do them in the style of Katarina Witt. Now do them in the style of Kristi Yamaguchi. Now do them in the style of Rachael Flatt...

IMHO, that's what Rachael needs to take her to the next level -- an identifiable style of her own.
 
Oh, golly, Janetfan, what a link! I never much warmed to Oksana's long program (show-tune medley....a bit trite), but that short program is a masterpiece, both in Galina's design and Baiul's execution. The lightness and rhythmic exactness! The inventiveness of the "translated" ballet moves! And the audacious black-swan costume. I don't care what your reasoning was for posting that link--I just thank you for it.

Colleen, I agree with your suggestions about Rachael, especially the Kelly-vs.-Fosse comment. As Mathman puts it, she has to find a way to make us think of her and no one else while we watch her.
 
I don't love Baiul's swan program; her expression was too over-the-top. The ending is manic and that giant clown grin she makes during one of the posing breaks really annoys me. It's just so completely out of character with the music and gives me the impression of "I'm desperately trying to be appealing."

Her SP from 1993 is where it's at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAd9RFH1dPM

Vivacious. Soulful. Sexual.
 
Thanks for the link blades. I love Oksana's '93 and '94 SP.
The '93 progam is wonderful but the '94 program was more memorable to me and quite frankly I think it stunned N. American audiences and won her the OGM despite Kerrigan's LP being so much better.

The '94 SP made Oksana an instant celebrity and I think she showed the skating world and casual fans new possibilties. I forgive the smile - she was 15, it was the Olympics and she was like most others - very nervous and under a ton of pressure.

Watching the '93 program I am reminded of Oksana's musicality and feel for rhythms. At times I have seen her when she is simply stroking over the ice and it still feels more musical than most others.

The '94 SP is part of skating lore and I believe it to be one of skating's most iconic moments. I think the ballerina and her donut spin ranks up there with Michelle's Arabesque spiral as something fans remember and love about skating.
 
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Thanks for the link, Blades. I'll watch it in a bit. I have a bit of catching up to do with Oksana because I liked Nancy so much that I just got nervous when I watched Oksana. Now that I can be objective, I can really immerse myself in her unusual gifts. I think one important thing about her is that she was the first lady trained in the Russian tradition (though by then of course she skated for the Ukraine) to dominate the skating world. So all the musicality and technical innovation that we were used to seeing in pairs and ice dancing were appearing for the first time in ladies' skating, because Russian ladies' skating had finally found its muse.

To me, because Kerrigan had such a fluid, elegant way of movement, Oksana's style didn't penetrate at first. I have always found her upper body carriage a bit slouchy, and even in that short program I still do. But now I can see, as Janetfan says, her musicality and feel for rhythms. She had a unique presence, which she kind of lost later on. Blades' observation about how she could go over the top really came true in her pro career--she became far too histrionic for me. But that night she had it all in balance, and she was a gifted woman-child with the lightest of touches.
 
I have watched both of those LPs quite a few times, and I find myself going back and forth. It is certainly true that "most observers" thought Rachael's performance was just dandy and that Mirai's was super-duper-dandy. This category of "most observers" includes the majority of skating experts in the audience and of media commentators as well.

And yet...still, it is a sport, not a popularity contest. The judges -- and especially the technical panel -- have their job to do independent of what the audience thinks.

Question is, though: will this attitude earn skating any new fans?

Not to mention the "sport" part about it is debated by many...
 
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