- Joined
- Jan 23, 2004
Thank you to everyone for posting the videos. It was such a treat watching these wonderful selections!
Mao at TEB 2005 is one competition I wish I was there. The program, her presence and dress, everything was perfect!
My preference is always for skaters with good feet. Everything else can be fixed later but if you don't have good feet, you're in trouble.
I consider Miki Ando an example of this, as well as Caydee Denney.
I definitely see what you mean about the importance of good feet, edges, and basic skating skills. But--I'm not sure I agree everything else can be fixed later. One thing I always look for is whether the skater has a "good back." By this I mean, is the skater's back nicely arched? Are the shoulders up and square? Does the upper body stay still and centered as the skater moves across the ice? These are skills that tend to be acquired early on in a skating career. When skaters show up at the elite level with a flat back/poor posture, it doesn't usually seem to improve much. Their choreography and general interpretation often improves, but not so much their actual posture. I consider Miki Ando an example of this, as well as Caydee Denney.
It's good to see someone else singling that trait out for praise. Yuka Sato and Dorothy Hamill were two skaters who impressed me with their backs. Also Michelle: I remember seeing her skate onto the ice for the warmup before the short program at the Nagano Olympics and thinking, "What beautiful posture!" Posture was something I always felt that Oksana Baiul lacked. She tended to hunch a bit, which put me off her for quite a long time despite all the praise she received.
I definitely see what you mean about the importance of good feet, edges, and basic skating skills. But--I'm not sure I agree everything else can be fixed later. One thing I always look for is whether the skater has a "good back." By this I mean, is the skater's back nicely arched? Are the shoulders up and square? Does the upper body stay still and centered as the skater moves across the ice? These are skills that tend to be acquired early on in a skating career.
You're right about Oksana; she did tend to hunch a bit. I think what kept people from noticing/commenting on this was the extraordinary flexibility she had through her back (as a young skater--remember her donut spin, still the best I've seen?). She used that sinuousness and flexibility, as well as her long arms, so well in expressing music that it masked other flaws in her skating.
And yes, Michelle did have lovely posture. This was especially noticeable in Michelle's sit spin, which was pure and lovely in its position. So many times, skaters do sit spins with a horrible, half-bent back, which ruins the line of the spin. Michelle's was perfect.
Since we are posting videos of prodigies, here's Han Yan at 11:
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjU4NjE0MTUy.html
And his current 4T3T at 16:
http://imgsrc.baidu.com/forum/pic/item/7dd98d1001e93901be7c65987bec54e736d1961e.jpg
If you look closely at Sasha's spirals, they were on very, very shallow edges. The positions were great, but the edges were not. Her charlotte was often just on a flat. She also constantly lost control of her edges, which I think is half the reason why she fell so much, she just could not hold landing edges for her life and many of her landings were shaky. Of course, the American commentators will not say anything is wrong with her, but I was reading someone's blog who attended and analyzed every US National and Worlds in the US from like 1990-2006ish and they always commented on how Sasha's spiral was gorgeous but on almost a flat edge.
SF, wonderful first link. Second link I see a logo type thing-pale and underneath chinese (I think) writing.
Is it geoblocked in America?
I sometimes think people who are very critical of Sasha, Tara or Sarah are very disgruntled fans of MK who never got over the losses at the Olympics. We had 4 extraordinary winning women who hit in the nineties. Also wonderful were skaters like Kimmie, Caroline, Mirai who are CoP skaters. There was one diminutive Sasha who often made us sigh when she fell, but she also soared like no other lady I remember. We were so lucky to see her go for it. I can appreciate her on an edge on or not.