The need to keep upping the technical anty is obvious: Liu as a main competitor and that Tenell won bronze this year, behind Bell. Rather than take a chance on slipping behind others, she is pushing herself to keep up. I think she's come a long way in the artistic side but Tom Z's skaters programs didn't have artistic appeal to me. Think Nagasu - she continued to work on the technical side with Tom Z although the artistic expression in her programs didn't ring my bells. But my bells don't have to be rung for a skater to stay on the podium.
Sasha's mother was a ballet dancer so she had that model from birth. I don't agree that a person is necessarily born with the ability to be flexible or not. Start early, as Sasha likely did, and keep doing the work to stay flexible.
True, it was when she was Carroll that she began to develop the 'poker face' while skating, I think this was in part due to the fact that she was a bit all over the place emotionally in programs before, IIRC her Nats. 2009 LP was an example of this.
My bigger concern with PCS is that the ladies will move to where the men are: you need good TES and PCS to win. Where she was she was training a 3A and got a 3Lz-3Lo (although called UR). I think she could've gone to a coach where she'd get to work on both, rather than a coach who focuses a lot on jumps and spins.
Do people tell you this?
How long until Tom starts posting videos of Bradie doing cheated quads in a harness as proof of... something.
I'll never forget that exasperated "No!" Farris said to Tom when Tom asked him if he was glad he skated while injured at 2011 Nationals. Tom was like "It builds character!"
Yup!
It also made her inconsistent with jumps. That kind of flexibility can also be a problem if you are a runner. So it's a double-edged sword.
And, don’t forget that Rachael Flatt also had back problems...
Correct. not a doctor here and have not read up at all on the subject since my niece was born with a more extreme case of the defect. So my mom was born extremely flexible and any type of gymnastic move or position she could just look at and do (contortionist wise)& we always had gymnastic time in the living room. I of course skipped those genes and I am the one who did gymnastics and ballet so felt deprived. I could do the splits as I worked my butt off everyday.My little sister - 8 yrs younger born totally flexible. A great jock in many sports I am a carrier as my daughter had the same flexibility and could slip into any position naturally.Now for the bad news. My daughters arms were what they called hyperextended -sometimes when she moved a certain way they looked inside out. Doctor said if it was any worse she would not be able to do gymnastics (weakens the arms so not as strong and easy to injure). My mother developed rheumatoid arthiritus in her late thirties- the crippling king and my sister gave birth to a daughter (that's when we found out the medical aspects of these wonderful flexible genes) which kind of gives you(in layman terms) lazy muscles and bearing in mind your brain and lungs are kinda muscles so if you are an extreme case it is quite a detriment..my niece was slow to lift her head and crawl and walk and when tested she has a certain amount of mental retardation,with ADHD thrown in there. She is a fabulous kid and my sister and brother-in-law are great parents insuring she did everything it was possible for her to do. She was part of special olympics for many yrs and also is very good with computers. My daughter developed Fibro so she has her challenges but her scores were always above average so everything else was normal. So basically a gift is not always such a gift.
