I know I was not here for AGES, but huge THANK YOU for all who were in Laval and wrote about it there and all who commented
I very much agree with comments on adjusting Jason's quirk/specific way of emoting/behaving into this new coaching arrangement and him being in a cross between his old style and new changes introduced. I think a lot of people tend to forget that it takes time to make things work, especially like this - Brian & Co. are not Disney fairies to induce a quad in a month or something like this and Jason is not a newbie to be taught everything from scratch which makes things more difficult to click; and there are quite few elements to this relationship: Jason's view and approach, Brian's one, Jason's body, how it accommodates changes, Jason's mind and mental attitude towards competition...I imagine it is not an easy task to synchronize and agree all these factors together.
The thing I took from watching Jason's performances at SC was paradoxally not how he interacts (or not) with Brian or if he jumped the quad/had clean performances - what I saw, especially in FS was the he accepted to give himself much needed time to work this relationship, that he accepted what came with decision/change he made going forward. I felt that he did not set a clear expectation points/results-wise for that outing, but more tried to 'synchronize' all these newly learned things with who he is as a skater and performer. And similar thought about both programs - while SP is for me Jason style but upgraded, more refined and with more sensual note to it (easier to accommodate changes), FS introduces a new, more subtle, subdued quality, side to Jason's skating and this itself poses a challenge in my opinion. Apart from quad and work on all other jumps, I think that this FS requires from Jason less exuberance of an artist/performer in him to rely on and more 'reflective' and slow-paced, understanding of substance approach - the energy, connection with the audience has to be more measured, smartly paced to this music (which is not the easiest to work with btw) to produce a quality, memorable performance even with technical mistakes. I think that Jason knows it and work on it step by step - this amount of change, novelty introduced to his work, his life, his natural approach towards skating can be quite overwhelming I imagine and try to understand, go with Jason on the same methodical pace, not jumping too far ahead, especially with season-defining conclusions.
I think that it is important to give skaters and yourself a time to reflect on the change they chose to make and how it affects them from many angles - as a person who is very afraid, insecure about any changes, bigger or smaller in my life, I command Jason for making step forward, successful or not. I command his bravery to make a change and push himself, his work into another level, not really knowing in full if it will work out well and give him success; I do believe however that he's enjoying this challenge as he still has very high level of performance ability showing through even with mistakes. We can pick up skaters' choices regarding coaching changes and psych ourselves about it, not really paying attention to the actual work and development made (counting only obvious things as new, more difficult jumps or massively improved scores) like with Jason, but also e.g. with Madison/Evan going to Montreal or Evgenia also coming to Brian; it is very important to not focus on things like 5 minute interaction in KnC, one facial expression or gesture - it does not define the relationship nor skating ability, yes - it is hard being emotionally invested with the skater, but it is healthier for us and for them I think.
Jason's FS is growing on me despite first reservation mainly due imperfections (I know it is super weird) - because I can see the progress and his approach towards it, how they change, evolve, how the program is sculpted to be owned more and more by Jason
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But now I 'm going to watch
