I think Hanyu is a 'skater' but focused on the athletic side. He wants to up both sides of his skating but his TES always comes first. If he stopped to up his technnical to a level that wears him off completely in order to focus even more on the artistic side and the integrity of the performance he could be a 'bigger skater' per se and be more appreciated but this is not the path that he has choosen for his career. His big TES disminish his quality at the LP but he can live with that and I think that's something that a more athlete skater would be more willing to cope with. However, I think he has an innate musicality and emotional side that is both his strenght because it makes him compelling to some but that at the same time puts him out of control.
An ideal 'skater' supposedly should be someone that is both athletic and artistic in equal amounts (I know it's impossible but still, it's the goal).
Within this, for me 'artistic' can be split in two meanings :
1. The spontaneous expression of feelings. Basically you do the choreography, you move, because you feel the music and feel compelled by it. It's the urge to perform, it doesn't matter how you do it, it just needs to be truthful. It's the start point, the core of everything.
2. The impeccable positions of a classical dancer. Basically you move aesthetically "right", polished, your back straight. This is your ideal tool, your means.
So by naturally having (1) and using the (2), the final result would be: You use classical positions to express something therefore creating an artistic performance, right?
Hanyu surely checks the first box, he has this one down pat, but never the second.
If you just can't embrace the two at the same time and for you the second must be present to make a skater artistic, it doesn't matter if he has the first, then Hanyu will never be artistic for you; therefore for you Hanyu is only an athlete because he isn't artistic enough to be a full skater.
On the opposite side, If you consider the first a must, then Hanyu is incredibly artistic and is the "skater" while Chan will never be artistic, *shock* he actually is the athlete.
Conclusion: "Artistic" is a mess of a word because people just throw around and start endless arguments about it, while all of them have different definitions of it and none of them is right, it's just entirely subjective.
hwell:
[cr. and da_sani for id-ing him]
