- Joined
- Oct 25, 2012
Just watched episode 3 of "Freeze", and I have to start with the elephant in the room.
We all know that there are coaches out there that, to put it mildly, are not nice to their students. Eteri's treatment of her girls has been a major talking point in recent weeks. But, Harry's story was truly shocking.
Unfortunately, shocking as it was, it is an all-too familiar story. The victim puts up with the verbal abuse for a long time. And when they finally pluck up the courage to stand up to the abuser, the abuser turns violent and physically assaults the victim.
It just shows how much control the coach had over Harry that, despite all the verbal abuse, Harry felt he couldn't leave. And that it took getting assaulted for him to have the courage to get out.
That story just explains everything about Harry. That abusive relationship has had a lasting impact on him, and on his personality. We even saw it when Lydia got injured. He didn't say anything, but you could see in his face that he was consumed with guilt. It was a pure accident, but Harry felt that it was his fault that she had got hurt.
Anyway, moving onto other things. I have to say the programme makers did a great job in picking contrasting skaters to feature when telling the story of the skate-off.
PJ Hallam is a pretty laid-back character, but is also very emotional. He was getting more and more upset with the way he was struggling after geting back on the ice. And the longer the struggles went on, the more upset he was getting.
Graham Newberry, on the other hand, is more of a serious character. He is driven and determined. The scene where he was watching the video of himself skating when he was 3 says it all. Here we were going all gooey about how cute he was, and all Graham was doing was pointing out mistakes and saying that he should have done that better.
Anthony summed the two of them up pretty well!
I had to laugh when Graham was talking about tailoring the performance for the audience. He said "In figure skating, the audience tends to be middle-aged women. And you have to do basically what they want". This is a guy who knows what you have to do to survive in life, not just in figure skating!
I am puzzled about Christian Newberry, though. I don't know if anybody else noticed this, but his accent kept changing! Most of the time, he was talking normal. But when he was on the ice with Graham, he sounded American!
Too long coaching over that side of the pond, I doubt!
As I said before, since watching this series, I have become a big fan of Kristen Spours. I just love her, and her whole attitude to everything! When she started talking about Elladj Baldé, and how he is so popular with the fans, I just thought "yes, this is the sort of skater that I can imagine you being if you were free to be yourself rather than having to conform to what the judges want".
I have to say, Ondřej Hotárek is a great coach for Kristen. He has her figured out, to the extent that I think he knows her better than she knows herself.
After showing wee snippets of her in the first 2 episodes, Nina Povey properly featured in this episode. She is totally different Kristen. Nina is more of a traditional skater. No doubt about it, she is a beautiful skater. Although she is a very confident speaker, she seems to be very down on herself. She is clearly disappointed with the way her career has gone so far. Which should not be the case.
OK, so Nina has never been British Champion, nor has she ever been selected for an ISU run event. But just remember, this is a girl that was on the podium in nearly every event she competed in during the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons. And that included quite a few wins. Many a skater would call that a successful career.
It was fascinating seeing Nina after she did her FS at the skate-off. She came off the ice very happy and confident. But when she got her scores, the change was instant. You could see just how disappointed she was.
I'm no psychiatrist, but this could be part of the reason why Nina has gone from being a regular podium finisher and winner in domestic and international competitions 5 years ago to being almost the forgotten girl of British skating. I think she expects too much of herself. If she lowered her expectations and then started achieving them, it might do wonders for her.
Was there a Short Programme segment in the skate-off? Because they only showed the Free Skates on "Freeze". I didn't realise that the skaters got feedback from the judges. That's a god idea. Although, I do feel it was edited in a way to tie in with the narrative the producers wanted to tell. Because these are experienced judges that have been around for years. They don't only care about the way Kristen has her hair!
For that matter, I had to laugh at the presentation that they showed being given to the judges before the skate-off. Talk about stating the blinkin' obvious! If I was a judge, I would have been insulted that the Fed felt that I needed to be told those things.
As if we needed any more proof of how dysfunctional and out of touch with reality the British Fed is.
Oh, and it was nice to see Jenny Bill on screen a couple of times. So used to just hearing her voice.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to watching the final episode. And the extra wee things that @La Rhumba has told us about.
CaroLiza_fan
We all know that there are coaches out there that, to put it mildly, are not nice to their students. Eteri's treatment of her girls has been a major talking point in recent weeks. But, Harry's story was truly shocking.
Unfortunately, shocking as it was, it is an all-too familiar story. The victim puts up with the verbal abuse for a long time. And when they finally pluck up the courage to stand up to the abuser, the abuser turns violent and physically assaults the victim.
It just shows how much control the coach had over Harry that, despite all the verbal abuse, Harry felt he couldn't leave. And that it took getting assaulted for him to have the courage to get out.
That story just explains everything about Harry. That abusive relationship has had a lasting impact on him, and on his personality. We even saw it when Lydia got injured. He didn't say anything, but you could see in his face that he was consumed with guilt. It was a pure accident, but Harry felt that it was his fault that she had got hurt.
Anyway, moving onto other things. I have to say the programme makers did a great job in picking contrasting skaters to feature when telling the story of the skate-off.
PJ Hallam is a pretty laid-back character, but is also very emotional. He was getting more and more upset with the way he was struggling after geting back on the ice. And the longer the struggles went on, the more upset he was getting.
Graham Newberry, on the other hand, is more of a serious character. He is driven and determined. The scene where he was watching the video of himself skating when he was 3 says it all. Here we were going all gooey about how cute he was, and all Graham was doing was pointing out mistakes and saying that he should have done that better.
Anthony summed the two of them up pretty well!
I had to laugh when Graham was talking about tailoring the performance for the audience. He said "In figure skating, the audience tends to be middle-aged women. And you have to do basically what they want". This is a guy who knows what you have to do to survive in life, not just in figure skating!
I am puzzled about Christian Newberry, though. I don't know if anybody else noticed this, but his accent kept changing! Most of the time, he was talking normal. But when he was on the ice with Graham, he sounded American!
Too long coaching over that side of the pond, I doubt!As I said before, since watching this series, I have become a big fan of Kristen Spours. I just love her, and her whole attitude to everything! When she started talking about Elladj Baldé, and how he is so popular with the fans, I just thought "yes, this is the sort of skater that I can imagine you being if you were free to be yourself rather than having to conform to what the judges want".
I have to say, Ondřej Hotárek is a great coach for Kristen. He has her figured out, to the extent that I think he knows her better than she knows herself.
After showing wee snippets of her in the first 2 episodes, Nina Povey properly featured in this episode. She is totally different Kristen. Nina is more of a traditional skater. No doubt about it, she is a beautiful skater. Although she is a very confident speaker, she seems to be very down on herself. She is clearly disappointed with the way her career has gone so far. Which should not be the case.
OK, so Nina has never been British Champion, nor has she ever been selected for an ISU run event. But just remember, this is a girl that was on the podium in nearly every event she competed in during the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons. And that included quite a few wins. Many a skater would call that a successful career.
It was fascinating seeing Nina after she did her FS at the skate-off. She came off the ice very happy and confident. But when she got her scores, the change was instant. You could see just how disappointed she was.
I'm no psychiatrist, but this could be part of the reason why Nina has gone from being a regular podium finisher and winner in domestic and international competitions 5 years ago to being almost the forgotten girl of British skating. I think she expects too much of herself. If she lowered her expectations and then started achieving them, it might do wonders for her.
Was there a Short Programme segment in the skate-off? Because they only showed the Free Skates on "Freeze". I didn't realise that the skaters got feedback from the judges. That's a god idea. Although, I do feel it was edited in a way to tie in with the narrative the producers wanted to tell. Because these are experienced judges that have been around for years. They don't only care about the way Kristen has her hair!
For that matter, I had to laugh at the presentation that they showed being given to the judges before the skate-off. Talk about stating the blinkin' obvious! If I was a judge, I would have been insulted that the Fed felt that I needed to be told those things.
As if we needed any more proof of how dysfunctional and out of touch with reality the British Fed is.
Oh, and it was nice to see Jenny Bill on screen a couple of times. So used to just hearing her voice.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to watching the final episode. And the extra wee things that @La Rhumba has told us about.
CaroLiza_fan
thank you!
You would never believe that she will turn 80 in three months time! 
)
ALL THE BEST!!! 
