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ACI adventures, AKA in person, Yuzuru looks like a person
I went to Canada and saw Yuzuru Hanyu in person! And also Mae Berenice, and Kevin Aymoz, and Zhenya, and Rika, and the Disco Brits, and....
This week, Z and I went to not-quite-Toronto to watch the Autumn Classic in person! I noticed that it was in reasonable driving distance... and Z agreed to drive... and some of my favorites would be there... and I managed to score tickets in the one minute before they sold out. So, Canada ho. Would have been nice to have an extra day for sightseeing, but maybe in the future we'll have the time and money.
Watching skating live is so much different from seeing it on a screen. Even having seen a competition last year, it surprised me. Everyone looks so much faster! Everything is so much more 3D! I am really really happy we went. It was a great competition. And now I want to work on my edges a lot, and feel better about not being perfect! Even these people weren't perfect! One guy in practice tripped literally one second after he started the program, and sometimes the ice dancers weren't completely in sync for a moment here and there. They're still all great athletes.
Ladies SP:
Mae Berenice Meite is such a crowd-pleaser - and she has a great dress. She is really slow at some points during the program (pretty much crawling during her step sequence) but she knows how to perform. I wish she'd kept the splits from the Aurora Games - maybe that was just there for funsies or as a tribute?
Nina Povey was not the best skater there, but she had a very mature presence. I wondered if she was on the older side - she's almost exactly my age, turns out. She skates like it, in a good way. It's nice to see.
Chloe Ing was ADORABLE. She made so many hearts to the audience and seemed delighted the whole time. I read it was her birthday, too. She must have either had some family/friends in the audience or have some dedicated fans because there were people who kept shouting her name at her :)
I wish Karen Chen would hold her spirals for just a couple seconds more... because they are such gorgeous spirals. Seemed like a nice first outing considering how long she's been out of competition.
Boo to the technical issues. Poor Eunsoo having to wait for so long. Can't have been too easy for Alexia, either. (She did some very nice twizzles while waiting, though.)
I do not like Rika's SP music and I'm not a fan of the choreography, either. I really cringed at the part where she does the shoulder shimmy thing while the singer moans. Did not feel appropriate for her age. I also didn't feel like she was actually performing the program very well when she did the movements. That said, she has very beautiful spins, the 3A is of course great, and she's the fastest on the ice. Her having to pick the camera up was funny and a less obnoxious technical issue. They fixed the camera better the next day!
Zhenya - my favorite SP! I love her bodysuit. I LOVE the bodysuit. I was not expecting it, but here is another piece of the new experimental Zhenya, and I love it. I love the program, too, now, and I can't wait to see how it develops further. She felt like she was really skating to her music. The edges at the beginning are beautiful, and her I-spin looks more flexible. She's also one of the faster skaters on the ice now, whereas she was more average when I saw her at SCI last year.
Ladies FP
Boooo to more technical issues.
Mae's FS costume is also beautiful. The iridescent colors and the starburst pattern were stunning. She skated right next to the boards near us at a few points and I just couldn't keep my eyes off of her. She's so pretty. Another nice program for her - I see Adam Rippon choreographed it!
Chloe Ing was very enjoyable to watch again. Sad to see that Karen had a rougher skate, though :( Hopefully it's just one step on a comeback for her. Her layback spin is so beautiful.
Rika's FS - I like it more than the short. The music cuts are still a bit much, but either I have been mere exposured into accepting them after watching the show version a couple of times, or they got smoothed out. The idea of it is very cool, but there still seems like a lot of work to do to me. The first part is really empty, which I think will be more acceptable when she has her full planned layout in place, and the prayer hands and walk like an Egyptian arms are not exactly deep choreo. (I read that some people are pretty upset by that, too, since apparently some of the chanting is actual prayers. Which combined with the hands is. Uh.) I think it could be a nice program when there is more there, though. Again, nice work on the 3As, even if one wasn't quite rotated. A sign of more consistency with them? Didn't really feel much performance, but it is early. Hope she gets well enough to try that 4S in her next competition.
(Opinions I would not write on FS twitter: I think both Rika and Zhenya were overscored, but that the PCS gap between them was essentially correct.)
Zhenya's FS was my favorite again! She had a little more trouble here, but again - early. Please ditch the second 3Lz for a bit, Zhenya. Wondering if she's going to try and replace the +2T+2T combo at some point, too, but maybe she doesn't have time, or it's not a priority for her team. The details on the costume are nice, but I wish it looked more like a kimono. However, it is common to see those exact same 'inspired' elements in the collar and obi on 'kimono' costumes for Japanese skaters, and Satomi Ito clearly put a lot of thought into it. And the crossing + dip of the collar are correct. This program also needs a bit more work, but she clearly loves it, and I love the return of her skid I-spiral - I think I was the only one clapping for it, but last year she only brought it out at SCI and it was very short then. I hope her using it here and in the shows over summer is a sign of healing for her back.
(FWIW, I still very much wish she'd chosen another music source. However. I haven't been able to find any negative comments about Zhenya's FS in Japanese - maybe I just can't find the right terms to find her haters lol - but plenty of positive ones, Japanese fans were among those giving her a standing ovation, plenty of Japanese skaters have skated to it including Satoko at the Olympics where she would want to represent her country well, and her costume designer is fucking Japanese. And I think the people saying that Satomi Ito can't voluntarily share her culture with a young woman who loves it because some foreigners think it's bad need to take a long look at what they are actually writing.
Man, I wonder if any of these people have found the Japanese TV fluff piece happily showing Zhenya doing a maiko henshin. You know, the thing where people, including foreigners, can pay to dress up as a geisha. Which the geisha world by-and-large approves of, from what I have read.)
Ahem.
(R was watching a Russian stream where they started rehashing Sochi scoring wank halfway through the event. I told him that maybe it would distract them from wanking over Zhenya. Apparently the commentators would not shut up, which has been my experience with pretty much every Russian stream I have tried to watch.)
Men's SP
The volume for the men's event was VERY HIGH. Ear plugs were necessary for the second and third day, and I should have had them for the women on day 1.
It was very nice to see Keegan skating to something more lyrical after the programs he had last year. I liked it better than those - not that they were bad programs, but I wanted him to do so something other than a character program because he can do beautifully without that crutch, and here he did a lovely one.
R follows Camden, so he asked me for my opinion. I do like him more than Nathan or Vincent; he doesn't have the speed or flow of the top SS skaters, but who does in the US who isn't Jason? Thought this was one of the better performances in the SP. Looked like was a little unsure of the landing in one or two of the jumps from where we were sitting, but he landed them!
I was going to write something about Jun-hwan's program, but then I realized I couldn't remember a thing about it. So I probably didn't think much of it. I'll try to pay more attention next time.
The header says 'in person, Yuzuru looks like a person', and while that probably sounds stupid, it's something I thought while watching him practice. I don't know, somehow on video streams, even when he messes up or gets angry, it doesn't come through quite as clearly as when you watch him skate from the third or fourth row. (No, we did not get there that early. We took the hockey box seats with less good views. Worth it! Though I was pretty annoyed by all the people ignoring the multilingual 'you can't reserve seats' signs and leaving banners on their seats, then not even coming for the ice dance.)
Also, man, do his fans scream. For everything. Including him skating by them in the warm-up. It was a little embarrassing, though also nice to see people so enthusiastic about something.
Anyway, Yuzuru was a little messy - as everyone should have expected - and these aren't my favorites of his programs, but they are still good and I like the new costume more than the old one. The step sequence was stunning - he went clear from one side of the rink to the other. Lots of flow in his skating.
Kevin is so great and I am so happy he is finally getting the PCS he deserves AND is making progress on his jumps. All of his programs are so creative, and it's nice to see him trying different jump entrances and using signature moves but not repeating them in every program. He is an amazing performer. (Also, not to be one of Those Fans, but with his new haircut, he looks very much like a real-life Chris, to the point that it was distracting to me a couple of times.)
Z liked Yuzuru and Kevin best because, quote, "They actually danced to the music instead of skating around while music played." Z has good taste.
Men's FS
I am officially #teamphilipines, along with Z (we took his big Philippines flag down from the wall to add to the flag bag - a woman asked at one point if we had flags for all the countries and I said no, only five of them). We particularly enjoyed Christopher Caluza's FS. 2A3Lo surprised me in a good way!
The Joker program was a choice. A very memorable choice, one that was approached and performed with dedication. Okay. As long as he enjoys it! 2A+2A seems like an odd choice, but it did look cool.
I liked Jun-hwan's FS better. Still has jump issues, unfortunately - did he ever find a pair of boots that work for him? But the program itself was graceful and I liked his costume. Could use some more interpretation/projection, but it's a great start.
I enjoyed Kevin's FS even more than his SP! Didn't realize his costume had writing on it until just now. Feel like it could use more gradient/color. His arm movements to the music are perfect. The illusion spin needs work, but I think it's better than last year. I can't wait to see this when he's in peak form - his interpretation is already beautiful; imagine it with the jumps less messy! He got very slightly higher PCS than Yuzuru!! I like Yuzuru, but Kevin deserves those PCS.
Yuzuru was also messy blah blah saw a complaint about his speed that looked fine to me whatever this was magical to watch live. Maybe in part because we were surrounded by screaming fans, but I think most of it was Yuzuru being magical. I barely even registered the messiness in the jumps. It was that amazing. I'm not sure how to describe adequately how I felt watching him.
Ice Dance
I was excited to see Koleto/Komatsubara, and then they withdrew because of her concussions :( I hope she gets better soon!
Z also likes ice dance because they actually dance to the music. I am going to tell my coach that when I see him.
I think I am not a huge fan of the RD theme this year, but I do appreciate Fear/Gibson's matching suits (only wish: more matchy, maybe boot covers for her) and we both liked Soucisse/Firus's dance because it was very cute.
Friend/Badaoui's FD set to Game of Thrones But Then Techno was... interesting? I think I liked it? Z enjoyed the ending. The upside-down lift was nice, too, even if they need to work on smoothing out that landing.
Smart/Diaz's FD is a No from me. What even is the theme of this program? Gender-stereotyped marionettes with a long 'happiness is like rain!' interlude, then ten more seconds of marionettes? Did not like it.
Fear/Gibon's FD, however, was a big YES. They were such great performers and they have so much energy, and great twizzles. This is another one I can't wait to watch throughout the season. I was smiling through the entire program. Bonus points for being one of the teams that stopped to pose/smile for those of us on the opposite side from the judges :) Piper and Paul started imitating it during the victory ceremony, haha.
I asked my coach for advice on appreciating ice dance, and so I spent a lot of time staring at the feet. It will be some time yet before I am anywhere near an expert ice dance watcher, but I am trying to learn.
This week, Z and I went to not-quite-Toronto to watch the Autumn Classic in person! I noticed that it was in reasonable driving distance... and Z agreed to drive... and some of my favorites would be there... and I managed to score tickets in the one minute before they sold out. So, Canada ho. Would have been nice to have an extra day for sightseeing, but maybe in the future we'll have the time and money.
Watching skating live is so much different from seeing it on a screen. Even having seen a competition last year, it surprised me. Everyone looks so much faster! Everything is so much more 3D! I am really really happy we went. It was a great competition. And now I want to work on my edges a lot, and feel better about not being perfect! Even these people weren't perfect! One guy in practice tripped literally one second after he started the program, and sometimes the ice dancers weren't completely in sync for a moment here and there. They're still all great athletes.
Ladies SP:
Mae Berenice Meite is such a crowd-pleaser - and she has a great dress. She is really slow at some points during the program (pretty much crawling during her step sequence) but she knows how to perform. I wish she'd kept the splits from the Aurora Games - maybe that was just there for funsies or as a tribute?
Nina Povey was not the best skater there, but she had a very mature presence. I wondered if she was on the older side - she's almost exactly my age, turns out. She skates like it, in a good way. It's nice to see.
Chloe Ing was ADORABLE. She made so many hearts to the audience and seemed delighted the whole time. I read it was her birthday, too. She must have either had some family/friends in the audience or have some dedicated fans because there were people who kept shouting her name at her :)
I wish Karen Chen would hold her spirals for just a couple seconds more... because they are such gorgeous spirals. Seemed like a nice first outing considering how long she's been out of competition.
Boo to the technical issues. Poor Eunsoo having to wait for so long. Can't have been too easy for Alexia, either. (She did some very nice twizzles while waiting, though.)
I do not like Rika's SP music and I'm not a fan of the choreography, either. I really cringed at the part where she does the shoulder shimmy thing while the singer moans. Did not feel appropriate for her age. I also didn't feel like she was actually performing the program very well when she did the movements. That said, she has very beautiful spins, the 3A is of course great, and she's the fastest on the ice. Her having to pick the camera up was funny and a less obnoxious technical issue. They fixed the camera better the next day!
Zhenya - my favorite SP! I love her bodysuit. I LOVE the bodysuit. I was not expecting it, but here is another piece of the new experimental Zhenya, and I love it. I love the program, too, now, and I can't wait to see how it develops further. She felt like she was really skating to her music. The edges at the beginning are beautiful, and her I-spin looks more flexible. She's also one of the faster skaters on the ice now, whereas she was more average when I saw her at SCI last year.
Ladies FP
Boooo to more technical issues.
Mae's FS costume is also beautiful. The iridescent colors and the starburst pattern were stunning. She skated right next to the boards near us at a few points and I just couldn't keep my eyes off of her. She's so pretty. Another nice program for her - I see Adam Rippon choreographed it!
Chloe Ing was very enjoyable to watch again. Sad to see that Karen had a rougher skate, though :( Hopefully it's just one step on a comeback for her. Her layback spin is so beautiful.
Rika's FS - I like it more than the short. The music cuts are still a bit much, but either I have been mere exposured into accepting them after watching the show version a couple of times, or they got smoothed out. The idea of it is very cool, but there still seems like a lot of work to do to me. The first part is really empty, which I think will be more acceptable when she has her full planned layout in place, and the prayer hands and walk like an Egyptian arms are not exactly deep choreo. (I read that some people are pretty upset by that, too, since apparently some of the chanting is actual prayers. Which combined with the hands is. Uh.) I think it could be a nice program when there is more there, though. Again, nice work on the 3As, even if one wasn't quite rotated. A sign of more consistency with them? Didn't really feel much performance, but it is early. Hope she gets well enough to try that 4S in her next competition.
(Opinions I would not write on FS twitter: I think both Rika and Zhenya were overscored, but that the PCS gap between them was essentially correct.)
Zhenya's FS was my favorite again! She had a little more trouble here, but again - early. Please ditch the second 3Lz for a bit, Zhenya. Wondering if she's going to try and replace the +2T+2T combo at some point, too, but maybe she doesn't have time, or it's not a priority for her team. The details on the costume are nice, but I wish it looked more like a kimono. However, it is common to see those exact same 'inspired' elements in the collar and obi on 'kimono' costumes for Japanese skaters, and Satomi Ito clearly put a lot of thought into it. And the crossing + dip of the collar are correct. This program also needs a bit more work, but she clearly loves it, and I love the return of her skid I-spiral - I think I was the only one clapping for it, but last year she only brought it out at SCI and it was very short then. I hope her using it here and in the shows over summer is a sign of healing for her back.
(FWIW, I still very much wish she'd chosen another music source. However. I haven't been able to find any negative comments about Zhenya's FS in Japanese - maybe I just can't find the right terms to find her haters lol - but plenty of positive ones, Japanese fans were among those giving her a standing ovation, plenty of Japanese skaters have skated to it including Satoko at the Olympics where she would want to represent her country well, and her costume designer is fucking Japanese. And I think the people saying that Satomi Ito can't voluntarily share her culture with a young woman who loves it because some foreigners think it's bad need to take a long look at what they are actually writing.
Man, I wonder if any of these people have found the Japanese TV fluff piece happily showing Zhenya doing a maiko henshin. You know, the thing where people, including foreigners, can pay to dress up as a geisha. Which the geisha world by-and-large approves of, from what I have read.)
Ahem.
(R was watching a Russian stream where they started rehashing Sochi scoring wank halfway through the event. I told him that maybe it would distract them from wanking over Zhenya. Apparently the commentators would not shut up, which has been my experience with pretty much every Russian stream I have tried to watch.)
Men's SP
The volume for the men's event was VERY HIGH. Ear plugs were necessary for the second and third day, and I should have had them for the women on day 1.
It was very nice to see Keegan skating to something more lyrical after the programs he had last year. I liked it better than those - not that they were bad programs, but I wanted him to do so something other than a character program because he can do beautifully without that crutch, and here he did a lovely one.
R follows Camden, so he asked me for my opinion. I do like him more than Nathan or Vincent; he doesn't have the speed or flow of the top SS skaters, but who does in the US who isn't Jason? Thought this was one of the better performances in the SP. Looked like was a little unsure of the landing in one or two of the jumps from where we were sitting, but he landed them!
I was going to write something about Jun-hwan's program, but then I realized I couldn't remember a thing about it. So I probably didn't think much of it. I'll try to pay more attention next time.
The header says 'in person, Yuzuru looks like a person', and while that probably sounds stupid, it's something I thought while watching him practice. I don't know, somehow on video streams, even when he messes up or gets angry, it doesn't come through quite as clearly as when you watch him skate from the third or fourth row. (No, we did not get there that early. We took the hockey box seats with less good views. Worth it! Though I was pretty annoyed by all the people ignoring the multilingual 'you can't reserve seats' signs and leaving banners on their seats, then not even coming for the ice dance.)
Also, man, do his fans scream. For everything. Including him skating by them in the warm-up. It was a little embarrassing, though also nice to see people so enthusiastic about something.
Anyway, Yuzuru was a little messy - as everyone should have expected - and these aren't my favorites of his programs, but they are still good and I like the new costume more than the old one. The step sequence was stunning - he went clear from one side of the rink to the other. Lots of flow in his skating.
Kevin is so great and I am so happy he is finally getting the PCS he deserves AND is making progress on his jumps. All of his programs are so creative, and it's nice to see him trying different jump entrances and using signature moves but not repeating them in every program. He is an amazing performer. (Also, not to be one of Those Fans, but with his new haircut, he looks very much like a real-life Chris, to the point that it was distracting to me a couple of times.)
Z liked Yuzuru and Kevin best because, quote, "They actually danced to the music instead of skating around while music played." Z has good taste.
Men's FS
I am officially #teamphilipines, along with Z (we took his big Philippines flag down from the wall to add to the flag bag - a woman asked at one point if we had flags for all the countries and I said no, only five of them). We particularly enjoyed Christopher Caluza's FS. 2A3Lo surprised me in a good way!
The Joker program was a choice. A very memorable choice, one that was approached and performed with dedication. Okay. As long as he enjoys it! 2A+2A seems like an odd choice, but it did look cool.
I liked Jun-hwan's FS better. Still has jump issues, unfortunately - did he ever find a pair of boots that work for him? But the program itself was graceful and I liked his costume. Could use some more interpretation/projection, but it's a great start.
I enjoyed Kevin's FS even more than his SP! Didn't realize his costume had writing on it until just now. Feel like it could use more gradient/color. His arm movements to the music are perfect. The illusion spin needs work, but I think it's better than last year. I can't wait to see this when he's in peak form - his interpretation is already beautiful; imagine it with the jumps less messy! He got very slightly higher PCS than Yuzuru!! I like Yuzuru, but Kevin deserves those PCS.
Yuzuru was also messy blah blah saw a complaint about his speed that looked fine to me whatever this was magical to watch live. Maybe in part because we were surrounded by screaming fans, but I think most of it was Yuzuru being magical. I barely even registered the messiness in the jumps. It was that amazing. I'm not sure how to describe adequately how I felt watching him.
Ice Dance
I was excited to see Koleto/Komatsubara, and then they withdrew because of her concussions :( I hope she gets better soon!
Z also likes ice dance because they actually dance to the music. I am going to tell my coach that when I see him.
I think I am not a huge fan of the RD theme this year, but I do appreciate Fear/Gibson's matching suits (only wish: more matchy, maybe boot covers for her) and we both liked Soucisse/Firus's dance because it was very cute.
Friend/Badaoui's FD set to Game of Thrones But Then Techno was... interesting? I think I liked it? Z enjoyed the ending. The upside-down lift was nice, too, even if they need to work on smoothing out that landing.
Smart/Diaz's FD is a No from me. What even is the theme of this program? Gender-stereotyped marionettes with a long 'happiness is like rain!' interlude, then ten more seconds of marionettes? Did not like it.
Fear/Gibon's FD, however, was a big YES. They were such great performers and they have so much energy, and great twizzles. This is another one I can't wait to watch throughout the season. I was smiling through the entire program. Bonus points for being one of the teams that stopped to pose/smile for those of us on the opposite side from the judges :) Piper and Paul started imitating it during the victory ceremony, haha.
I asked my coach for advice on appreciating ice dance, and so I spent a lot of time staring at the feet. It will be some time yet before I am anywhere near an expert ice dance watcher, but I am trying to learn.
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