Skate America 2012!

pcs-wise, daisuke is still king! it's hard for me to believe anyone can really outdo daisuke in terms of choreography and interpretation. yuzuru still has a lot more growing to do in the pcs department. but he's so amazing to watch and very unique. maybe the best jump technique in the world right now?

jeffrey buttle did a good job at choreographing yuzuru's program! maybe mao should consider jeffrey as a choreographer for future programs.

looks like ISU may find their new favorite or we can expect that P-chan will get 100 in SP?

We all expect yuzuru will lead if he skates clean but it's higher than expectation, what we can see in CA and other competitions? one thing about yuzuru, Orser needs to correct him or he will hunch over. I remember in one interview yuzuru said he did hunch over when feeling tired.

I think Taka's program has potential since he didn't make his spins to lv4 and with lv 2 step.
I don't think there is problem in program itself since DW won't do a program with lv 2 step...he definitely missed something he should do there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGTRcp-JtVo&feature=share&list=ULJGTRcp-JtVo
I am pretty happy he got his quad in SP first time but the judge #1 gave him -3 GOE for no fall jump...I think there should be for this kind of rule (they would like to make COP complicated...let's make it more complicated LOL) ..for full rotated and no fall, no hand...there should be no -3...but with hand and fall pls give -3 (like what happened to p-chan)

Machida and Abbott were good and I like their programs. Michal ..don't know what happen to him but I think he will get better and better.

When looking at protocol, the PCS like jokes..Abbott is with better SS than Taka then Taka with better PE then Abbott...looks like judges randomly put number in the chart then wanna go home for sleeping IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1HEaBWec80&feature=plcp

i'm not sure if anybody posted this already but this is a nice clear clip on yuzuru. The same user also uploaded Taka's program

swan wrote:

brian orser is so blessed to have many skating prodigies to coach. first yu-na and now yuzuru! despite all the fuss and drama about yu-na's very public break up with brian, there's no denying that he's a good coach. i wonder if he is still public enemy #1 in south korea.

Of course he is (at least with the few petty haters in Korea). He's training a Japanese. And If Yuzuru keeps getting better and wins a lot of gold medals (esp. Olympic Gold Medal) for Orser, forget public enemy, he would be all that is evil in this world.

shar wrote:

swan wrote:

brian orser is so blessed to have many skating prodigies to coach. first yu-na and now yuzuru! despite all the fuss and drama about yu-na's very public break up with brian, there's no denying that he's a good coach. i wonder if he is still public enemy #1 in south korea.

Of course he is (at least with the few petty haters in Korea). He's training a Japanese. And If Yuzuru keeps getting better and wins a lot of gold medals (esp. Olympic Gold Medal) for Orser, forget public enemy, he would be all that is evil in this world.

poor Orser ...


I checked the protocol. http://www.isuresults.com/results/gpusa2012/gpusa2012_Men_SP_Scores.pdf
I don't get that Yuzu got 9th from some judges while Taka got 7th in PCS. I thought Taka deserves at least 8th across the board and Yuzu's 9ths are puzzling me.

If Yuzu has become an ISU's new favorite, it will contradict with their favoritism toward P-chan.
The latter is always allowed to got away with multiple falls and given a secure place on the podium because of his super-turbocharged skating. I think it will be getting more and more interesting if Yuzuru keeps nailing all those jumps and skating clean. How judges will start to treat P-chan???

linglang wrote:

shar wrote:

swan wrote:

brian orser is so blessed to have many skating prodigies to coach. first yu-na and now yuzuru! despite all the fuss and drama about yu-na's very public break up with brian, there's no denying that he's a good coach. i wonder if he is still public enemy #1 in south korea.

Of course he is (at least with the few petty haters in Korea). He's training a Japanese. And If Yuzuru keeps getting better and wins a lot of gold medals (esp. Olympic Gold Medal) for Orser, forget public enemy, he would be all that is evil in this world.

poor Orser ...


I checked the protocol. http://www.isuresults.com/results/gpusa2012/gpusa2012_Men_SP_Scores.pdf
I don't get that Yuzu got 9th from some judges while Taka got 7th in PCS. I thought Taka deserves at least 8th across the board and Yuzu's 9ths are puzzling me.

If Yuzu has become an ISU's new favorite, it will contradict with their favoritism toward P-chan.
The latter is always allowed to got away with multiple falls and given a secure place on the podium because of his super-turbocharged skating. I think it will be getting more and more interesting if Yuzuru keeps nailing all those jumps and skating clean. How judges will start to treat P-chan???

That was exactly what I was wondering linglang...now that the judges gave a record breaking score for Yuzuru; a mere 17 year old skater who had to start the season from Finlandia, if Pattie or Dai skate perfectly, is the sport going to enter an over 100 era in mens singles!?

I'm happy for Yuzuru, love his skating, his character and he was totally amazing today, but I have a feeling the judges and ISU want to hand out as many record breaking scores as they can this season and next, so to promote the sport more before Sochi. I agree with all of you who think that Dai is still the best skater at the moment. There are still many elements Yuzuru can work on and get better, which I'm sure he's aware of cause he's not only a very good skater but a very smart boy.

PS:shar, I couldn't help bursting out when I read your post! Thanks for the good laugh!

OMG Yuzuru was incredible in his SP, his jumps are amazing, obviously he has to work to in PC's and stamina... He, Plushi and Taka are my favorite male skaters, this season will be amazing

By the way, watching Yuzu's jumps I can't avoid to think why Mao doesn't go to Orser, I don't care if he was the coach of YNK, the most important is Mao's dream come reality. Maybe he can help Mao to gets back her 3A and 3-3 in a easier way, and at the same time it become easier to win in Sochi. Don't punch me guys, please, I just saying what i feel, I really want that Mao achieves her goals.

Well, Orser would have to accept Mao first.... and I thought Mao didn't like going overseas?
I think Mao is in good hands with Mr. Sato.

well, at Russian forum many people pointed that Mao should go to good technical coach, cause her jump technique is really weak(they said it about her Japan Open performance). I don't know what to think, it's too early to tell, but to be honest I'm not really fond of Mr.Sato as her coach too. But Mao is moving in the right direction for sure, I see her improvement from last season.

I agree Yuzuru was amazing. Aaahhh!!! That 3A was a huge WOW, WOW, WOW!!! With the new scoring change I guess its ok with Yuzu breaking Dai's records. What I'm not ok with is Taka getting lowballed in PCS again. The technical marks I'm ok with because Yuz delivered better quality ones but still getting those scores for things like skating skills is beyond me. He deserves more.

---

Ken Himura, I also want Mao to achieve her goals but like Genie, I think Mao is in better hands with Sato sensei. Orser is very good with handling the international media and has definitely made use of that even before. It's one aspect that the Japanese teams have not really taken advantage. But no matter what kind of hyping a coach or choreographer does if the skater can't show what the hype's about it's still gonna be useless. OTOH, I actually hoped Mao won't get two Asia assignments in the GP series this season but... alas! CoC and NHK.

Mao isn't just changing one or two techniques. She's overhauling most (if not everything). 3 years is the target. This is the third year. Granted there were some big drawbacks the past two years (Tsunami and her mother's illness and death) but I hope they can still keep on target. Here's to hoping Mao can finally show this season the improvements she's made. She already made a good start. As for technical coach, so sorry that temporary coaching agreement with Coach Nagakubo didn't continue.

---

Going back to SA, was it just me who noticed Yuzu seemed to be channeling Dai esp during the start of the program? Can't help but think what if Dai skated it instead. But at the end of his skate he sure looked so tired I can't help but worry for his free skate. With an injury and his asthma condition, I hope Orser will take that into consideration find ways to address it.

With that said, I hope team Japan will continue to do very well in the free skate. And I hope Abbott can finally land his quad and give a flawless program.

polosatik wrote:

well, at Russian forum many people pointed that Mao should go to good technical coach, cause her jump technique is really weak(they said it about her Japan Open performance). I don't know what to think, it's too early to tell, but to be honest I'm not really fond of Mr.Sato as her coach too. But Mao is moving in the right direction for sure, I see her improvement from last season.

I have the same worry.

Mao's improvements in choreography is dramatic, her jumps still look pretty much the same to my eyes, flutz, under-rotation, and unstable sal. It is quite frustrating! Her clock is ticking. Those brilliant young skaters from Russia are catching up fast, not to mention her old rival Yuna who has impeccable techniques and huge presence on ice.

well I think what Mao needs is a technical coach, who can make her potentiel realised. because we all saw Maos gourges 3As and 3-3 in practice at JO, maybe it's mentally but right now I also agree Mao should take in a technical couch, and I also think that maybe nobou isn't the right couch for her. I atleast think that depending on this season Mao should consider changing couch or take in a technical coach too.

I know that Nobou is a very respected couch and also a very good couch but sometimes some skaters don't match with some coaches. I just read what orser said about how he wanted yuzuru to attempt his quad and how he was determined to let yuzuru attempt it, and that kind of reminded me about Mao. because when Mao is determined she will do it even if everyone is against it. that doesn't mean that I want Mao to go to orser... but maybe chose a couch that may think and have the same approch as Mao. i would love to see Mao with rafael aratunien again!

From Absolute Skating's posted photo on their facebook page:



Orser x 1 and 2 x Satos.

I can't help but smile seeing Brian holding Yuzuru's infamous Pooh tissue box and reading this quote from Mrs. P @ GS when she had a conversation with Orser after:

Quote :

On a lighter note, the topic of the Pooh tissue box came up and he said, "When he was not my student I used to make fun of that. Now I have to hold it." He said this in a good natured way. We all laughed.

i wouldn't mind if mao went to orser. i'd find it pretty funny if she ever did, but i'm sure that the partnership would be good. not implying that she made an offer or he made any offer or anything like that. he may have been annoying back in the yu-na break up fiasco, but that doesn't take away him being a good coach. i'm sure he would be delighted to have mao as a student. come on, who doesn't love mao? the extremist yu-na fans would definitely say bad things, though.

mao definitely needs to figure out her jump technique. no speed, no height, no length, and no consistency. orser seems like a coach who can address such problems. polosatik, i agree with you that the partnership between mao and coach sato isn't all that magical.

i can't wait to see yuzuru's free program for skate america! he should be really pleased with his performance. i noticed his skating has become more mature, but his cute winnie the pooh smiling face is still there!

roma wrote:

From Absolute Skating's posted photo on their facebook page:



Orser x 1 and 2 x Satos.

I can't help but smile seeing Brian holding Yuzuru's infamous Pooh tissue box and reading this quote from Mrs. P @ GS when she had a conversation with Orser after:

Quote :

On a lighter note, the topic of the Pooh tissue box came up and he said, "When he was not my student I used to make fun of that. Now I have to hold it." He said this in a good natured way. We all laughed.

wow i love this picture! nice find, roma!

roma wrote:

From Absolute Skating's posted photo on their facebook page:



Orser x 1 and 2 x Satos.

I can't help but smile seeing Brian holding Yuzuru's infamous Pooh tissue box and reading this quote from Mrs. P @ GS when she had a conversation with Orser after:

Quote :

On a lighter note, the topic of the Pooh tissue box came up and he said, "When he was not my student I used to make fun of that. Now I have to hold it." He said this in a good natured way. We all laughed.

wow i love this picture! nice find, roma!

Ken Himura wrote:

By the way, watching Yuzu's jumps I can't avoid to think why Mao doesn't go to Orser

Orser seems to be great at conditioning his skaters, but all of his strong jumpers (YuNa, Yuzuru, Javier) were already consistent before they switched to him. He never managed to get YuNa's 3L or Adam's 3A consistent, not to mention his lower-level skaters. (Not to say he's an awful jump coach, but he started coaching only recently, and IMHO it takes a lot of experience to figure out how to maximize every skater's potential).

Team Sato actually did great job with Mao, IMHO. I saw some people @GS mentioning that Mao lost her jumping power after switching to Sato. IMHO those people should:

a) Check out the protocols from the Olympics. Mao was excellently conditioned then - otherwise she wouldn't be able to rotate 3As and execute the very difficult footwork. And still, she attempted no 3Lz or 3S and every single of her 3Fs - which used to be her money jump - received some negative GoEs. Mao herself said that if she kept her old jumping technique, she would eventually completely lose her jumps.

b) Remember that most of the mature skaters struggle for years to improve just one jump - I don't actually know of any elite skaters who would even attempt to temper with the skating technique on so many jumps so late in their careers.

c) Take into consideration that Mao's training schedule was upset by the earthquakes in Japan and moved Worlds, and her physical and mental well-being was affected by her mom's illnes and passing away, and Mao's own problems with losing too much weight.

[quote=polosatik]her jump technique is really weak(they said it about her Japan Open performance)[/quote]

...and another thing to consider is that Mao's jumping layout at JO was quite difficult - almost every jumping pass had difficult steps before it and had to be timed well with the music (plus, she brught back the 'Tano combo). And then there's the fact that Mao spent more time practicing her LP before it was re-choreographed - if she got confused enough to do a completely wrong spin, it's impressive she stood up on all of her jumps.
Still, according to the report, she made no mistakes in her run-through. I definitely noticed that recently Mao uses the phrase "I hope to do in competition everything just like in practice" quite often, which seems to suggest that she's pretty satisfied with how her jumps are during the training sessions.

So, all in all, I'm satisfied with Mao's progress for now. Could it be better? Who knows? Personally, I really liked coach Nagakubo's approach and I wished Mao stayed with him - but he has a lot of students already, and who knows, maybe if his attention had to be split between Mao, Akiko and the junior skaters, all of them would suffer for it. In terms of teaching the jumping technique I also like Doug Leigh, Lee Barkell and Richard Callaghan - but Mao wouldn't have chosen them back then because she wanted to stay close to her mum, and now it's way to late to make another coaching switch anyway. ...Besides, I don't even see what they could do now. It's either start everything from the scratch (unnecessary, IMHO) or just continue doing what Team Sato is doing now.

Jumping technique aside, I do hope Mao will continue to work with Zoltan Nagy.

Inskate ,I'm positive about Mao improvement my only question, if she has enough time for it. To me even flutz is not such a big problem, the biggest is UR jumps, if she will improve it then I think her confidence and reputation will go up. But the huge improvement is pretty clean skate such early in the season, which is quite unusual for Mao. My dream coach for Mao is still Rafael, but oh well ,it just didn't work out.

ballerinamao wrote:

well I think what Mao needs is a technical coach, who can make her potentiel realised. because we all saw Maos gourges 3As and 3-3 in practice at JO, maybe it's mentally but right now I also agree Mao should take in a technical couch, and I also think that maybe nobou isn't the right couch for her. I atleast think that depending on this season Mao should consider changing couch or take in a technical coach too.

I know that Nobou is a very respected couch and also a very good couch but sometimes some skaters don't match with some coaches. I just read what orser said about how he wanted yuzuru to attempt his quad and how he was determined to let yuzuru attempt it, and that kind of reminded me about Mao. because when Mao is determined she will do it even if everyone is against it. that doesn't mean that I want Mao to go to orser... but maybe chose a couch that may think and have the same approch as Mao. i would love to see Mao with rafael aratunien again!

I'm with you and most of the others on Mao's coach matter. I know she's hasn't been reforming just her jumps but has been trying to upgrade all her skating elements from basics, and she is making progress. But it's taking too much time; much more than I expected. I'm losing faith in Sato. I knew he would be the top candidate for Mao's new coach after Tat, but I wanted Mao to work with Nagakubo instead. And I'm feeling more and more sure that it would've been better for Mao to have gone to Nagakubo; he managed to make Akiko achieve a 3-3 at her age last season, which although may be unstable but indeed a big accomplishment. OTOH, Sato's skaters always seem to have a hard time achieving or stabilizing their jumps; Takahiko's 4T is still shakey, and Yukari tried to master a 3A but never actually succeeded it in competitions. Furthermore, Sato is terrible at handling the media. He's damn too honest about his skater's conditions to the press, and I remember he even said once 'Mao isn't in good condition, so please don't expect much in her next competition'. He said this to the Japanese media, and I think he said so in order not to put too much pressure on Mao, but still...words like this can spread through the net and give the judges a negative image on Mao making them biased to watch out more for her mistakes. I think Tat was doing a much better job promoting Mao to the judges through the media.

Those are some of the reasons why I've always wanted Takahiko to leave Sato and start working with a new coach. Takahiko has medalled in several international competitions already, but still his reputation abroad isn't as high as it is in Jpn. Until we saw Yuzuru in Finlandia this season, most of us in Jpn probabaly never imagined he would score higher in GPS than Takahiko. I'm sure many people knew that'll happen in North America because Orser did a good job promoting Yuzuru to the media outside Jpn. I think all Japanese coaches still don't understand that promoting their skaters is also an important tactic now in the sport. But Nagakubo did a pretty good job at it when Akiko came back to competing several seasons ago, and because of that it was easier for her to build her reputation once again quite quickly even though she missed many seasons in the past and had to start from almost zero.

Seeing Yuzuru's progress, made me think alot whether Mao made the right choice to go to Sato. Mao loosing too much weight at one point already made me start doubting Sato's abilities as her coach, and now I'm becoming more and more uncomfortable with it. Mao going to Orser will never happen IMO; if that should happens, Orser's life will be at risk from some Korean Yuna fanatic! But if Mao really wants to win in Olys, she really should find a better coach...one who does a better job in coaching jumps. Not a coach who the Japanese Fed thinks is the best just because he's in the Hall of Fame.

Hey, guys! I'm at Skate America and just attended the ice dance and ladies practice. Haruka's program is AWESOME, and I adore the dance programs!!

Kayo, but what is possibility of Mao changing coach? I think it's not gonna happen and it's the end of Mao career. To me even going back to TAT is better.

I am extremely happy that Yuzu is doing so well!
But am doubtful about those PCS - His jumps are huge - But compared to Dai, I still find less flow in his skating - It is quite rough with some awkward poses and hand movements...

I wonder why Mao decided to leave Raphael? Her jumps were actually strongest around then...
I know that Mao has been re working her jumps - But its been 3 years and I see no strong jumps - I am afraid that without a clean 3A and rotated jumps, she will have a fate similar to Yukari...

but, how much is important the coach, mainly in grown skaters?, I don´t imagine what can to know or to do different a coach to another. May be in the way to motivate, Morozov and Orser are good in that item, I think.

all the skaters are changing coaches all the time and they get different results. Sometimes get better, sometimes worse, etc.

zarinaballerina wrote:

I'm predicting an overscored Alena, unless judges finally saw reason and will give her the score she deserves, which I doubt to be honest. But luckily there's also Adelina the russian prodigy

Alena finished the short program in ninth place. ouch. I did feel bad seeing her break down in tears.

I'm late to the "party", was without internet the whole day

OMG, Yuzu! That was freaking incredible! It's insane how his skating has improved so much since worlds. I'm worried about the free program to be honest, since he looked so tired after his sp.

About Mao and her coaching situation, I'd love to see her back with Rafael. i know she doesn't like to train abroad, or at least didn't like it (we all know the reason for this now), but I think it would be great if she kept Sato-sensei, and maybe go to Rafael over the summer for jumping technik. This way, she'd still be training in Japan most of the time, and would also be working with jump specialist, but this is unlikely to happen.
I think Brian would be great coach for her, not for jumps but for overall package, not to mention he's very media savy. I think the best combo, imo, would be Frank Carrol-Rafael Aratunian. Now this two would work some magic with her.

I'm not going to give up on Sato-sensei though, and I hope their three year plan will work. Guys, remember that she was training on her own most of the time when she was "coached" with TAT. I always wondered how everything would turn out, had she been training with the full time coach...