What a great first international senior season Isabeau has had! She won some minor competitions, then won several GP medals (including silver at the GP Final), and became national champion at the age of 15. She narrowly missed the podium at Worlds. That's a fantastic start to her career as a senior.
She missed only one jump at Worlds. (Almost all of the skaters missed at least one jump, including most of the last flight. Loena somehow managed to medal making jumping mistakes in both the short program and the long program.) But, what was encouraging is that it was the first jump and Isabeau didn't fall apart after that. She kept it together.
I'm sure she's learned a lot from this Worlds and from this season. It was a long one and she did a lot of competitions. She hopefully has learned that she needs to pace herself. (I bet she wishes she had skipped Four Continents like Ilia did.)
After all of this and all the added pressure of expectations, she must be exhausted. Her team seems to think she needs some rest and relaxation and a bit of a break. (She not only skipped practice yesterday, but I also saw a photo on Jason Brown's Instagram of the two of them together in a Japanese park). I haven't seen the reports of her saying that she won't be doing WTT, but if she and her mother think that the best thing for her to do before the Stars on Ice tour is to take a vacation/break, then I'm glad her mother isn't pushing her to do WTT.
And good for her mother if she thinks it's not the best thing to uproot the family for a new coach. Her current coach has brought her this far. Isabeau has improved her speed and has excellent skating skills and spins. She could improve her lutz and flip, but she generally lands them. And she can do what some other skaters (like Ilia and Nathan) have done and get some help from a jumping expert while staying where she is.
As for choreography, she loves her programs and the judges seem to like the choreography as well. I think the style works for her as she started doing ballet even before skating. Having said that, I think most skaters would benefit from working with a variety of choreographers. Maybe she could work with Shae Lynn Bourne. Or, maybe Jason could not only be a bit of a mentor but also work with her to refine her choreography and expression. He has been doing some choreography this past year. Just little things like holding her spiral a little longer or bringing a little more expression in parts of her program could eek out a little more with the judges.
Someone mentioned Marie-France Dubreuil. From what Nathan Chen said in his book, she was very reluctant to choreograph for a singles skater and it took a lot of persuasion.
