Mao news - as we head into the 2009-10 season

murasaki wrote:

Mao continues two 3axels nonetheless
http://www.nikkansports.com/sports/news/p-sp-tp0-20091005-551817.html

The idea is Mao's own will. TAT considered lowering the technical difficulty but Mao didn't agree.

There's no mention on the lutz.

I must say very disappointing.

Well, I think maybe we should stop blaming TAT for some of the decisions being made here. I know, I've done that in the past too, but from what I recall, Mao chose the music for her LP, and now it's obvious Mao is chosing the jump layout. TAT seems to just be supporting Mao, no matter what, as she goes for her dreams and what she wants.

Maybe it's less important to Mao to win this year, than to attain her own personal goals? Or perhaps she refuses to win through compromise and lowering her difficulty?

I greatly admire her guts and determination with this, and I truly hope it will work out for her in the end, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't concerned.

Liffey wrote:

Maybe it's less important to Mao to win this year, than to attain her own personal goals? Or perhaps she refuses to win through compromise and lowering her difficulty?

Well, I guess we can be pretty sure that winning the Olympics is the cornerstone of whatever personal goals Mao does have right now.

Liffey wrote:

Maybe it's less important to Mao to win this year, than to attain her own personal goals? Or perhaps she refuses to win through compromise and lowering her difficulty?

I greatly admire her guts and determination with this, and I truly hope it will work out for her in the end, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't concerned.

I think out of any year so far, it's more important than ever to Mao to win, with it being Olympic season. I also don't think that anything she is doing is too difficult for her. She's pushing herself to do more difficult things, but if it was something too risky, she wouldn't be doing it. Otherwise we would probably be seeing her attempting the quad this year.

The two triple axels are her only advantage over yuna--> don't forget that! she has to do it! in fact, if you think about the past years, she has already lowered her difficulty... in 2006, she performed her 3A at the beginning and had no 3-3 in the program... but: she did all 3 combos in the second half of the program... and difficult ones.. not 2a-2t... in 2007 she performed the 3A, 2a-3t, 3f-3l and a triple lutz combo at the very end... the last two years you should still remember so i won't write it down...

i don't understand why they invite the media before the season starts and she is doing all those new combos in a decent way but never tries them ?!?! they keep talking about 3a-3t and all that but she has problems to land a 3f-2l in the second half of her recent program ( flip ur and no speed and attack)...

ok, this was only the start.. but where can they upgrade her program or change jumps?? this program is a lot more difficult in terms of steps leading into the jumps.. i watched it over and over again and i don't know what they can change?? if she wants to try a 3f-3l in the second half she has to leave out the spiral she does right before... if they want to exchange the 3t by 3lutz, how is it going?? the have to change everything because the toeloop comes out of nowhere and a lutz requires much more preparation... why is she doing a 2a at the end and not a loop??

and her new flip makes me scared... it was one of her best jumps and now she has problems to complete the rotation and barely has speed coming out of it ...

besides all that, artistically this is the best program.. lots of details in the choreography.. but i still hate the music... to my mind, she was better with aratunian and lori nichol...

I still remember that when mao was still with Rafael, there were great criticism toward him. So, it is a little bit funny to see that now people miss Rafael.
Well, what I can say is that no one but time could tell us what the result would be. So, I will just wait and see.
During 07-08 season, mao also messed up her first competition, but she finally won her title that season. So, who knows what will happen in the future.

tianrushui wrote:

I still remember that when mao was still with Rafael, there were great criticism toward him. So, it is a little bit funny to see that now people miss Rafael.

Agreed. I remember the slew of complaints given to Mao's Czardas - especially the music and the brackets-3A - for who knows how long (or when Rafael didn't agree with the implementation of edge calls). Tat is similarly put in the same situation, about her style not suiting Mao and Mao no longer looking happy. Meh. It's always convenient to go back to the past and make remarks on how things were better before (otherwise known as rosy retrospection in psychology). Clair de Lune wasn't necessarily met with positive reviews when it debuted, and I read multiple comments on "Masquerade is better than Bells." I somehow doubt such things would have been said if Bells was skated cleanly last Saturday.

itcaip - make no mistake, a single 3A IS more difficult than any 3-3, so I am hesitant to call a 3Ax2 program like last season to be of "lowered difficulty." I do agree the jump layout does not make the most out of CoP, but again, this is Mao's first time debuting the program. We never know with Mao - she had (and tried) three different jump layouts for Masquerade alone. Choreography is always open to changes, like with Czardas or Fantasie Impromptu so that can always be tweaked for combinations and/or altering jumping passes. Relax - it took two GP events and finishing last in the SP (GPF 07) for Mao to perform her first brilliant program in the 07-08 season. I'll start worrying if Mao's condition isn't up to par by Nats, but certainly not now.

I remember TAT wanting to change the jump layout (at least the order of the jumps, if not the jumps themselves- don't remember exactly) of her Fantasia program, but Mao was the one who wanted to keep it the way it was. It ended up not working for the GP events (especially GPF), but was great at Worlds, so I'm going to trust Mao on this one. I think she at the very least wants to try it out on a "real" competition. But if it doesn't work, I doubt she's going to hold off on changing anything, because this is the season that winning means the most, as people above have said. She's going to change things around if they don't work, instead of going into the Olympics with the same thing that hasn't been working and just hoping things fall into place. I feel like it's going to be a balance between going all out and making sure that she has the best chance possible. So yeah, I'm not really worried at this point. The only thing I'm worried about right now is her mental state. Hope she just shakes off the nerves and pressure at TEB and goes for it.

bellarina wrote:

I remember TAT wanting to change the jump layout (at least the order of the jumps, if not the jumps themselves- don't remember exactly) of her Fantasia program, but Mao was the one who wanted to keep it the way it was. It ended up not working for the GP events (especially GPF), but was great at Worlds, so I'm going to trust Mao on this one. I think she at the very least wants to try it out on a "real" competition. But if it doesn't work, I doubt she's going to hold off on changing anything, because this is the season that winning means the most, as people above have said. She's going to change things around if they don't work, instead of going into the Olympics with the same thing that hasn't been working and just hoping things fall into place. I feel like it's going to be a balance between going all out and making sure that she has the best chance possible. So yeah, I'm not really worried at this point. The only thing I'm worried about right now is her mental state. Hope she just shakes off the nerves and pressure at TEB and goes for it.

The more I read all of your comments, the more I agree with you. I do think Mao wants to keep trying this layout is because the JO didn't really matter and she could have had an off day (many of us commented that she looked a little tired or something). I'm sure she wants to try this at TEB and RC, especially because they're back to back. If that doesn't work out, she'll probably change it before Japanese Nationals.

The one thing I would like is for Mao to have some pratice completing the same jump layout in competition more than once. For instance, I'm fine with her waiting until after RC to change her layout (only if she needs to), but she should pick one layout and stick with that through Nationals, the GPF, and the Olympics. This way she'll get two chances to compete with that layout before Vancouver, and have a chance to be comfortable with it.

But like I said before, TEB could prove that Mao was right and this layout works for her. It's actually kind of funny... I thought Mao wouldn't be such a mystery going into TEB since she debuted her LP program at JO, but I sort of feel like I don't know what to expect from her. We still haven't seen her short program, and I'm on pins and needles, hoping for a clean (or basically clean) LP from Mao. No matter what, I'll be cheering her on, as always.