Mao News - The 2012-2013 Season!

polosatik wrote:

You know to me the main problem is consistency,just imagine is Mao was more consistent , if she had less falls less pops, even her jumps would get less UR,trust me. It's impression on the judges, to me Yulia jumps are usually Ur, but she is very confident and judges are sure she will land her jumps, with Mao they're not sure if she fall or not. So with more stable performances number of UR will go down, I know this may sound funny, but I notice this a while ago.

Same here. Starting Vancouver Olympic Season Mao's jumps really started be so inconsistent that even if she was able to deliver as the Olympics went near there were doubts in her jumps which affected her GOEs and in a way her PCS. Carry that over to the next two seasons and it'll be hard to sway judges' marks on the technical side because they seem to automatically think of URs. Last season would've been a great one to show consistency although it got affected with what Mao dealt with in her personal life. Just comparing that LP practice clip at Worlds and the actual one made me very sad. If she didn't practice too hard on the 3A and delivered something like the one in practice she'd placed higher than what she got (maybe get on the podium). That would have been good for her rep.

Well, she did pretty well at JO even though she got lots of URs (mostly in the 2nd half) so I hope she can build on that and continue to improve. I hope she's able to stabilize her speed, too. Makes me wanna go to China, see those programs with my own eyes and cheer for her.

I agree: what Mao needs is consistency and clean programs, the "Kostner" system: clean programs, high GOEs, high PCS, elegance, grace, being a woman on the ice. She will win everything! Lipnitskaya is the only one in this GP that can challenge our girl, I think: her programs are really impressive, technically, and the judges usually like her programs... If Mao makes even a small mistake, Julia could take the lead... But I'm not worried, Mao's PCS should be enough to overcome her!

I think Sato is very aware of this and will probably crack very hard on Mao about speed and i think the jumps will also be trained over and over again, but don't forget there are a lot of places in the choreography where Mao is suppost to skate slow, due to the transitions and choreography. but I agree when going into the jumps adding speed could give Mao a nice flow in and out of the program, and thereby make sure they are fully rotated, this will also help alot if she plans on including a 3-3 later on.

polosatik wrote:

Have you seen Yulia jumps? I still find it fantastic how she land them,they are super tiny and the height is about 0. So I won't worry about Mao that much in case of jump height, she jumps high enough to rotate the full triple-triple.

THIS. Not to mention how she lands her jumps. I'd give minus GOE just for those insanely ugly landings.

polosatik wrote:

You know to me the main problem is consistency,just imagine is Mao was more consistent , if she had less falls less pops, even her jumps would get less UR,trust me. It's impression on the judges, to me Yulia jumps are usually Ur, but she is very confident and judges are sure she will land her jumps, with Mao they're not sure if she fall or not. So with more stable performances number of UR will go down, I know this may sound funny, but I notice this a while ago.

Again I agree, however, it's easy to be confident when you know you'll be getting away with UR's or at least be given benefit of a doubt. Mao has always been judged more harshly than the rest of the skaters. She always had to do everything almost perfect to get the points some other big names were getting for almost mediocre performances. This is what makes me so angry. You have an insanely talented girl, she pushes the boundries, is making the sport exciting and the judges (ISU) rewards her, by lowballing her on every chance they get. Remember the 08 worlds, not to mention the 2010 worlds. Ridiculous. I'm surprised mao hasn't given up yet. I truly admire her for this.

Mao2012 wrote:

Lipnitskaya is the only one in this GP that can challenge our girl, I think: her programs are really impressive, technically, and the judges usually like her programs... If Mao makes even a small mistake, Julia could take the lead... But I'm not worried, Mao's PCS should be enough to overcome her!

I know this might sound harsh, considering Yulia is only 14, but I don't get the love affair judges have with her. She has tiny jumps, the landings are ugly and sometimes questionable, extreme flexibility, but that's it. she skates like there's no music in the background, all she does is throwing her legs sky high at every chance she gets, without bothering to hold the positions, her Ina Bauers are weird (or maybe they're supposed to be this way ) and there's no emotion. to get 59 points in PCS for this?! i mean compare her to Liza's performances last year, she was light years better than Yulia and never got those marks in PCS.
Mao should destroy Yulia in PCS on any given day.

zarinaballerina wrote:

I know this might sound harsh, considering Yulia is only 14, but I don't get the love affair judges have with her. She has tiny jumps, the landings are ugly and sometimes questionable, extreme flexibility, but that's it. she skates like there's no music in the background, all she does is throwing her legs sky high at every chance she gets, without bothering to hold the positions, her Ina Bauers are weird (or maybe they're supposed to be this way ) and there's no emotion. to get 59 points in PCS for this?! i mean compare her to Liza's performances last year, she was light years better than Yulia and never got those marks in PCS.
Mao should destroy Yulia in PCS on any given day.

Absolutely agree, this is still surprise me, what judges see in her. I mean, at first I thought maybe she is so great in live and I just couldn't see that in TV. But no, her jumps are not jumps , I barely see rotations, she has no distance at them , no height. To me her jumps are like Caroline Zhang's, without mule kick, and seeing her jumps became worse then last season I doubt she will survive next season. But for me her jumps are not even the main thing, her musicality is zero, you can put different pieces of music but her skating will be the same. Some people like to call her "terminator" for her looks and confidence ,also some fans love to say that "is she late to the flight or something?". Every move is in a hurry, the only great thing in her for me is her spins and flexibility, though sometimes even her flexibility looks scary. It's like a circus.

polosatik wrote:

zarinaballerina wrote:

I know this might sound harsh, considering Yulia is only 14, but I don't get the love affair judges have with her. She has tiny jumps, the landings are ugly and sometimes questionable, extreme flexibility, but that's it. she skates like there's no music in the background, all she does is throwing her legs sky high at every chance she gets, without bothering to hold the positions, her Ina Bauers are weird (or maybe they're supposed to be this way ) and there's no emotion. to get 59 points in PCS for this?! i mean compare her to Liza's performances last year, she was light years better than Yulia and never got those marks in PCS.
Mao should destroy Yulia in PCS on any given day.

Absolutely agree, this is still surprise me, what judges see in her. I mean, at first I thought maybe she is so great in live and I just couldn't see that in TV. But no, her jumps are not jumps , I barely see rotations, she has no distance at them , no height. To me her jumps are like Caroline Zhang's, without mule kick, and seeing her jumps became worse then last season I doubt she will survive next season. But for me her jumps are not even the main thing, her musicality is zero, you can put different pieces of music but her skating will be the same. Some people like to call her "terminator" for her looks and confidence ,also some fans love to say that "is she late to the flight or something?". Every move is in a hurry, the only great thing in her for me is her spins and flexibility, though sometimes even her flexibility looks scary. It's like a circus.

Sorry, I've never seen Yulia perfom yet but you guys are sure making me curious about her (in a strange way...).
Does anyone know any links to her performance vids?

PochinkoPotanko wrote:

Sorry, I've never seen Yulia perfom yet but you guys are sure making me curious about her (in a strange way...).
Does anyone know any links to her performance vids?

Here's her Finlandia SP and FS, Kayo:

SP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfvkoRWUj_Y
FS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyLQEtsZM7U

Watching these, I agree her jumps are small. And I also agree Liza and Adelina are better. Yulia's skating is so like she's always in a hurry but she's more flexible, though. Presentation-wise I'd still go for Liza and Adelina.

How come her PCS starts so high? What do the judges see that we don't? Or could it be the judges are so amazed by her flexibility that it clouds their judgment?

I hope Mao really does well at CoC coz I'm pretty sure a lot (esp those very critical of Mao)will be looking at how she'll score against Yulia.

roma wrote:

PochinkoPotanko wrote:

Sorry, I've never seen Yulia perfom yet but you guys are sure making me curious about her (in a strange way...).
Does anyone know any links to her performance vids?

Here's her Finlandia SP and FS, Kayo:

SP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfvkoRWUj_Y
FS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyLQEtsZM7U

Watching these, I agree her jumps are small. And I also agree Liza and Adelina are better. Yulia's skating is so like she's always in a hurry but she's more flexible, though. Presentation-wise I'd still go for Liza and Adelina.

How come her PCS starts so high? What do the judges see that we don't? Or could it be the judges are so amazed by her flexibility that it clouds their judgment?

I hope Mao really does well at CoC coz I'm pretty sure a lot (esp those very critical of Mao)will be looking at how she'll score against Yulia.

Thank you roma for the links!

Hmmmm....Yulia is obviously very flexible, and her spin positions where quite good for her age. But as you all say, ITA that her jumps are small...and low. I think she's skating very neatly and maybe cautiously, but because of that I can't feel much energy in her performances, which seems rather odd to me since I feel lots of young skaters have energy to say the least, if not stable techs and artistry. But oh well...you never get to know what a skater is truely capable of unless you see them live I suppose. And sometimes young medicore skaters grow up to become monstorous seniors, so you never know!

http://www.isuresults.com/bios/isufs00006588.htm update for her bio in ISU

I agree with you abut Julia: she simply doesn't feel the music, she just focuses on the jumps and skates around throwing up her legs whenever she can... But the judges like her, they gave her the best PCS last year at Junior Worlds, higher than Adelina and Gold! And those 28 and 59 in Finlandia are just ridiculous, I think they appreciate the cleanness of her programs... Everyone will be looking at her in China, I really hope she's going to feel a bit of pressure (at least, Mao wouldn't be the only one! )
And, I read in her BIO that her sp will be "I got rythm variations"... What will it be like??

Hmm... I saw Yulia live last year and I thought she was ok. But the rest of the field kinda fell apart, so of course, we went crazy over her clean performance.

But I really see the jumps now and that technique is going to bite her in the butt quite soon... She has no flow on any of her landings, and barely goes up on her 2A. Her upper body appears to have caught up with her legs a little in terms of growth and with that technique, I really don't know if she can survive in seniors past this season, unless she does a major overhaul (which will take years) or suddenly becomes A LOT stronger. If she does survive, goes to Sochi and places well, than all the more power to her, but I don't really think she can win against the likes of Mao, Yu-Na, Carolina, Akiko et al. (assuming they go somewhat clean) at this point... she's too slow. Caroline Zhang was slow, tiny and had tiny jumps, but at least, she had beautiful presentation.

Even if the judges like her in a junior field or in a weaker field like Finlandia, 'cause let's face it, Kiira is a gorgeous SP skater and a gorgeous skater overall, but she just doesn't have the tech content for the LP and she usually pops jumps left and right, I'm not sure how she will hold up PCS wise against the big girls. The judges WILL be reviewing those iffy landings.

I do hope Mao has a good showing at CoC. A visibly clean skate, even with some deductions here and there, should place her miles ahead of Yulia or anyone else in the field, since pretty much all of those who pulled out of the GP were assigned there. I feel Yulia might benefit from the lack of bigger guns and her PCS might be higher to please the crowd if she is clean, but if Mao doesn't pop or fall, she should have this one in the bag.

roma wrote:

Here's her Finlandia SP and FS, Kayo:

SP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfvkoRWUj_Y
FS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyLQEtsZM7U

Watching these, I agree her jumps are small. And I also agree Liza and Adelina are better. Yulia's skating is so like she's always in a hurry but she's more flexible, though. Presentation-wise I'd still go for Liza and Adelina.

How come her PCS starts so high? What do the judges see that we don't? Or could it be the judges are so amazed by her flexibility that it clouds their judgment?

I hope Mao really does well at CoC coz I'm pretty sure a lot (esp those very critical of Mao)will be looking at how she'll score against Yulia.

It will be interesting to see how she's going to get scored against the seniors, not to mention Liza (they meet at TEB) who already has a rep with the judges and amazing connection to music.
I hope so much Mao is going to kick butt at CoC and put those critics to rest.

chiyori wrote:

Even if the judges like her in a junior field or in a weaker field like Finlandia, 'cause let's face it, Kiira is a gorgeous SP skater and a gorgeous skater overall, but she just doesn't have the tech content for the LP and she usually pops jumps left and right, I'm not sure how she will hold up PCS wise against the big girls. The judges WILL be reviewing those iffy landings.

I do hope Mao has a good showing at CoC. A visibly clean skate, even with some deductions here and there, should place her miles ahead of Yulia or anyone else in the field, since pretty much all of those who pulled out of the GP were assigned there. I feel Yulia might benefit from the lack of bigger guns and her PCS might be higher to please the crowd if she is clean, but if Mao doesn't pop or fall, she should have this one in the bag.

chiyori, i'm hoping that these big scores, for both Kiira and Yulia were just part of the "cheesfest" overscoring, the B internationals are known to be. I mean Kiira got level 4 step seq in BOTH of her programs not to mention very high score for Yulia as well. I think and hope that the scores Yulia will receive at GP will reflect the reality more.

IMO, even with a pop or a fall, Mao should be head and shoulders above clean Yulia, especially since of last season much more emphasis is put on PCS. Her LP this year is stunning, she connects to music beautifuly, not to mention her overall technick (steps, skating skills...) are better than Yulia's. The only area Yulia is above everyone else is spins.

i actually think that yulia's presentation is quite beautiful. i like her overall carriage on the ice. she doesn't show much emotion and she may not be the most connected skater to music but her choreography to me is quite lovely and her movements are graceful (needs a lot of work and thought but still lovely choreography to me). i find her grace the quality that separates her from adelina and liza. i don't find adelina and liza that graceful in their movement. sure, they emote more in their programs. but to me they're definitely not that graceful and their choreography to me isn't really impressive. i find nothing well thought out choreography-wise in neither adelina's nor liza's skating. to me, grace is an incredibly hard quality to teach. yulia can learn, with the right training, how to be more emotional with her expressions in her programs. take mao, for example. her emotional expressions have improved so much since first started as a senior! on the other hand, graceful movements on the ice can't really be taught, even if the choreography itself is beautiful. take kanako for example. she has such beautiful and expressive emotions and the choreography is beautiful as well. however, i don't find her movements very graceful, even though the choreography itself is beautiful.

lastly, i may be the only one who thinks this, but i think that very emotional and expressive faces on ice are quite overrated. sometimes it can come off as fake or too actressy for my standards. take alena's pirates of the carribean program for example. yeah, sure, she was emotional and expressive. but wow, that was the cheesiest program i've ever seen in my life and i could've done without all the strange faces she put on. alena shouldn't get all those marks for interpretation if the expressions were overdone and look ridiculous.

Swan , by feeling the music we didn't mean emotions on her face. I personally mean that she didn't hear the music, all her moves are disconnected with the music she skates to. She makes graceful positions but not to the music.

polosatik wrote:

Swan , by feeling the music we didn't mean emotions on her face. I personally mean that she didn't hear the music, all her moves are disconnected with the music she skates to. She makes graceful positions but not to the music.

i find the opposite. for example, i find her movements to her sp this year connected with the music and they match well. the music is frantic and busy and her choreography is frantic and busy (in a good way without sacrificing lovely carriage across the ice). i find the choreography to her lp leaving much to be desired, but i don't consider the choreography of her lp inappropriate to the point that it doesn't match the music. in fact, i find her leg lifts in sync with the music. again, the choreography to the lp just leaves much to be desired because the music is such a great piece and she could've done so much more. but this is just my opinion. please don't hate me.

polosatik wrote:

Swan , by feeling the music we didn't mean emotions on her face. I personally mean that she didn't hear the music, all her moves are disconnected with the music she skates to. She makes graceful positions but not to the music.

THIS.

swan wrote:

i find the opposite. for example, i find her movements to her sp this year connected with the music and they match well. the music is frantic and busy and her choreography is frantic and busy (in a good way without sacrificing lovely carriage across the ice). i find the choreography to her lp leaving much to be desired, but i don't consider the choreography of her lp inappropriate to the point that it doesn't match the music. in fact, i find her leg lifts in sync with the music. again, the choreography to the lp just leaves much to be desired because the music is such a great piece and she could've done so much more. but this is just my opinion. please don't hate me.

Everyone has a different taste, and that's good, otherwise it would get boring very fast. You like Yulia, to you she interprets her programs well, to me it looks like gymnastics on ice without any connection to music. As a former ballet student, I honestly cringe when I watch her skate through a gorgeous Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker pas de deux without any connection to it and I don't mean her facial expression. When I watch her, it seems to me like I'm looking at a beautiful girl in a pretty costume going for one element after the next and it wouldn't matter wether it's Lady Gaga in the background or Mozart, or whoever. even with what little she's got (choreography wise) she could've done much much better, imo.
I do agree with you on one point. She has a nice carriage.

swan wrote:

lastly, i may be the only one who thinks this, but i think that very emotional and expressive faces on ice are quite overrated. sometimes it can come off as fake or too actressy for my standards. take alena's pirates of the carribean program for example. yeah, sure, she was emotional and expressive. but wow, that was the cheesiest program i've ever seen in my life and i could've done without all the strange faces she put on. alena shouldn't get all those marks for interpretation if the expressions were overdone and look ridiculous.

I couldn't agree more. For me even what Yuna puts on the ice looks a bit fake to be honest, don't even get me started on Alena. Hopefully she put the Pirates facial expression phase behind her, and will look normal this season.
This is what I've always loved about Mao, she didn't show much on her face, but she felt and expressed music through her whole body. Though she does look great when she expresses it on her face as well.

zarinaballerina wrote:

polosatik wrote:

Swan , by feeling the music we didn't mean emotions on her face. I personally mean that she didn't hear the music, all her moves are disconnected with the music she skates to. She makes graceful positions but not to the music.

THIS.

swan wrote:

i find the opposite. for example, i find her movements to her sp this year connected with the music and they match well. the music is frantic and busy and her choreography is frantic and busy (in a good way without sacrificing lovely carriage across the ice). i find the choreography to her lp leaving much to be desired, but i don't consider the choreography of her lp inappropriate to the point that it doesn't match the music. in fact, i find her leg lifts in sync with the music. again, the choreography to the lp just leaves much to be desired because the music is such a great piece and she could've done so much more. but this is just my opinion. please don't hate me.

Everyone has a different taste, and that's good, otherwise it would get boring very fast. You like Yulia, to you she interprets her programs well, to me it looks like gymnastics on ice without any connection to music. As a former ballet student, I honestly cringe when I watch her skate through a gorgeous Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker pas de deux without any connection to it and I don't mean her facial expression. When I watch her, it seems to me like I'm looking at a beautiful girl in a pretty costume going for one element after the next and it wouldn't matter wether it's Lady Gaga in the background or Mozart, or whoever. even with what little she's got (choreography wise) she could've done much much better, imo.
I do agree with you on one point. She has a nice carriage.

swan wrote:

lastly, i may be the only one who thinks this, but i think that very emotional and expressive faces on ice are quite overrated. sometimes it can come off as fake or too actressy for my standards. take alena's pirates of the carribean program for example. yeah, sure, she was emotional and expressive. but wow, that was the cheesiest program i've ever seen in my life and i could've done without all the strange faces she put on. alena shouldn't get all those marks for interpretation if the expressions were overdone and look ridiculous.

I couldn't agree more. For me even what Yuna puts on the ice looks a bit fake to be honest, don't even get me started on Alena. Hopefully she put the Pirates facial expression phase behind her, and will look normal this season.
This is what I've always loved about Mao, she didn't show much on her face, but she felt and expressed music through her whole body. Though she does look great when she expresses it on her face as well.

well, to be precise, we agreed on two points about yulia. she's got wonderful carriage and she could've done much more with her choreography.

i just don't understand how people praise gracie, liza, and adelina for their skating but put down yulia for her skating as if they're sooooo far ahead of yulia. for me, i find gracie's skating forgettable (she barely has choreography or should i say "choreography"). i don't find adelina's skating to be connected to the music and her choreography is way more out of place and anti-climactic than yulia's. and, well... i think liza's jumps are just great and wonderful but i find nothing captivating about her choreography or even her choice of music. i'll take yulia's consistency over liza's and/or adelina's skating, but that's just me. as for rodionova, i can't comment on her since to be honest, i haven't seen any of her programs, yet.

i'm no hater of gracie, adelina, and liza. i'm very fond of adelina and liza for whatever reasons (though i admit that i haven't even been close to warming up to gracie) and they're great in their own rights. but i think that like yulia, they have a long way to go. i feel like yulia is a step or two ahead of them, at least in the finesse department.

as for yu-na's expressions, i do find them a bit plastic. they're fierce, lovely, captivating, appropriate, etc. but i find them a bit fake and sometimes overdone. her giselle program is an example of this. i feel like she relied too much on facial expressions and not enough on ballet choreography. if anything, she had fake ballet choreography. in my opinion, that was her worst program ever.

i thought that yu-na's expressions were more toned down and seemed somewhat natural in her die fledermaus program... up until i saw the pout after the end of this performance. which proved to me that her expressions are pretty much fake. the pout is very cute, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFz-s7B3mqY&feature=related

actressy and overdone looking faces are great for entertainment. however, when it comes to true artistry, these actressy and overdone looking faces don't work. entertainment and artistry are two different things. i just prefer natural expressions of joy and serenity over any actressy looking faces. there's nothing wrong with liking entertainment over artistry, i suppose. it's all a matter of taste. of course the amount of people who enjoy keeping up with what's going on in hollywood and celebrities is much more than the amount of people who tune into a classical music radio station. i'm not saying that it's impossible to be both entertaining and artistic, though.

and before anyone flames me and this thread becomes wild for whatever reasons, let me make it clear that i'm no yu-na hater. i actually adore yu-na and i love her skating. there are few skaters with finesse who i actually find worthwhile to watch and she's one of them. she's great and i love most of her programs. she's my number two after mao. i'm also not saying yu-na never looks natural in her expressions, either. i'm just not afraid of pointing out her flaws are in my eyes.

on a side note, as a major artistic gymnastics fan, i must say that the very subdued faces of the gymnasts is due to the fact that the gymnastics code doesn't award any points for interpretation (or even artistry for the matter). therefore, even the (very very few) truely artistric gymnasts don't care to show personality in their routines. subdued faces don't prevent me from enjoying the sport, though. mustafina, komova, pavlova, afanasyeva, grishina (ok the ENTIRE russian and soviet teams since the beginning of gymnastics) and a few other gems are wonderful to watch. and they're not all as expressionless as people think (jiang yuyuan is such a beauty). but this is besides the point.

sorry if my post didn't flow well together and was too much of a rant.

swan wrote:

i find the opposite. for example, i find her movements to her sp this year connected with the music and they match well. the music is frantic and busy and her choreography is frantic and busy (in a good way without sacrificing lovely carriage across the ice). i find the choreography to her lp leaving much to be desired, but i don't consider the choreography of her lp inappropriate to the point that it doesn't match the music. in fact, i find her leg lifts in sync with the music. again, the choreography to the lp just leaves much to be desired because the music is such a great piece and she could've done so much more. but this is just my opinion. please don't hate me.

After watching the videos again, her SP is better than her LP choreo-wise. Maybe because I saw her LP more than I watched her SP that I feel something is lacking and looks like she just goes from element to element. Wish they'd have given her a better choreo for that. Lovely carriage, though.

---

Facial expressions -- Showing some is great but overdoing it isn't. I guess most, if not all, of us here agree on this.

Whoever her competitors will be, I'm just glad Mao's season has started really well with that JO performance and I hope it will only get better from there. Putting on some weight (or muscle) seemed to really good on her even my mom has commented on it. I don't ever wanna see her as thin as the past seasons again. Hoping to see more happy Mao smiles this season.

roma wrote:

Facial expressions -- Showing some is great but overdoing it isn't. I guess most, if not all, of us here agree on this.

Agree, however I'm affraid that judges see it a bit differently, especially when you look at Alena's sp (Pirates) score. If I were a judge I'd give a higher PCS to those skaters who portray their emotions through their whole body instead of just putting on grimaces.

swan wrote:

i just don't understand how people praise gracie, liza, and adelina for their skating but put down yulia for her skating as if they're sooooo far ahead of yulia. for me, i find gracie's skating forgettable (she barely has choreography or should i say "choreography"). i don't find adelina's skating to be connected to the music and her choreography is way more out of place and anti-climactic than yulia's. and, well... i think liza's jumps are just great and wonderful but i find nothing captivating about her choreography or even her choice of music. i'll take yulia's consistency over liza's and/or adelina's skating, but that's just me. as for rodionova, i can't comment on her since to be honest, i haven't seen any of her programs, yet.

i'm no hater of gracie, adelina, and liza. i'm very fond of adelina and liza for whatever reasons (though i admit that i haven't even been close to warming up to gracie) and they're great in their own rights. but i think that like yulia, they have a long way to go. i feel like yulia is a step or two ahead of them, at least in the finesse department.

To be honest, I don't get the hype for Gracie either. She has big jumps and that's it. I hate Adelina's LP for this season, of what i've seen so far she's really disconnected to music, IMO, she deserves better.
Liza has nice jumps and great connection to music. Yes her choreo could've been better, though I really like her Love story sp for this season and I think her choreography improved this season, her lines are nowhere near Yulia's, but boy can she perform. I adore her.
Yulia looks like a tiny ballerina on ice, I agree on this, but to me (and this is my opinion) she looks like a robot going through her program. I'm not blaming her for this, but her team could've helped her on this.

roma wrote:

Whoever her competitors will be, I'm just glad Mao's season has started really well with that JO performance and I hope it will only get better from there. Putting on some weight (or muscle) seemed to really good on her even my mom has commented on it. I don't ever wanna see her as thin as the past seasons again. Hoping to see more happy Mao smiles this season.

THIS! I hope as well, she'll keep her weight and have an amazing season! I can't wait until CoC.

I have heard a strange rumour, it's about MAo having first resumed her training in august, cause she was so tired after WC in nice, and therefor took a two month break which is quite unusuel. can anyone confirm if it's true?

by the way here is mao's poppin program from carnival on ice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azceecIiHQY&feature=related

she looks really she was having sooo much fun skating to this program.

This is the first I hear about this. Though with everything that happened last season, I understand why she took a break (if this is true).

ballerinamao wrote:

I have heard a strange rumour, it's about MAo having first resumed her training in august, cause she was so tired after WC in nice, and therefor took a two month break which is quite unusuel. can anyone confirm if it's true?

by the way here is mao's poppin program from carnival on ice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azceecIiHQY&feature=related

she looks really she was having sooo much fun skating to this program.

sorry i am busy and can't find the source but I remember is two weeks...Coach Sato recommended her to take break and did something different then they decided to go to hungry for the ballet training.

If Mao really did that then I guess it's ok. Let her take a break whether its two weeks or two months. After all she went through last year (and the years before) she deserves it. At least she hopefully felt renewed after that. If the two weeks is for the ballet training in Hungary then it's really good. Just look at the improvements in Mao's Swan Lake. Hopefully this season we'll see an ever improving Mao on the ice.
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The lack of training news is killing me, though. I wanna see more of Mao. CoC is still such a long wait.

ballerinamao wrote:

I have heard a strange rumour, it's about MAo having first resumed her training in august, cause she was so tired after WC in nice, and therefor took a two month break which is quite unusuel. can anyone confirm if it's true?

by the way here is mao's poppin program from carnival on ice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azceecIiHQY&feature=related

she looks really she was having sooo much fun skating to this program.

I think I heard one of the commentators saying that in the broadcasting of JO...but Jpn commentators and announcers sometimes give false info on tv; when Plush was skating at JO, the TV Tokyo announcer said it wide outloud that his program was choreoed by Kenji Miyamoto, which was totally wrong! You really can't trust media info thesedays as much as you can't trust fan twitters.

But like shikure wrote, if Mao did take a break from training in the rinks, I think she was working on other stuff like ballet off the ice.

ballerinamao wrote:

I have heard a strange rumour, it's about Mao having first resumed her training in august, cause she was so tired after WC in nice, and therefore took a two month break which is quite unusual. can anyone confirm if it's true?

I don't think it's true. If she took 2 months directly after Worlds, that would mean she was off the ice in April and May, and she had the 1st version of Swan Lake choreographed by May, so obviously she spent some time practising in Russia. Then she went to Canada (to have her SP and EX choreographed) and to Hungary to work with Zoltan Nagy (originally she was planning to spent 2 weeks there, but because the things were working very well she decided to stay for another week). Mao worked with Zoltan both off- and on the ice; he's actually known for his work with ice dancers Ragoczy & Sallay and Torvill & Dean (2-time Olympic Champions).
Then there were the summer shows, then the training camp with Meryl & Charlie, then Mao went back to Russia to have her LP changed to fit the new rules... Not much time for a complete "rest".

I think whoever reported this news either meant that Mao only started training at 100% in August (but still worked out, practised her skating skills and worked on jumps, just not at her 100% - which is normal for skaters in the off-season), or mistaken Mao's trips to Russia, Hungary and Canada for actual vacations.