antmanb said:
I do, sort of, but i'm still scratching my head because anyone who perceives anything has a reaction to it, does that necessairily make you connected to that person? Let me use an overly emotive example to explain why i question the "connection". Everyone reading this will have a had a reaction to/been touched by the actions of the guys responsible for the 911 attacks...do we, by virtue of having a (often extreme) reaction to that, have a connection? Is a connection, however indirect, only when you perceive something positively?
I see it like this: Just because all As are Bs doesn't mean all Bs are As. So, if you are a fan of someone, IMO it implies some sort of connection, but just because you have a connection to someone does not imply that you are a fan of that person. See what I mean?
Trying to bring this back into the skating sphere, i've been moved to tears over the years by many many skater's programs. Kwan is one, others to add to the list are Slutskaya, Lipinski, Chen, opening out the field to other disciplines, Yagudin, Urmanov, Stojko, B&S and S&P (both of their LPs at 2001 made me cry). The list is actually quite long and not always for "artistic" skates often two programs battling for gold and silver did that (Chen & Kwan in 1996 and B&S and S&P nearly every time they competed).
There are some performances that leave me with the impression of "That's very good!" Examples include Shizuka's 06 Olympic LP and 04 Worlds FS, Cohen's Olympic SP and 04 Worlds SP, and Suguri's 06 Olympic LP. (note: this is by all means not a comprehensive list.) But I'm not
moved by these performances. There's not that extra element of feeling in them, IMO. I think the closest I've come to actually "being moved" was MK's 03 nationals FS. And that's saying a lot because all her performances since then have been, IMO, very bland.
The reason i'm asking about the "connection" is - when does that stop being a connection to a particular skater? I would argue that the "connection" ,if any, is to skating. Its an objective love of the general qualities of the sport, with an overlay of the subjective things i find beautiful...just to re-iterate Stojko is in the list above, he was certainly no artist on the ice yet he still moved me to tears twice...
The fact that you were moved all the way to tears means that his performance must have TOUCHED you in some way, and you may not even know how. (That's fine, and normal.) You don't just cry for no reason- SOMETHING has to trigger that action. And that SOMETHING is that connection I've been talking about. You may not even know it's there, but it is. It HAS to be.
The connection doesn't even have to be to the skater herself. It can just be during that particular PERFORMANCE.
I hold my hands up and say i'm a huge huge huge fan of Kwan's but i'm a greater fan of skating which is why in response to your question earlier on in the thread (or maybe in another thread) i'd like to say i'm an objective Kwan fan who can hear criticisms of her skating, i know what all of those criticisms are and accept them. With regards to her skating i will happily discuss those criticisms. The ones i won't hear are the speculative ones about her (or any other skater in fact) state of mind, or strategy, how s/he's feeling about something because that is always actually the poster's perception rather than the skater's.
Well, it's basically impossible to be completely 100% objective. Just being human prevents that from happening- EVERYONE has some sort of bias. In order to be objective you'd have to report facts and ONLY facts. There will always be something that will set you off. In my case it's people who like to jump to conclusions.
If you were to be totally "objective" re Kwan (meaning can hear anything about her without "shutting down") you would be able to hear anything and not feel any real emotion about it. Still, in my case, sometimes it's hard for me to do this because of some of the people making the comments.
You may disagree, and some may say that loving a skater will always colour their perception of how that person skates. I don't think it does...but maybe i have my Kwan blinkers on!!!
If I can rip those blinkers off of you
, let me just say that I DO totally disagree with what you're saying. Once you start the process of becoming a fan of that skater, you just don't see things about her the same way. I can vouch for this (being fans of others in other sports).
I can understand your answer about being intrigued about the sport but you are not one of the "once every four years" fans - you've been around since 2002...that makes you one of the fans...and in all that time you haven't found a skater who's skating makes you a fan?
come on...four years isn't all THAT long...and I'm young, too...
I kind of AM a once-in-4-years fan in a sense: I watched in 1998, came back for 02, followed skating up to 06, watched in 06, and regardless of whether there is enough to keep me interested between now and 10, I will definitely be watching the ladies competition again in Vancouver. And again in 2014. And so on.
But there isn't one skater in particular who I'm constantly interested in. It's sort of a combination of all the skaters. Once the current crop of skaters retires, unless I warm up to the new competitors I'm finished with following skating.
Allow me to be sceptical and feel free to give me a slap (in a friendly way, as the following comment is made), but it sounds to me like you have your favourites but for the very reasons that you seem to put less weight on the opinions of those who are self declared "fans". If you say you are not a fan of a particular skater then you can be perceived to be more impartial...the only way you can achieve that is by often commenting on skaters in a negative way rather than looking to the positive?
Come on, am i at least a little bit right??
- Re. Favorites: I don't have a favorite skater- I've said time and time again. But what I DO have is a sort of, I suppose, "vested interest" that sort of drifts from skater to skater as time goes on. In the beginning I remember that skater was Sarah Hughes. I wasn't a fan of hers in the sense but I was interested enough in her to learn about her competitive history, etc. But at the same time I was still a fan of *skating*. can you understand what I mean here?
Then at one point it was Michelle Kwan. I remember I used to be a regular poster at MKF in 02 before it got crazy. In fact that was the first skating forum I registered at. I followed all news about her and learned about her and even started a picture collection, which I THINK started with pictures of her (I'm NOT sure, though- now that I think of it, it may actually have been Sarah)- now that collection has grown to more than 16,000 photos of all sorts of skaters. I also began making and collecting videos starting with 2002 Worlds. But, believe it or not, I wasn't a FAN of hers in that sense. I was interested in learning more about her but I wasn't supporting her, enjoying her skating, etc.
I remember a few posters that I chatted with here (when GS had a chat room on ezboard) suspected I was a Kwanfan because I was an active poster on MKF and nowhere else. (I think when it got crazy, and soon after I discovered GS, that's when I began to switch to hanging out here most of the time instead.)
I think during the 02-03 season it shifted to Cohen. Not surprisingly this coincided with comments that people started to make that they believed I was a Sasha fan. And I wasn't: I probably was just posting more about her because it was kind of a "vested interest". But once again, wasn't enjoying her skating or wasn't supporting her as a fan in that sense. This happened again recently, I think shortly after the Olympics. (hence the videos and photos I posted).
And most of the time I'm in true "nonfan" mode, where I'm not interested in ANY skaters individually- just want to see the performances.
I hope this explains my stance. Not an outright fan of any skaters, but occasionally might "learn more" about a skater.
Recently it was Carolina Kostner. Bet none of you guys knew that, did you?
(ETA: I noticed that this is one of my longer posts. I apologize for its length.)
