U.S. Men 2022-23 news & updates

[jlai]

I would say so. I found them to have better rhythmic knee action just as an example (like Abbott's great Lilies of the Valley step sequence), but they did attempt fewer turns in leveled step sequences simply because of requirements.

I think it's a bit unfair to say that about him, because he does do some stuff in-between all those quads. Maybe nothing leading directly into them anymore, but he used to do that too when he was less injured. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMBPul3MX2c

Shoma's problems with choreo did occur after that though. He's slowly started to recover some ability, but I doubt it'll be upto the 2017 standards, he's just too old (and again, too injured).

Without seeing them side by side I would say hard to tell. I also remember Tom Dickson commenting on Jeremy’s strength and weakness with his blades in an old Manleywoman podcast.

 

[skateboy]

Most of Shoma's program is crossovers.

Not true AT ALL.

In the SP alone, Jason has 30 seconds of crossovers. Shoma has 20 seconds.

 

[On My Own]

Yeah, I’m familiar with your “everything I think is true is hard science

Given that I have never said this, you don't seem to be "familiar" with anything about my approach. Oh well.

and everything I haven’t taken the time to learn more about is just women having emotions” approach to conversation, thanks.

Trillian. Are you so very sure that you've ever learned how to read if you believe this is ever anything close to what I've said? This is just so dumb - and emotional - I can't even take it seriously.

Thanks for proving my point in that thread, by the way. I didn't expect it, but here you are! Also didn't know only women like Jason Brown, or only women care about non jump elements - seems like one of those roundabout gotchas you're producing out of thin air against yourself to me.

I also didn't know "Trillian" had been elected the representative of all women around the world. I'll let the ones in my family know asap, but I feel like they'll register here and go at what you've written Either that, or you're making one of those "sassy" responses you believe are highly intelligent, because my posts to you, specifically, don't, in fact, mean I believe "women are emotional".

But tell me more about science, rationality, logic, and inference.

Hard pass.

Thank goodness. Can't keep spending time on this, to be fair to myself.

There are technical resources available online if you want to learn more about non-jump elements

Maybe actually use them yourselves then? Sad that you clearly haven't.

so you don’t find them so confusing in the future.

Or of course, keep telling yourself how people who disagree with you are "confused". Not that I expect you to be able to tell what things like "interpretation" are properly, seeing what you keep writing on this forum.

------------------------------------------

The reason I say things like step sequences and spins are subjective is because these things, just as an example, are much more timed with the music, and spend larger portions of the program as pure choreography.

Let's take step sequences as an example. It's not just about depth of edge, flow, glide there, but also how difficult the clusters being done are. Who is doing the most difficult clusters out there, can anyone tell me? How did you judge?

Rhythm of the music is another thing. There's no set rhythm in the music for men's short program. The step sequence will need to be choreographed to this rhythm, and be performed to this rhythm. The clusters and knee action are to be done to this music, with the rhythm in mind. Who had the "most difficult" step sequence then?

I could ask the same for spins.

This is my issue. When the judges cannot evaluate objective things like flutz properly and the opinion on this very forum is some skaters are marked confusingly on PCS - how exactly can I believe the judges judged the rest of it properly?

Now, as someone who did do some (eta: floor) dance and watches a lot of it (eta: both, when it comes to this, though more of the floor flavour), I also take issue with transitions being more difficult than things like jumps. There's no doubt in my mind a transition makes the element that comes after it more difficult, but more difficult than the element itself? Nope.

And there are a lot of things in a transition - not just "edgework"- that matter. The balance point, the phrasing, how long the transition was done for (example as an entire sequence of choreography), so on, do matter. And then there's still the matter of how high quality the element that came after it was. And which element came after it. There are six types of jumps, and multiple spin positions. A pure, high jump landed properly (and with flow) might indeed be more difficult than a jump with more transitions ahead of it.

Skating skills do also seem subjective to me, although this one is more of a theory of mine. I think judges value speed and edge control for women, whereas they value depth of edge for men.

 

[tony]

Not true AT ALL.

In the SP alone, Jason has 30 seconds of crossovers. Shoma has 20 seconds.

Ok let me fix it for you. Crossovers and three-turns. Watch the free skate and tell me otherwise. If I, as someone who never got past almost rotating 2A and didn't love working on skating skills, can do the majority of the choreography in the program, then it’s not exactly complex. Choreo sequence and step sequence aside, of course, as he's not trying to get base-level calls.

FWIW, this has been true of most of Shoma’s programs but as I mentioned in another thread on the same day, he has improved under Lambiel.

 

[BittyBug]

Not true AT ALL.

In the SP alone, Jason has 30 seconds of crossovers. Shoma has 20 seconds.

Please. I actually logged all of Shoma's steps in his SP this season, and outside of his step sequence I don't think he had more than a few - if any at all - turns other than (two footed) crossovers, mohawks and three turns. (Too lazy to look up my post on this topic, but it's somewhere here on FSU.)

I will grant you that the start of Brown's program is just setting up his two 3As, but it is otherwise packed with complexity.

 

[Sylvia]

Would someone like to start an off-season thread in the Trash Can to discuss any and all men in addition to the U.S. ones?

 

[skateboy]

Please. I actually logged all of Shoma's steps in his SP this season, and outside of his step sequence I don't think he had more than a few - if any at all - turns other than (two footed) crossovers, mohawks and three turns.

Then you need to look again. (And mohawks and three turns are not crossovers. Tony claims that Shoma's programs are mostly crossovers.)

 

[On My Own]

I also remember Tom Dickson commenting on Jeremy’s strength and weakness with his blades in an old Manleywoman podcast.

Do send it to me if you can find it?

 

[jlai]

Do send it to me if you can find it?

https://manleywoman.com/ episode 36.
When asked about Jeremy's skating, it's obvious the interviewer thought Jeremy was amazing (run of his blades), while Tom pointed out an issue (something about balancing, I forgot the exact wording). And he didn't remember his second figure 8s or something.

Therefore, unless skaters skate side by side doing similar things, I think it would be hard to say who is better. It's likely that so and so is better at one aspect of skating skills (run of the blades) while another is better at another (cover the whole ice rink).

Overall, it is safe to say Shoma has much better skills than, say, Ilia though.

 

[On My Own]

https://manleywoman.com/ episode 36.
When asked about Jeremy's skating, it's obvious the interviewer thought Jeremy was amazing (run of his blades), while Tom pointed out an issue (something about balancing, I forgot the exact wording). And he didn't remember his second figure 8s or something.

Therefore, unless skaters skate side by side doing similar things, I think it would be hard to say who is better. It's likely that so and so is better at one aspect of skating skills (run of the blades) while another is better at another (cover the whole ice rink).

Overall, it is safe to say Shoma has much better skills than, say, Ilia though.

Thank you, I'll have a look. I don't think Jason is a bad pure skater of course, lol, but I do think I found Abbott (and Lambiel) to be more rhythmic with their knees, able to do more musical step sequences (for me) as a result. But yes, we'd probably need a comparison. I don't think Abbott or Lambiel would be able to compete with Jason now, not just because of age, but also because they plain never trained themselves to do what he's doing right now.

 

[BittyBug]

Then you need to look again. (And mohawks and three turns are not crossovers. Tony claims that Shoma's programs are mostly crossovers.)

They are mostly crossovers, and no, I don't need to look again. Been there, done that.

 

[skateboy]

They are mostly crossovers, and no, I don't need to look again. Been there, done that.

No, they are NOT. I sat with a stopwatch and counted.

 

[Trillian]

I also didn't know "Trillian" had been elected the representative of all women around the world.

FFS, I hope not. The comments about women being irrational were from a PI thread and it’s my fault for bringing it over here - I’d rather just let it go.

This is my issue. When the judges cannot evaluate objective things like flutz properly and the opinion on this very forum is some skaters are marked confusingly on PCS - how exactly can I believe the judges judged the rest of it properly?

If there was a “proper” way to score a competition, the judges would always do that, and we’d have nothing to talk about here except their costumes and social media gaffes.

It’s all subjective, including the jumps. Even the quality of the takeoff edge is just one thing the judges are evaluating about a jump. Have you been around long enough to remember what it was like in the 6.0 days? All the various numbers being applied to a skating program now are just as subjective as the scores were back then. There’s no science involved in assigning point values to the elements, in determining which things matter most when assigning GOEs, in deciding which flaws are the most damning, or any of the rest of it. The scores are all made-up values that don’t serve any purpose except to rank the skaters against each other in a given competition.

And because there’s an element of subjectivity to all of it, none of us are objectively more correct than others about which skaters we personally find more impressive or enjoyable to watch. A skater’s accomplishments aren’t any less legitimate and their fans aren’t automatically less knowledgeable just because the skater doesn’t meet whatever criteria one of us has personally decided is most important.

 

[Trillian]

Anyway, which U.S. men besides Ilia and/or Jason is everyone looking forward to seeing next season?

Andrew Torgashev and Maxim Naumov feel like two sides of the same coin to me - both such well-rounded skaters who‘ve missed big chunks of time due to injuries and haven’t yet developed the consistency to really break through internationally. Next season could be a really pivotal one for both of them and I’m excited to see what they do with it.

 

[AngieNikodinovLove (ANL)]

Anyway, which U.S. men besides Ilia and/or Jason is everyone looking forward to seeing next season?

Broussard

 

[A.H.Black]

Anyway, which U.S. men besides Ilia and/or Jason is everyone looking forward to seeing next season?

Jacob Sanchez
Kirk Haugeto
Liam Kapeikis
Yaroslav Paniot

 

[skateboy]

Anyway, which U.S. men besides Ilia and/or Jason is everyone looking forward to seeing next season?

Torgashev, Naumov, Paniot, Pulkinen, Hiwatashi, Mindra.

 

[gkelly]

The reason I say things like step sequences and spins are subjective is because these things, just as an example, are much more timed with the music, and spend larger portions of the program as pure choreography.

Those aspects are judged by the judges in GOEs and also affect the program component scores.

The Judges evaluate the quality of all elements (including jumps) both technically and aesthetically.

The Scale of Values establishes the relative difficulty and associated base values of various elements. So that would be the ISU technical panel, not the individual judges, who make those decisions.

In competition, the Technical Panel determines whether a skater met the requirements for full credit for each jump or whether there a rotation call or edge call or other error that affects the definition of the element (e.g., weight on the other foot between two jumps of a combo).

The Tech Panel also determines whether or not the skater achieved the requirements for each available feature for step sequences (and also for spins and leveled pair moves). These are yes-or-no decisions. There may be some "subjectivity" in terms of how strict or lenient a given tech specialist might be with regard to gray areas. But they are not about comparing the difficulty of different skaters' elements.

When it comes to clusters, all that's needed to earn the feature is to execute 3 different difficult turns on one foot, on each foot. There's no extra credit for doing additional difficult turns while still on that foot.
Either you get credit for executing the requirements acceptably or you don't.

If you did a "more difficult" sequence of more turns on one foot but they weren't three different kinds, you would not earn a higher level than a skater who just met the requirements. You wouldn't even earn that feature at all if you didn't meet the requirements.

Now, as someone who did do some (eta: floor) dance and watches a lot of it (eta: both, when it comes to this, though more of the floor flavour), I also take issue with transitions being more difficult than things like jumps. There's no doubt in my mind a transition makes the element that comes after it more difficult, but more difficult than the element itself?

Have you ever skated? What turns and combinations of turns could you do? What jumps could you do?

It is typical for skaters to learn axels and often some double jumps before they master brackets, rockers, counters, and choctaws in isolation, let alone clusters thereof, or executing them with sufficient quality to get credit for them from the tech panels in a step sequence, or to impress judges with their execution as transitions. The technique for these turns is not trivial.

 

[Sylvia]

Torgashev, Naumov, Paniot, Pulkinen, Hiwatashi, Mindra.

I forgot to post this 2023 Nationals highlights video that was made by Samuel Mindra's team (axisoniceofficial) 2 months ago: https://www.instagram.com/p/CpMflC0gTiI/

 

[bladesofgorey]

Now, as someone who did do some (eta: floor) dance and watches a lot of it (eta: both, when it comes to this, though more of the floor flavour), I also take issue with transitions being more difficult than things like jumps. There's no doubt in my mind a transition makes the element that comes after it more difficult, but more difficult than the element itself? Nope.

......

This is so dumb it belongs in the Dunning-Kruger museum for everyone to marvel at.

Movement on the floor feels nothing like movement on the ice, which requires deep quad and hip flexor strength, balance, core strength and the exertion of constant counterforce pressures. The only thing that feels slightly similar on and off ice is jumping, specifically air position. (Take-offs feel different because of physics). I am actually stunned you typed this. Please go to the rink, slap some figure skates on, attempt some of your floor dance routines and let us know how that goes.

 

[Rukia]

Anyway, which U.S. men besides Ilia and/or Jason is everyone looking forward to seeing next season?

I've turned into a one-woman Torgashev fan club and i regret nothing

I also still love Tomoki. Jacob Sanchez is brilliant. Actually a lot of the younger guys are really exciting, and I'd love to see them get consistent and go out there and get some internationals under their belts.

 

[Vagabond]

This is so true. We never argue over technique or disagree with the judges' calls.

Daily Gratitude Journal, April 23, 2023:

Once again, I am grateful for my self-imposed rule never to eat or drink while reading posts on FSU.

 

[Allskate]

What the heck?! Some people need to have a chat with Ilia. Multiple chats. SMH.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

 

[Karen-W]

What the heck. Some people need to have a chat with Ilia:

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

This is already being discussed in the Ilia thread in the Trash Can and was already brought up in this thread yesterday.

 

[Vagabond]

This is already being discussed in the Ilia thread in the Trash Can and was already brought up in this thread yesterday.

It doesn't sound like an appropriate subject for his fan thread.

 

[AngieNikodinovLove (ANL)]

What the heck?! Some people need to have a chat with Ilia. Multiple chats. SMH.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

www.youtube.com

wow, I had not heard about this yet myself. That’s kind of unbelievable… He’s old enough to know way much better in my opinion.

 

[Wyliefan]

It doesn't sound like an appropriate subject for his fan thread.

Maybe not, but that's where the discussion ended up anyway.

 

[AngieNikodinovLove (ANL)]

Some people need to have a chat with Ilia. Multiple chats.

and if not Tatiana and his father, then the USFSA. For sure.

 

[Karen-W]

This whole discussion about whether quads are more difficult than transitional steps and clusters has me thinking, which is probably not a good thing, since I'm about to say something that is certain to offend some of the more vocal posters who've been participating in this discussion.

Maybe the fact that you could land a double-whatever but struggled with choctaws, mohawks, rockers, brackets and what-not isn't indicative of anything but your own, innate degree of talent/aptitude for the sport. I'd posit the theory that, actually, the quads ARE inherently more difficult than the transitions and step clusters by pointing out that there is an ENTIRE discipline dedicated to footwork, edges, blade control, and musicality and that this discipline had nearly as many entries in it at Worlds this year as the Men and Women.

Additionally, the skater who is your current punching bag got a L4 on both the SP and FS step sequences, so he's clearly capable of doing all those super-hard steps and clusters that you consider to be oh-so-important. In addition to the quads he's attempting.

 

[On My Own]

This whole discussion about whether quads are more difficult than transitional steps and clusters has me thinking, which is probably not a good thing, since I'm about to say something that is certain to offend some of the more vocal posters who've been participating in this discussion.

Maybe the fact that you could land a double-whatever but struggled with choctaws, mohawks, rockers, brackets and what-not isn't indicative of anything but your own, innate degree of talent/aptitude for the sport. I'd posit the theory that, actually, the quads ARE inherently more difficult than the transitions and step clusters by pointing out that there is an ENTIRE discipline dedicated to footwork, edges, blade control, and musicality and that this discipline had nearly as many entries in it at Worlds this year as the Men and Women.

Additionally, the skater who is your current punching bag got a L4 on both the SP and FS step sequences, so he's clearly capable of doing all those super-hard steps and clusters that you consider to be oh-so-important. In addition to the quads he's attempting.

Please take 5 minutes to educate yourself on steps and spins and come to the conclusion that Jason Brown is God's gift to Earth lest you stop being a woman.

By the way, I didn't bother reading after that. But I would find it funny if people were claiming that something that takes so much more choreography and is used much more in terms of artistic interpretation won't have inherent subjectivity, when it's got so much more to judge, and yet is all assigned the same "level 4" or "level 3" or whatever. Sure they're athletic and I don't agree with Marry there, but the talking heads on this forum hardly know who has the "most" difficult, the "most" complex, or certainly whether or not anyone else in the world can do it.

You will notice that the ones who make those claims never actually back themselves up (both here or on PI, for that matter). But for the purpose of this thread, the people trying to say that can write an analysis on here judging all the men at the world championships if they want though. How else would you know that "nobody else" can do it? Clearly you paid equal amounts of attention to everyone else, and can hopefully also at least name some of the low-ranked skaters by looking at their faces.

Oh also, maybe the skater in question could have used his insane athletic ability to fix his flutz, yet for some strange reason he never did. I hardly have to point at his quads there. Or of course, his low quality 3A despite zero (0) transitions in.