Saturday, April 6, 2013

Not Skating is the New Skating

 
 
 


23 comments:

  1. I don't know what it is either.

    There they are AGAIN with the "we're gonna skate miles apart from one another, Charlie will set, and then here comes the awesome?" No. She skates over to him and they do a quick pick-up spin around move, but not before Charlie decides to aim what look like some happy yoga poses out to the crowd and judges (namaste, Charlie). What *is* that? It's pointless filler, and much of it is two footed to boot.

    Does any other team do as much miles apart skating and throwaway posing as these two?

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    1. Oops, I meant to post this below one of the other gif posts. The question still applies, though.

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    2. If they were actually skating when they were miles apart it wouldn't be so bad.

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    3. "Namaste, Charlie"

      Are you making fun of Indian culture? Since you are using yoga as an insult. It's clearly two people at a ball.

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    4. @ ANON 11:14 nah thats M/C's job ;)

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    5. 11:14 I don't know if you are serious or not but Meryl and Charlie are not meant to be judged on how well they impersonate two people at a ball. The choreography is not a theatrical piece where the two of them portray guests at a ball. That is merely the package.

      This is a figure skating competition and the goal of an ice dance program is for the skaters to present very specific elements using technical standards set down very explicitly in a rule book. That's what's judged.

      The choreography is supposed to show skating, not style. M/C can style their asses off all day long and should not get the points for style of the dance unless they are skating in the style of the dance. You actually have to use skating skills and figure out how to use your edges, your crossovers, your footwork, and everything else in the style of the dance, so your facility with skating can be judged. You're not meant to throw your skating into the toilet so that your ballroom character can be more ballroomy. Although what kind of ball they're attending isn't clear to me. I think they hoedown at the end there.

      Furthermore if you ARE serious, get OUT with the "insulting Indian culture." The comment is satirizing Charlie's skating. He does look like he's throwing yoga poses out there. If they said he looked like he was posing for the Sports illustrated Swimsuit issue would that be insulting Kate Upton? You've got it backwards, just like the judging.

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    6. Then why was it alright for V/M to have all those stop breaks in Funny Face?

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    7. 12:50 - this discussion is about figure skating. Learn about it or don't participate.

      Don't learn about it HERE - go get the basics, and don't come back here until you've got something to say besides whining.

      You've got a Funny Face bug up your rear end which means you haven't actually watched it or you don't know enough about technique to see the difference.

      This is a freaking SPORT. There are rules that DW don't observe and VM do, yet they're awarded the opposite. So go read the rules, which are publicly available, look at the programs, and stop asking ME. Stop wasting people's time.

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    8. You didn't answer the question, because you know V/M's stop breaks are to show the character of the dance, just as D/W did at the top of this post.

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  2. to some its called 'choreography'

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    1. Yeah but choreographing WHAT? They're not skating. They're not dancing.

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    2. A bit ironic to use this but...

      "One and all they're not chancing
      What we used to call dancing
      They're busy doing choreography
      One and all keep us guessing
      What the heck they're expressing
      Instead of dance it's choreography! "

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  3. Is there a way to go straight to viewing new comments? I am loving all the gifs, but scrolling through a number of zero-comment gif posts makes it tough to find new comments on the older posts. (I am as lazy as Meryl's dangly free foot/leg).

    Excellent work regardless.

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    1. 10:27, I use an RSS feed (Google Reader for now). The new comments show up in that like an unread email would.

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    2. Brilliant, thank you!

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  4. Have you seen this yet? http://compulsorydances.blogspot.ca/2013/04/marinas-comments-prior-to-rostelecom-cup.html

    It is a translation of an interview Marina did in the Russian press right after Rostelcom Cup. Last year, the judges asked/suggested to Marina that V/M do something like Carmen...

    "nadezhda: and your carmen is not traditional, but innovative.

    marina: last year so many judges came to me and spoke with me: "we would like to see tessa and scott do something unusual, something unbelievable … but with theme that we could identify (something well-known)". and there and then i precisely decided that it has to be carmen. who doesn't recognize (could not identify) her? but how could we make it unusual ... we really had to think about it.

    i invited the tessa's ballet teacher who worked with tessa from childhood, jennifer swan, to help with choreographing this program. we studied a huge number of material. by the way, if you wish, you too could have a look in the internet and be convinced: a carmen like ours cannot be found anywhere. i guarantee it to you. certainly, some things, like movements, have something in common with other programs. but the interpretation of the theme, composition of the program and lifts do not repeat."

    So, the judges asked for V/M to do a program like this. They deliver it, all down-to-the letter CoP, and then the establishment proceeds to tear them down for doing exactly what was asked of them. JFC.

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    1. igor prolly politcking against them

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    2. "So, the judges asked for V/M to do a program like this. They deliver it, all down-to-the letter CoP, and then the establishment proceeds to tear them down for doing exactly what was asked of them. JFC."

      It also looks like it was the skating establishment that decided to say this FD was too "sexual." I wonder if it was the establishment that used the fans as scapegoats and told VM it was "the fans" who didn't accept this Carmen FD (and anyone who read the message boards had to know full well the fans were ecstatic with this program).

      There have been so many other programs that hinted at suggestive themes, you know that this particular criticism was invented just to make VM feel bad and to pull them down.

      Do you suppose this was mostly successful USFSA politicking or did it originate somewhere else?

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  5. Anon 10:57 pm - for some reason the direct reply feature isn't working for me.

    Your questions have ignorance built into them. For example, your question about Funny Face is "all those stop breaks." They DON'T have "all those" stop breaks equivalent to what Meryl and Charlie are doing, which is stopping when they should be skating. All of your questions are like this. Therefore, you are asking questions based on ignorance.

    Go and WATCH Funny Face. Come back and mention a "Stop break" at a specific point in the program. Explain how this stop break 1) IS a stop break and 2) how Meryl and Charlie standing on two feet and then doing two hoedown steps shows the "character of a waltz" or the "character of a ball" since you seem to think the entire point of doing a free skate is to act out your theme.

    You seem very passionate about Funny Face being some non-skated program. Therefore, it's reasonable to assume you are familiar with this program backwards and forwards and can actually SAY where in the program they are Meryl and Charlie-ing it up.

    DO it and bring it here before coming back with questions that have willful stupidity built into them.

    It's one or the other - you know you're wrong, but you're acting out, or you don't care to learn anything, and you want me to do the work for you. You haven't even watched the freaking program.

    I believe you are the one who came here and claimed the Scott and Tessa "walked" in the twizzle section marching steps. You based this - hilariously enough - on Meryl and Charlie lampooning that section in Ice Sweat and Tears.

    But as it turned out, Scott and Tessa did not WALK that section, they SKATED that section. They just lined up their bodies in the STYLE of a march, but their SKATE BLADES were gliding ONE BLADE ON THE ICE AT A TIME.

    You, 10:57pm, do not understand the difference between ankles down and ankles up, and why skating matters in figure skating.

    I'll tell you what I'm considering. Taking all of your questions off the comments section and putting them in a post called "The DW Uber Has Questions".

    And then illustrating them.

    I know you have not re-watched Funny Face. I know you are just aggrieved, all the more so because you don't know what you're talking about, and can't tell skating from walking, or style of the dance from fill it in with bullshit from some other dance and also don't skate it. You don't understand anything about figure skating as a sport, but of course, like many fans, still feel entitled to comment on the merits of the different programs.

    You don't want to do any work whatsoever, or learn anything and THEN defend your favorites.

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  6. P.S. 10:57pm - if you DON'T come back with a specific instance of where you think Scott and Tessa are being just like Meryl and Charlie in their program - which means pointing out WHERE and WHAT and HOW and WHY it is the same, based on your understanding of the ISU criteria, your comment will be taken off. Don't worry, it won't be going away or deleted. Your comments will get their own special dedicated post where everything will be addressed in one go, along with screen caps of the original comment.

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  7. Finally - I realized that I actually let one of 10:57pm's assumptions in through the cracks non-refuted.

    Meryl and Charlie's issue is they dont't skate into and out of their elements, they have to restablize before and after any transition, which means they can't skate from one thing to the other. The second issue is that the elements themselves are both easier than those done by Scott and Tessa, and they're cheated.

    Scott and Tessa, in Funny Face and all of their programs, skate into and out of their elements, their elements are more difficult than Meryl and Charlie's according to the laws of physics and according to the ISU element standards, AND they have far fewer rest stops and two footed shit going on IN BETWEEN the elements.

    Meryl and Charlie not only don't skate into and out of their elements, they pad out the program with other occasions to NOT SKATE. If their elements were strong - strong technique, strong mechanics, strong skating skills, and conformed to the ISU rulebook standards, and then they felt like fussing around on two feet smarming it up to the crowd with filler, it would be obnoxious, but they'd have laid down a strong foundation by delivering high calibre elements.

    They DON'T. Scott and Tessa do.

    Just FYI - the gifs and screen caps of the Notre Dame lifts are horrific. Horrific. The physics are basically - get Meryl's center dead across or dead over Charlie's center in every lift and then have the two of them hang onto each other for dear life. Don't don't don't ever expect either one to maintain an independent stable core. That's what the other person is for - to push into, down on, or hang onto.

    Meryl pops up on Charlie's thigh a couple of times and holy mother. There's also the famous rotational. Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir have done an number of lifts where Tessa steps onto Scott's thigh and hits an arabesque position. There is a huge huge difference in technique, mechanics, and skill. One of the programs showing this is Funny Face.

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  8. skating is one of my favorite pass time.

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