Alysa Liu Ready for Change

[Greengemmonster]

Just watched Alysa's SP for the ISP Challenge

Jumps looked pretty comfortable. I thought she had decent height on them. Spins were good too. She has not "lost everything" thank goodness!

I feel all kinds of silly for freaking out about her the other day.

It does seem like the Fed wants to smack her down though with her score. I hope she gets her 3A back to show them!

 

[trkvy]

Caroline had tremendous international success considering her short peak career. She was a Junior world champion and a JGPF champion

No she wasn't.

 

[Jeanie19]

No she wasn't.

Caroline won all gold medals the 2006-2007 junior season.

 

[nussnacker]

No she wasn't.

They're talking about Caroline Zhang. Perhaps you're thinking of someone else.

 

[trkvy]

They're talking about Caroline Zhang. Perhaps you're thinking of someone else.

my mistake

 

[blue_ice]

Just watched Alysa's SP. What happened to her spins and skating skills? Maybe coaching change wasn't a good idea?

 

[readernick]

Just watched Alysa's SP. What happened to her spins and skating skills? Maybe coaching change wasn't a good idea?

I think her skating skills have actually improved a bit. It was never her strong point. She is and has always been slow. The spins are still nice. (did you watch the ISP short or the Carnival of Ice short? If the latter she was obviously not making a big effort to showcase her technical elements)

 

[rain]

I think her skating skills have actually improved a bit. It was never her strong point. She is and has always been slow. The spins are still nice. (did you watch the ISP short or the Carnival of Ice short? If the latter she was obviously not making a big effort to showcase her technical elements)

I saw her ISP short and thought that when you sandwich her in between Karen Chen and Amber Glenn, with their strong, powerful skating and excellent skating skills, Alysa's juniorish skating quality was fully on display, not to her benefit. Also just presentation wise, she made some vague attempts at doing the choreography, but when compared to the heartfelt and committed performances before and after hers, well, the cracks showed. Her spins were the high point of the program, I thought.

But then, I'm one of those people who've been arguing against putting so much pressure and expectation on such young skaters, no matter what country they're from. I thank goodness Stephen Gogolev didn't become Canadian champion at 15, then have the season he had last year. And I personally thought Mariah Bell should have been last year's American champion, on merit alone.

 

[flanker]

It's too soon to judge anything, I would say. Training pause, change of coaches etc. Let's just wait several months to see the development.

 

[kwanatic]

I really feel like people are freaking out waaaaay too early at this point.

To me, she looks slightly faster than she did last season though she still needs to continue to improve in that area. She did not look labored stroking around the ice which is a good thing. She didn't look like she was skating through sand or that gaining speed was a major struggle. That's promising in my book. The spins were fine except for the layback where she didn't have her Biellmann--that could be due to lack of stretching or an injury or something else. It's not an indication that she can no longer spin because, as mentioned, her spins looked fine save for that one position.

The jumps looked mostly the same. She doesn't soar but it's not like she was jumping at a stand still either. TSL mentioned her double axel barely got off the ice but I went back and watched her junior worlds performance from before her growth spurt and her 2A had that same low height. She gets air on her 3A but she skims her 2A...no difference IMO. The way people were talking I thought her jumps had gone completely AWOL. I kept waiting for her to fall or look lost in the air but nope. Jumps look the same to me. Her technique isn't perfect but I've seen far worse, that's for sure. As for the 3A, like others who are jumping harder elements, it's probably going to take her a minute to get it back. I wouldn't make any predictions about that until much later in the season if not next year.

The programs were okay. Alysa has very good presentation for someone so young. She projects, takes her time and finishes her movements so I was never worried about that aspect of her skating. It's just a matter of getting her some programs that work well with her style. It's hard to get a full idea of the program only watching a portion of it but, as of now, I like the direction they're going in.

Yes, she's taller. Yes, she's bigger. It's called puberty. Considering how much she's grown I was shocked to see so few differences in her overall skating considering the amount of doom and gloom/panic surrounding the performances from some people. Of course we want to see improvement but if you can make it through puberty without losing much, you're ahead of the game. It's going to be an adjustment period--adjusting to her new body, hopefully adjusting her technique and adjusting her technique to her new body--but it's fine. It's not like she's even a senior yet.

IMO this growth spurt came at the best time possible. She's still a junior and not competing internationally as a senior; with the pandemic going on it's not like there's a junior season she has to be ready for; she has time to focus on training without the pressure of competing in front of everyone; if she weren't able to threepeat as national champion there's always next year... For Alysa, this season doesn't really matter much. She should be focused on next season and debuting on the senior level and making her mark there. It only takes one season for a skater to go from newbie to champion.

 

[trkvy]

To me Liu's Opp.2 FS looks like
3A<< fall, 3Lz<, 2Aq+2T, 3Loq, 3Lz<+3T<, 3Fq+1Eu+3S< or << , 3Fq

 

[natsulian]

To me Liu's Opp.2 FS looks like
3A<< fall, 3Lz<, 2Aq+2T, 3Loq, 3Lz<+3T<, 3Fq+1Eu+3S< or << , 3Fq

For me, I would say:

3A<<, 3Lz, 2A+2T, 3Lo, 3Lz+3T<, 3Fq+Eu+3S<, and 3F

That still brings her TES to about 62-64 and if her PCS was around 58-60, she still should've scored >120. I don't understand where that 119 came from unless they hosed her PCS as well.

 

[Tolstoj]

Just watched Alysa's SP. What happened to her spins and skating skills? Maybe coaching change wasn't a good idea?

Skating skills she needed some work even before, I think the work they are doing now on that, will pay off in the next 2-3 years.

Up to last season most of her strenght came from the training, you can tell with Lipetsky they were working a lot, those spins were always very fast and centered.

Now body is changing, everything need adjustments but it's too early to judge.

On the coaching change i'm also not a huge fan, cause things were working with the previous one, if ain't broke, don't fix it!

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

For me, I would say:

3A<<, 3Lz, 2A+2T, 3Lo, 3Lz+3T<, 3Fq+Eu+3S<, and 3F

That still brings her TES to about 62-64 and if her PCS was around 58-60, she still should've scored >120. I don't understand where that 119 came from unless they hosed her PCS as well.

All her triple jumps looked right at 1/4 short (even the loop), so the calls could go either way. I'm happy this panel is strict on her because it signals she needs to pay closer attention to that before the competitions that actually matter begin.

 

[katymay]

I feel if everybody taught technique foundation like Elizebeta then quads may take longer but they would be more sustainable with age. Right now you need to jump quad by 15 (or 3A) otherwise you're nothing, and can't make it.

This is why people teach unsustainable quads at such a young age. If senior age limit was hypothetically 17-18, then people would slow the process of teaching quads and start similar teachnique to Elizebeta. They can teach quads like this, but they won't as otherwise their skaters won't succeed.

Alysa Liu is talented enough to land quads at an older age, but her technqiue is not suited for this. If her coach taught her differently she'd be in a great position to learn quads properly and keep them for longer. Even like Rika Kihira or Wakaba (I feel both have potential to learn a quad).

Rika is very tiny, and I'm assuming she is done growing. Of all the girls who are doing quads, Rika is the only one who doesn't use huge speed to get them up and around, and it seems as if only the quad sal and loop can be done at lower speed. Valieva, Trusova and Shcerbakova fly into their quads. And therein lies the problem-speed. Alysa still isn't able to work up much speed into jumps, and she disguises lack of speed out of them with transitions. (While I love her spread eagles, her FS seems to have too many of them. Sort of like Valieva's leg kicks.)

 

[katymay]

Skating skills she needed some work even before, I think the work they are doing now on that, will pay off in the next 2-3 years.

Up to last season most of her strenght came from the training, you can tell with Lipetsky they were working a lot, those spins were always very fast and centered.

Now body is changing, everything need adjustments but it's too early to judge.

On the coaching change i'm also not a huge fan, cause things were working with the previous one, if ain't broke, don't fix it!

I think Lipetsky was a genius coach with Alysa-disguised her short comings with transitions, picked great music, packaging etc. But I suspected the issue was that Alysa wanted to train in a more competitive environment-with a group of more elite skaters than what she had at her rink. And then the virus came along, and put a damper in those plans. I rather wonder why she didn't opt to go with Brian or Raf, especially Raf with the Canada issues-And I rather wonder if her team (dad) approached both of those coaches and was turned down. Especially Raf, as that would have seemed to me to be a good fit for her.

 

[NAOTMAA]

Caroline was great at Alysa's age, winning senior GP medals, making the senior GPF, and having three top 2 finishes at Jr Worlds (including a win there). She started having problems with consistency around 16 or 17, but I think a lot of people forget how good she was because she continued long after she was getting strong international results. Alysa obviously has been better at Nationals, but her success there is due to the 3A.

Caroline's issues were always clear and obvious even when she was at the top but of course it was easy to get away with because she was, like Alysa is now, tiny and not through puberty. But I remember even with her clear flaws people were still proclaiming her the next Michelle Kwan. It felt like everyone was ignoring them because they were blinded by her then amazing spins and flexibility.

They didn't start really hammering her until the wheels started badly collapsing and by then it just felt mean because they actively ignored the flaws and hyped her up big. It felt like a rug pulling shock even though it should have been obvious what path she was on. So its probably for the best that Alysa get the "hammering" now while she still has a fighting chance to fix things rather then wait until its too late like Caroline. At least it seems lessons from the past were learned for once

 

[Fool]

Rika is very tiny, and I'm assuming she is done growing. Of all the girls who are doing quads, Rika is the only one who doesn't use huge speed to get them up and around, and it seems as if only the quad sal and loop can be done at lower speed. Valieva, Trusova and Shcerbakova fly into their quads. And therein lies the problem-speed. Alysa still isn't able to work up much speed into jumps, and she disguises lack of speed out of them with transitions. (While I love her spread eagles, her FS seems to have too many of them. Sort of like Valieva's leg kicks.)

I disagree. I think Alysa is capable of generating more speed going into her jumps, but she slows down intentionally before, probably because she can control them better that way, but this is more unsustainable as she grows. This is what struck me the most when I saw her live. Still not the speed of Bradie or Valieva etc. but more than she does now, and I think she will improve on this aspect in the next few seasons.

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

To me Liu's Opp.2 FS looks like
3A<< fall, 3Lz<, 2Aq+2T, 3Loq, 3Lz<+3T<, 3Fq+1Eu+3S< or << , 3Fq

Lmao! Are you sure her Eu and 2T weren’t q or < as well? I mean if you’re gonna go all out, go all out.

 

[kwanatic]

I got around to watching Alysa's ISP performances yesterday. Again, I think she looks faster--she wasn't the slowest person in that group of skaters. That's a good thing. You can definitely see the difference in speed. Alysa was faster than the girl who skated to Samson & Delilah in the FS (IDK her name); but then you see her next to Mariah (who was flying by comparison) and you can see the difference. Still, Alysa has improved that area.

Her 2A is still low and tight and has a much more pregnant pause than before. That needs to be worked on. I think both of her combos should have received URs. The solo jumps looked fine. I agree she still needs to work on her speed through her jumps so she'll get that nice flowing edge coming out. The spins looked very good, Biellmann was back so that was a plus.

The programs are nice minus all of the shrugging in the SP--that has a distinctly juniorish feel to it. She needs to tap into a Michelle Kwan-Salome level glow up in her styling and the presence she brings to her performances to help showcase her maturity.

All in all, she did fine. I don't think it's time to panic yet. Without those axels she loses her technical edge which means she loses ground in the field. She'll need to get her combos clean and have a 3A to have a better chance of medaling at nationals. Again, if she misses the podium this year she always has next season which is what will count the most.