How to spot the improvement of skaters’ skating skills

[DizzyFrenchie]

Yuuup! There's a reason why when skaters do off-ice double and triples jumps they're not suppose to stick their landing but do some mini hops out of it. I will say, feet are still more stable than blades, but the transfer from toe pick to blade is definitely not as impactful.

Also worth noting Surya was a tumbler and not an artistic gymnast, so she's always been about the big tricks moreso than dance moves or the frills. I think that's why I enjoyed her skating so much since I was more about the jumps than transitions (and I suppose nowadays because I am actually capable of doing rockers/counters more than a triple, I'm more drawn to developing my skating skills!). Maybe that's the case with elite skaters - as juniors they're able to handle the big tricks with ease, but then as they go through their career jumps become harder so they shift focus on developing their overall skating, including their skating skills.

It changed during my teens, but I was definitely that way when a child. I wanted to do Ballet because these jumps were sooo impressive! I knew that women weren't supposed to jump saut-de-basque and the like, but there were grand-jeté etc, and actually I had no doubt that I would be able to have male parts.
So, I do like Surya Bonaly's way of skating, it's different and refreshing. The thing is, when a Skate has average Skating Skills (because I'm not taking ISU's "weak", unless they speak only of the group of the World Championships Finalists or those deserving similar scores), in IJS they mustn't have over 6 in Skating Skills. That's the balance in Competitive Figure Skating as the rules are written, you can compensate lower Components with higher Elements. And it's not easy at all, if scoring is accurate! Quadruple Jumps are not that much rewarded, all the more if they're underrotated!
Hence the interest of this thread, where I'm not perfectly at ease because I haven't really assimilated the Components Shifts post-2022.