That's a big part of it, though -- small jumps that rely on quick rotations. Julia probably has the smallest jumps of all of the Russian ladies, excluding Radionova, who's so light and tiny that she can't be expected to get more than six or eight inches off of the ice.
I don't think that Julia has terrible technique on her jumps; at least, not in the sense that she'll *certainly* lose them after puberty. Her double axel, of course, is an exception, which is worrying -- struggling with the easiest jump in her repertoire is, to me, indicative of a wider technical issue. But nonetheless, her technique is clearly weaker than Tukt's and Sotnikova's, even with the issues that they presently have.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzPDBIt7pw4
This is Julia's SP at 2012 TEB, when she was in good health. Her opening 3-3 seems fine when she springs up (quite shallow on the outside edge; almost pushing an edge call), but midway through the rotations her body loses its center of gravity and tilts to the side, which suggests a lack of control in the air. This could be part of the reason why her landing is shaky -- it reminds me a lot of Sotnikova's 3-3, with the heavy forward lean that makes the back-end triple extremely difficult to rotate. Julia can do it now, because her figure is very slight and aerodynamic, but if she ends up with a body like Sotnikova's, she could be in trouble.
For comparison, this is Gracie Gold's 3-3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWVDqTmzT1Q. It's higher than Julia's, but it also has a deep outside edge and a fluidity about the rotations, and it's upright and almost perfectly perpendicular to the ice. Gracie easily rotates her 3T because she leans forward just enough on the landing on the 3Lz, allowing her to quickly position herself for a second triple. The one time that Gracie did mimic Julia in terms of jumps (the SP at Worlds), she received a UR call. I'd also point out here that the nervous Gracie *falls* when her triples are tilted like Julia's; Julia stays on her feet (thankfully) because she's accustomed to that mode of jumping, but if she ever struggles with nerves, I'd be loath to see what happens to her jumps.
Does that make sense? Julia's off-balance air position and need to muscle her way through the triple toe suggests a significant technical issue, but not poor technique in the general sense. I referred to 2011 Tukt's technique as "solid and dependable," which are two adjectives I would not attribute to Julia's -- to me, "solid and dependable" does not equal "poor 2A, little height, and barely getting back-end triples around."
Lastly, I appreciate your respect.
I totally agree. I don't think Julia's jumps are doomed but I do think her days of 3-3s are numbered if she doesn't tweak her technique in terms of her air position and control. She's getting by with that forward pitch/tilt on her landing (similar to Sotnikova's) but that could become problematic in the future.
