Thanks for your insightful observations and fair perspective regarding Alexei's challenges
@RoseRed.
... Camden ... had problems this year doing a free program... I think Camden is going to be in their #TTW for a bit
...I don't know what to say about Camden. I hope he can learn to fight for those jumps. Popping is too costly.
Camden cannot stay with Tom Z and Tammy. That partnership or whatever they're doing is not working...
But Camden was first in the sp at Junior Worlds
@s_parks, and he skated flawlessly with great confidence.
IMO, the problem for Camden this season is his choice of free program. (And it's obviously true that Camden will need to master some quads to be more competitive going forward). I never liked Camden's fp this season. When I first saw it at one of the early comps, he skated somewhat okay, but I just thought even then that
West Side Story was an unusual choice for Camden. I understand about trying something different and stretching one's range, but to me Camden has never seemed comfortable or confident with this program. The results alone should have spelled that out for his coaching team.
In fact, I thought after Camden placed first in the sp at JGPF and then fell all the way to last place (6th) in the fp and 5th overall, that he and his coaches would make changes. But no, they came back with the same program for U.S. Nationals. Camden had a couple of minor problems at the beginning of his sp at Nationals (probably due to nerves), but he was otherwise okay in the sp. And he could have likely held his position (which I think was around 8th) had he skated decently in the fp. But once again he faltered majorly in the fp and fell to 12th place. Again, no change was made with the fp ahead of Junior Worlds. I know it's not easy to make changes at such a late point in the season. But earlier on, and especially right after JGPF, they could have made different decisions. Why not return to the Chopin fp from the previous season that Camden was clearly very confident and aggressive in skating to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifmPKYpwf-Q
Maybe they were trying to do something different since Camden has skated to a lot of classical selections. For some reason, he never seemed comfortable with either the theme, the moves or something about
West Side Story. I know the music is by Leonard Bernstein, but it's more contemporary Broadway style rather than strictly classical. It actually seems as if Camden was not comfortable with the pacing of the Bernstein composition, nor did he ever really get into the thematics or character of the storyline. Camden is definitely a musical skater, but again, he was off quite a bit with the pacing of
West Side Story (or perhaps it was the program layout). If they preferred to stick with WSS, then I wish they would have sought Edward Villella's assistance in working with Camden on the thematics, dramatics, pacing and aesthetic potential of that program. Perhaps Villella could have helped rework the layout since he knows a lot about skating and about dance & movement qualities. Villella was in the original cast of Jerome Robbins'
West Side Story Suite for New York City Ballet:
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/20/arts/dance-review-extremes-of-jerome-robbins.html
Here's an informative MK Blades interview with Camden:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAHaHU97wt4
I think Camden's responses about Twitter, Instagram and social media are interesting. Plus, his replies are thoughtful to queries about his coaching team. And I was fascinated to hear Camden discuss working with Stephane Lambiel on choreo for his
Oblivion sp. I think the interview dragged on a bit too long toward the end, with trivial questions that could have been edited out. I wish the interviewer had asked Camden about the impetus for the
West Side Story program, choreographed by Tom Dickson. Another good question that could have been asked is the differences between Dickson's and Lambiel's approaches to choreography. Instead we got bland questions about whether Camden preferred playing computer games vs going to movies with his friends.
