Hello!
I've been lurking for some time now, though I'm a relatively new FS fan (not counting seeing some FS on TV and even live once as a little kid). But I've been falling more and more in love with Shoma's skating — truthfully, I loved both his programs this season on first sight (though I did see them already quite developed), but both of them, and Shoma's skating and the growth and development has been so wonderful to watch, and I'm so so so happy I got to see him live at Worlds! ;;;
I have some photos from SP practice
here and just a little bit from the SP itself
https://www.flickr.com/photos/asveri/albums/72157680389423831. Most of the good ones are from the practice, like
a laughing Shoma before the practice,
the program runthrough *__*,
some close-ups,
more smiling and also
Shoma + Dai in one shot just because I could
I have some more from the FS (as there wasn't any public FS practice), though they aren't as nice as I was sitting quite high up, and some cute ones from the medal ceremony, I think. I'll share them once I edit them!
I also wanted to just share my feelings, I think — I still don't feel like I've seen enough, I want to see more and more (I really hope I'll get to see him live during a GP event!!), — but, I guess, I just wanted to say how much his SP of the season has grown on me. I've liked it from the first go, but I kinda was always more into Loco out of the two of them
, probably because it's more... obviously expressive, and rhythmic, and intense (and because I think I have a weakness for good tango programs, and it just seems so good and fitting for Shoma). It has such a blatant and really good build-up in the music that Shoma expresses wonderfully, I think. But ever since the Worlds and rewatching SP again and again (Tarasova really says it like it is, she's
super gushing about Shoma there, and rightfully so...) I've fallen more and more in love with it specifically, and then I rewatched the CDP version and it's like the dam broke.
I love the very first movements with his hands; first a gentle motion forward and a sweeping — backward. A little jump to turn — and then a slow slide forward, that’s just mesmerizing to me. The arms opening up as the music grows. His gaze, looking up. Turning right on the music cues. His arms — the absolute extension of his body, the hands, the fingers, all following the movement and the music. Sometimes it feels as if he’s holding something, gently, in his hands, tugging or caressing. Beautiful rolling threes, both jumps so gentle and right on the music’s beat (at least, in the CDP version), the open hands on his spins, his whole body so…. gentle and sweeping, just beautiful. And then the way he compresses it all and just stops, with the music — and then unfolds once again, moving his hands as if painting a beautiful picture, again with a little jump and then a slide forward (he does that so beautifully ;;; ), reaching forward-forward-forward with the music, then that
wondrous 3A, and the whole step sequence — so expressive, the way he moves, so finely attuned to the strings.
And I think it absolutely needed to be done
perfectly clean, because it’s like a stream, a torrent, headlong and rapid, and the way he moves is so so so expressive of that, — and that’s probably why this program, at least to me, really started to shine in the second half of the season (thankfully), because it needed to reach that level and be clean and just so, so wonderful.
Aghh, I hope you don't mind such a long post, but I guess this should be the right place to gush about Shoma
DD
After his FS in GPF (I think) there was an exchange, smth like:
Too funny! So glad you said this. I had my tickets and waited for this for 8 months and got so nervous when he skated that it was as if I had amnesia. Besides not even breathing, I couldn't speak afterwards and could barely remember his skate. I was in the 15th row so had a pretty decent view. Too bad I could barely remember anything! I got so caught up in the emotion of the moment.
