Whoops!
Nadien & Windspirit, Not to beat a dead torso relative to dead legs and get totally off topic, but I just watched Yags on the repeat of the World Team Challenge and seeing him again, I saw I was wrong about him having relatively short legs. I remember first thinking that when he did "Broken Arrow" and again when he did "Man in the Iron Mask"; in both he wore a black unitard and perhaps that's what gave the at least me the illusion that he had a relatively long torso--or relatively short legs, whichever way you want to describe it. But seeing him in his costume for "Driven" -- squared-off untucked shirt, black pants -- I realized you guys are right. Yags has a very evenly proportioned body and in this costume, his legs in fact look slightly long relative to his torso. So much for depending on my memory rather than my eyes
lol.
But having just watched Shizuka and Sasha, I stand by my previous opinion. So Windspirit and I now agree on 2 out of 3; Nadine and I are still 0 for 0. But I'm still up for measuring Yags. Maybe we can have a measuring party and each have a turn. All in good, healthy fun, natch.
Unreliably Yours,
Rgirl
Back to Sasha's spiral--you remember, the long lost subject of this thread, which I admit I helped lose
--they showed the exhibitions from Trophee Lalique this morning (Sunday) on Lifetime. I was a good poster and posted a thread about it in the GP series folder, but as long as the subject of this thread is Sasha's spiral--again
--I'll just say that during her exhibition, which is a slightly shorter version of her Nino Rota "Romeo and Juliet" program from last season, I thought she had a gorgeous secure curving BOE on her fan spiral (leg extended in front). In "Malaguena" and "Swan Lake" she's been doing it on a straight line and on the flat. I checked my "Carmen" tape (learned my lesson for the millionth time, lol) and she did the curving wonderful BOE on her fan spiral then too. I guess it's for having Sasha go through a certain pattern on the ice for choreographic reasons that Tarasova had her do the fan spiral that way. Too bad she can't figure out a way to have her do it with the curve and BOE.
I think it would be very cool to see if Sasha could do the fan spiral on a curve with a BOE with a change-edge into a BIE. She would probably have to move the leg position at least somewhat to the side--at least I did marking it in my apartment--so she doesn't fall forward, but that might look even more interesting.
And Nadine, your idea for an upside down Beillmann combined with the 360-degree thing made me think about Sasha doing her FOE arabesque spiral with the 180-degree split, but doing it in 360-degree turn, similar to what she does with the leg to the side catch-foot 360-degree turn, which is rather like a slow spin. And it would be really cool if she could take that and go directly into a forward scratch spin (she'd probably have to lower the leg somewhat to do so, but then even in my best dancing days I never had Sasha's flexibility), especially if she did that low sit spin with the leg to the side first, which she does in "Swan Lake" now right before she does the forward scratch spin with the cool arm variation.
Anyway, now that Sasha has established the "Wow" of the amplitude and extension of her arabesque spiral, I'd like to see her and Tarasova get creative with her edges and speed combined with some of the unique positions she can achieve--plus heart. For me, that's the way I'd like to see Sasha take her spirals to the next level, and I don't just mean Level 3, although that would be a COP bonus. I mean to the next level as a skater, artist, and person.
. I believe all figure skaters can do that on the floor. Funny, I don't remember seeing a 'walk over' on ice.
........had a good laugh w/my sister about that one last night........my apologies, mistake on my part. Could just imagine a skater traversing the ice rink with her head pointed toward the ground w/her legs on either side of her head ( 
) ***Note: btw I've always had a weird fascination with a skater, such as Lucinda Ruh, possibly doing an upside down Biellmann Spin ~ think it would be simply AMAZING & perhaps beautiful, but boy would it shock the skating world w/comments about needing to be Gumby! LOL! 
Oops, as regards whether or not it would qualify as a 360-degree spiral, I'm not sure but I definitely think it should count as a jump b/c it takes off on one foot & lands on the other foot. JMHO.
