2014 Cup of China Ladies Short Program 11/07

[lavender]

How tall is Julia now. She's no longer little like Tara was.

 

[hippomoomin]

Her music is in the new age category, which is my favorite genre of all kinds of music. I do prefer new age than classical most of the time, like Radionova's sp last season.

But the choice of music does not the program original. She is not the first person to use this piece of music either. Ksenia Makarova used for her LP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9lEK7M3hfA in her last competitive season. Makarova has much better presentation with the same piece of music. I only hope her jumps worked.

Completely disagree with you. In my opinion, her program was the most original one, compared to other programs that were Phantom of the Opera (which seems like everyone is doing this season) or just pretty princess music like Li Zijuns. As for the costume, it gives a “vintage” feel to the overall kite idea. Not to mention it’s simple, without ruffles and too much sparkles.

 

[yyyskate]

I thought she is holding umbrella too? any connection with umbrella? or doing some acrobat plate spinning tricks like this
https://meesterc.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/juggle.png

 

[WeakAnkles]

Yes. I would say 1996, 18 years ago, different times.

Edit: For what it is worth, I have said the same thing about Jason Brown. No reason to look older too soon when you want to be viable for 2018. It was not an insult. If anything I agree with the strategy.

Well I don't know how old you are, but I'm old enough to know the more things change, the more they stay the same. But then again we're far more youth-obsessed now than we were even as short a period as 18 years ago. Ask any plastic surgeon.

 

[Sam-Skwantch]

Well I don't know how old you are, but I'm old enough to know the more things change, the more they stay the same. But then again we're far more youth-obsessed now than we were even as short a period as 18 years ago. Ask any plastic surgeon.

But she actually is a very youthful girl. She isn't really playing dress up is she. To me it's refreshing and a welcome one compared to the trend of young girls trying to look/act older. I hope some other young girls see this and can relate.

 

[Mrs. P]

Aw, nobody played along with my Rhianna joke.

 

[Sam-Skwantch]

Aw, nobody played along with my Rhianna joke.

I liked it

 

[MIM]

I just watched ladies SP.

There are some disappointments for me. Here are my constructive criticism for my dear Russian girls and I hope they deliver good LP tomorrow.

As I adore Elizaveta this season, I had really high hopes that she could bring the refined skating at this event. But, she made many mistakes in her stsq, and she looked tired towards the end of the performance. She knew that she was behind the beat and tried to hurry her moves that her skating looked frantic. The leaps/splits(?) before the final spin were just ,,,:scowl:...

Yulia skated with the same package from the last season, the innocent child. Even though I respect her determination, energy, and focus, she looked like doing a physical exercise than figure skating in my honest opinion. She is technically, physically SUPERIOR!! But her movement is hard to call a dancing. She has a more of a gymnast's approach to a skating. She stretches her legs, lifts her chest, straightens back, moves her limbs fast, but that is it. There is a pausing moment during her stsq. It is such a critical point, but she just treats it as one of many moves. To dance, I think you should not move in one speed. The skater's body is her instrument. She needs to extract and expand as the music goes. I think she is a smart girl and always has a great concept. When I hear her interview, I feel like she's approaching too intelligently, not necessarily artistically/emotionally. But I hope that does not hinder herself from becoming a great skater.

 

[Isabel_O'Reilly]

I don't disagree regarding Julia's 2A. I just want to know when near +1s across the board for a jump became "negligible GOE". I think it would suffice to give Julia neutral GOE on her 2A, and save the +1s for bigger 2As and the +2s or +3s for the more exceptional ones. I would like to see a bit more separation in GOE between a Julia 2A and, say, a Liza one.



Can anyone provide more info about the "kite idea"? I was wondering if there was meaning behind Julia's costume choice (I thought it was a nice look) and I don't remember reading about a kite.

Height is only one bullet point and the only specific complaint (I mean put into actual words rather than just the blanket statement that she doesn't have a good 2A) I've ever heard about that jump.

Here she puts it significantly after the halfway mark (almost 2 full minutes into the music). Her music is exactly 2:50, and she jumps into the 2A at 1:54/1:55. Now I'm not a judge but I would also reward skaters who do the jumps well significantly after the halfway mark with good GOE.

Now having said that, she jumps into the 2A with almost no visible preparation, obvious there's always significant mental preparation. She also stepped from a cross-cut into a rocker or is it a counter? with no change of foot into a spiral position before jumping right into it. To me that would qualify as a difficult entry.

She doesn't have great height and it's impossible to tell from the camera angle, which is showing the jump from behind whether she got good distance like she usually does. See this one (at 1:28): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43X-DrMzHmk Obvious this is guesswork but judging from the logos on the ice where she jumps and where she land I estimate she covers 4 to 4 and 1/2 feet. Until I see a better camera angle I'm going to assume she did the same yesterday.

The rotation is sure and the landing is still very solid even if I was slightly rougher than she's had other times. When you see the replay, you notice that on every landing in that program her position is textbook perfect. Shoulders and hip square with each other, and her free leg perfectly extended to basically hip-level. And when she step into her next move there's no rush she know each landing was sure and could confidently move to the next step.

Each of these things are positive and should be excellent reasons to give her a minimum of +1 GOE. She's always fulfilled at least four bullet points of the criteria and judges are well within their rights to give her up to +2 (Meant to say that not +1). However many judges reserve +2 and +3 GOE for jumps that are extraordinary in terms of power and height. So 0.36 seems perfectly fair to me.

 

[hippomoomin]

I just watched ladies SP.

Yulia skated with the same package from the last season, the innocent child. Even though I respect her determination, energy, and focus, she looked like doing a physical exercise than figure skating in my honest opinion. She is technically, physically SUPERIOR!! But her movement is hard to call a dancing. She has a more of a gymnast's approach to a skating. She stretches her legs, lifts her chest, straightens back, moves her limbs fast, but that is it. There is a pausing moment during her stsq. It is such a critical point, but she just treats it as one of many moves. To dance, I think you should not move in one speed. The skater's body is her instrument. She needs to extract and expand as the music goes. I think she is a smart girl and always has a great concept. When I hear her interview, I feel like she's approaching too intelligently, not necessarily artistically/emotionally. But I hope that does not hinder herself from becoming a great skater.

If Yulia has Polina or Anna's long arms, her unsophisticated arm moves would be very obvious.

 

[Jewels]

I thought she is holding umbrella too? any connection with umbrella? or doing some acrobat plate spinning tricks like this
https://meesterc.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/juggle.png

I thought she was holding a balloon. Bit similar to kite isn't it? haha

Okayy so I watched ladies' videos again with much clearer head this morning.(Last night the only thing that caught my eyes were Yulia's spins I dunno why) I liked Tuk's jumps and skating skills, Murakami's choreography, and how Liptnitskaya followed the music. The other two's programmes were better than Yulia's IMO, but I really liked Yulia's timing to the music. Some of Tuk and Kanako's movements/steps didn't match the music(I mean with the beat) and that kind of distracted me.
By the way, I am surprised that Yulia's keeping her pace up from last season. Her choreography is a bit repetitive and I hope it gets more mature, but I have to admit, it still works for her. I wonder what her fs looks like.

 

[karne]

Wow wow wow! Was I really that blind or one judge gave Julia 0.25 for IN???

Most likely a button not being pushed hard enough/properly. It happens sometimes, especially with touch-screens.

 

[Ayeshoo]

Lovely step sequence by Julia.
That was a strong one!

 

[Icey]

Liza' s costume is distracting to me. Looks like she forgot to take off her makeup "robe". Ur's seem to be the plague of the American ladies this year: five among the 3 in the short program here.

 

[Icey]

Most likely a button not being pushed hard enough/properly. It happens sometimes, especially with touch-screens.

Can't the judge see what score they have entered and correct it or is it a one shot deal?

 

[Sabrina]

For the long program, I have no idea...is this the first time Julia presents her LP? I know it should be Romeo and Juliet, but I have only seen her skating on this music in an ice show.

 

[Sam-Skwantch]

Here is Yulia's FS StSeq but the music is Kanako's POTO.

https://2ch.hk/sp/src/324056/14152885045400.webm

I can't get the link to open on my phone but it worked yesterday on my computer so I'll leave it up and hope it is still active

 

[Isabel_O'Reilly]

Wow wow wow! Was I really that blind or one judge gave Julia 0.25 for IN???

Probably a button malfunction like karne has said. I calculated it out and assuming that was supposed to be an 8.25 judging by the other components from that judge, it only changed it from an 8.11 down to 8.00. When factored that only resulted in a 0.03 difference, which probably wouldn't matter in any competition.

 

[thoakun]

Completely disagree with you. In my opinion, her program was the most original one, compared to other programs that were Phantom of the Opera (which seems like everyone is doing this season) or just pretty princess music like Li Zijuns. As for the costume, it gives a “vintage” feel to the overall kite idea. Not to mention it’s simple, without ruffles and too much sparkles.

ITA. Whether you like Julia or not, she apparently holds herself to a very high standard in everything, including choreography. She's so young but she knows exactly what she wants to wear and skate to and goes extra length to get herself involved in the making of her programs. Her SP is a breath of fresh air compared to warhorses like Bollero, POTO or Tchaikovsy's music. I believe she won't change her SP costume no matter how much people hate it. It's amazing how people from different cultural background can have such different perspectives on a red and white sailor dress. I don't know whatever Waldo or Wendi means so the dress doesn't trigger any cheap associations for me and she obviously loves it. I was somehow reminded of The Red Balloon while watching her SP.

 

[blue_ice]

Yulia's dress inspiration
comes from her vacation http://cs540104.vk.me/c540105/v540105754/23b3e/X7EnsZ6fHPo.jpg
http://cs623930.vk.me/v623930213/8199/DK5iGG-TaIM.jpg