Ok I know this isn't about what we are currently talking about but, what is everyone's main gripe with Mozalev? Ted said something about not liking his hands and how they just stay there not really doing anything, is it that he relies to heavily on arm choreo to tell stories, similar to Medvedeva?
This is something I cannot judge, since I am practically a-musical, but I have heard someone say that Mozalev’s choreo ignores the complex rhythm in the music (they talk about the Heart’s Cry). His choreography is also labored vs having the lighter quality to create an illusion that he’s just effortlessly improvising the program.
I think this impression is partially due to Mozalev’s music being odd and that he doesn’t engage with the audience by looking at the audience and projecting. He actually did skate to a warhorse or two in his younger days, but the choreo was very similar, with lots of upper body involvement and amplitude.
This season, he also tends to visibly fall behind the music and you could see how worried he is about that 4S and that mistakes impact him. He doesn’t change choreo over on the fly after the falls, and still tries to get it all in, so it creates a bit of an impression that he is overly try-hard, doing it to check off the moves vs inspired. So his PCSs suffer, particularly because Kondratyuk and Semenenko are both exuberant, while Mozalev is reserved.
I think he could develop to be artistically captivating but he needs what he just don’t have much access to right now. Shows, competitions, choreography that maybe not this overloaded, and involving the audience, as much of it as possible, into what he is skating, not just those who are naturally predisposed to like what he is going for…
I always get this impression from him that he knows what he wants, but is always a little bit behind, just a bit short on time, to actually get it all out there.
Another thing is, I am guessing, he has to oversell himself because he is not coming in as a favoured whose mistakes would be overlooked or minimized, and it sometimes backfires.
Plus, the fairly obvious thing, that he struggles to finish the rotations because he doesn’t gain enough height.
