Odd how nobody on the US side mentions both early fd lifts are easier and uglier versions of stuff VM have done in prior seasons.
There is no way they'd present this piece of shit as their Olympic long if they were going to be legitimately evaluated. I remember last year how it was all oh, oy, Virtue Moir are really going to put some air between themselves and DW this season, and then ND - last year's piece of jerry-rigged repurposed crap - got scored instead.
That the judges at this comp could only award the 73 points to DW's short - and who cares if it's their best pre-season score ever - sort of demonstrates that Meryl and Charlie's programs are a shit show. They couldn't creep that up to a few percentages better than VM's 76? No, they knew the internets would howl. Save it for the GPF.
Someone has given me permission to use their screencaps, and I'm going to add some of my own.
Well, this one:
The grab, clutch and clench and cling version of VM's Carmen lift has already been mentioned, but after I get these up I'm off to gif VM's "float onto the guy's back" lift from their latin fd in 2011, where Tessa just floated up there, as opposed to Charlie swinging Meryl onto his back with both hands - seriously, really? - and then, still assisted by both hands, she turns onto her back.
The last rotational is ass.
Either the fix is in or I don't know what.
Here we go with caps. Short dance later, "back float" caps later too.
Their run-down-the-clock tricks are still in effect, so is the fakery. They start center ice posed together because, you know, ice dance. Then they do a lot of two foot flourishes until they're yards apart, like so, up above. And then they commence two-footed "Persian" poses. BTW, that pose of Charlie's is culturally all purpose, just like their twizzles are style of the dance all-purpose.
Persian.
The best spinners in the WORLD.
Here we go into the headstand. OMFG - Meryl does a headstand!!! She's UPSIDE DOWN.
 |
| All hands on deck, as expected, shoulders, chest, core, even hips - pasted in the same center of gravity - check. Awkward, inefficient, crouched entry into position. Don't blame just Meryl. If she swept up there in one clean transition a la Tessa, Charlie would topple over. |
They're like a knuckled fist on that ice.
 |
| NICE. |
 |
| Voila!And I can't wait for this fucked up Carmen hand-me-down to get better scores than the actual thing. Look at Meryl's right arm completely across Charlie's shoulderes. Also the position of his right arm. |
 |
| Everything still clinging to Charlie, all four arms and hands completely girdling the core while she rotates into the exit. |
Posing is ALL they can do without pasting their centers of gravity and all their limbs clutching. Not only can they not skate into these things, they can't execute using core strength and control. They climb in and out. They cling like monkeys to a tree. They can only pose - and even then, it's limbs only.
 |
| Meryl uses both hands on Charlie to stabilize herself for when she changes edges and skates into the next thing. |
 |
| Oh - that's right. |
Palate cleanser:
More to come.
(I am assuming, based on nothing, that for the immediate moment, we'll be spared new additions to Scott Moir & Co.'s latest contribution to the multi-year photographic opus: "Scott Moir Spits on Fundamental Principles of Child Psychology, Especially as Regards His Own Child" because it might be considered unsportsmanlike to distract the internet fandom while Meryl and Charlie are debuting their Olympic programs. Create an inappropriate visual chronicle for his kid to enjoy years to come? What's the problem? Pull focus from Meryl and Charlie's summer comp? Not classy.
I may be wrong, but they usually try to adhere to some type of sportsmanship protocol.)
"Scott Moir Spits on Fundamental Principles of Child Psychology, Especially as Regards His Own Child"
ReplyDeleteShouldn't this be "Scott Moir & Tessa Virtue"? Tessa is the mom here, and she isn't doing a damn thing to save her kid from any humiliation. WTF?
I can see why the Moir family might want a second gold so badly, but what does Tessa care? Why doesn't she divorce Scott, take the kid to Paris and start her life away from skating that she's always dreaming about? Why is she choosing to stay and hurt her child?
I don't know, I'm not inside their heads. And btw, I don't think Tessa dreams of "a life away from skating." I think she's as passionate about, or MORE passionate about, skating and competition and winning than Scott.
DeleteWhat she might NOT be passionate about is the skating business, and valuing a person only as far as they bring status and glory to a community and a local skating business, and all the expectations that entails. To be seen as a tool.
I can't blame her there.
I could do a round up of things we don't know.
I can look at the obvious fact that for them, as for most Olympic athletes, the gold medal is the most important thing.
Somehow they believe the sham and the gold medal are tied together, and they're not.
*I* believe that Scott Moir believes that with his sham shit, he's dealing with Moirville, when in fact what he's doing thereby is NOT dealing with Moirville.
The "external chaos" thing VM talk about expresses their belief that their challenges are external, instead of a reflection of their own choices, and their refusal to choose, a reflection of who they are, and maybe they should take responsibility. The whole thing reads as if they're looking for a way out, a way to avoid confronting adult issues.
There seems to be some sort of connection between shamming and their ambitions for a second gold, when there's no such connection. The gold is possible without shamming. Privacy is possible without shamming. And dealing with Moirville like an adult, like a respectable parent, is possible without shamming IN THIS WAY. The latter seems to be the problem, and that is Scott's choice. He's chosen his community and his family of origin over his wife and daughter. It boils down to that.
They leave nothing to chance in their skating and everything to chance with their child. Scott has an ugly digital footprint that will haunt this child for years to come, on a visceral level. One would think that, instinctively, he'd know this. Clearly not.
I don't know anything about the *very* early days of Virtue Moir's partnership - I only have what we've been told. What we've been told is Scott's erratic performances drove his first partner to quit. When he paired with Tessa and (reportedly) continued to do things such as forget his steps and skate into the boards, Tessa "made a note" and remembered both their steps for both of them. He is a wonderful partner. He loves her very much. She's got a "classy" mother as counsel, who is the antithesis of the "backoffhe'smine" tone of a lot of the web. It seems to me as long as she knows he's faithful and devoted to her, she thinks that the images he's producing are fine. And all involved appear to believe that they know everything there is to know about children, even if they don't know anything at all about the internet, which is incredibly irresponsible, self-serving, and cruel of all concerned.
"The latter seems to be the problem, and that is Scott's choice. He's chosen his community and his family of origin over his wife and daughter. It boils down to that. "
ReplyDeleteActually, it's Scott's AND Tessa's choice.
I don't buy the recent discussions that it's Scott's sole responsibility to reign Moirville in. The minute Tessa became a mom, it became her responsibility as well. She has equal responsibility for the welfare of this child. If she thinks Moirville is interfering too much, and Scott doesn't have the balls to handle them. then she needs to take them on herself.
It isn't like Tessa didn't know about Moirville, and how they think and operate. She's known them since she's 6 years old. She knew what she was getting into.
My guess is that she is as much "Moirville" as the rest of them. The reason the sham continues is she likes to eff over fans as much as the rest of them.
Video evidence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkw0LaR3rKc
Newlywed and newly pregnant Tessa, on network tv, telling her adoring fans that she would definitely avoid dating someone in the skating world, and then giggling hysterically. Yeah. Totally agree Tessa. I think it's beyond hilarious to sit next to your husband, growing his baby, and say you'd never date a guy like him. Especially on national tv in front of fans that are really only wishing you the best.
Wonder if "classy" Kate helped her with her lines?
Actually I think it is Scott's responsibility.
DeleteI understand your point of view entirely. But it's Scott's family. It's not up to her to manage it. Their investment is in him. The obligation, loyalty, identification, etc., he feels is from him to them. Anybody married knows that it's the spouse's responsibility to deal with the in-laws, and the other spouse is ill advised to dictate how that's accomplished.
Where I agree with you is when you introduce a child. Ilderton thinks it's the most child-friendly location on the planet. There are friends of the Moirs who send their toddlers to the ISC for intro skating lessons, and know their children will be safe, loved, treated beautifully, and taught to skate.
Where they go wrong is in thinking "We love children, therefore we know what's best for them, and we'll never damage them." That's ignorant and irresponsible.
Meantime, they are acting out on the fucking internet, about which they know absolutely NOTHING, Scott is shamming with someone who uses the internet for its ground-zero purposes, which is narcissistic gratification and self-promotion, and he and Tessa brag they're not on the internet, as if that counts for something. They are on the internet. The internet is forever. They play fast and loose with it as if how they see it is how it is, and it's not.
They may know kids. They don't know the web. That's arrogant. It is their responsibility to also know the web, considering how they use the web. What they do on the internet affects their child for years to come. That fucking gold medal is going to be a source of conflict, ambivalence and guilt for the kid considering how it's been packaged with the internet sleaze. Suck it up, honey, your dad won a gold medal!
Tessa, as she projects herself to the public, is an "old soul". I agree that doesn't exempt her from responsible understanding of the internet. As much as we use it, the next generation will use it even more. She and Scott are fucking around with the internet, and as they do so, they're being careless with their child. But at the end of the day, it's him, not her. Should they have had a plan - dear God, yes. It's just painful to think they have a plan for every inch of their skating lives and - let's hope so, as it's the least of all possible scenarios - had no plan for their child and the internet, save what seems to be the plan for the whole thing - procrastination. That's unconsciencable. I think a lot of ass backwards thinking goes into this. Tessa and her mom and her family thinking that the internet is for the rabble, and knowing Scott is true blue. Feeling trade-offs are "mature". Scott in his freaking David Lynch environment.
Meantime what is lost is the math of "Scott has a daughter" "Scott is sleazing it up on the web with other women and his daughter is going to see it." and, apparently, some assumption that their child will see her father acting out sexually with women who are not Tessa is going to be as amusing to her as it is to all the Moir relatives and community - or she won't see it at all. Or she'll be implanted with Tessa's psychology course syllabus and process it without a qualm.
Futhermore, taking into account the fact that Tessa can be pretty tunnel-visioned, the fact that THIS - the child, the sham - the primal nightmare they create for her every day - is the "solution" only points out how nightmarishly unmanageable things must be in Moirville. Just looking at Bilodeau's management tactics vis a vis his environment points out how normal, how unremarkable, Tessa's needs are as a high performance athlete (let alone the additional issue of having to cope with her shins in the past) and yet THIS is what they feel is required to purchase minimal breathing room that Bilodeau accomplished with an email. Her needs are elementary, but apparently she doesn't get them met without Moirville extracting a HUGE price that includes her kid, and Scott is unequal to dealing with it except by paying that price, even if his kid ends up paying too.
DeleteI have to say this also feels like one of those deals where you make one decision, and then you decide well, let's carry on for another year, and then it's, well, let's wait til mom and dad die, and before you know it you're in your forties or fifties pretending you're not married to the person to whom you're married, pretending you have no children when you have three, and you're fifty two. There isn't a gold medal in any sport won in any country that makes that not pathetic.
DeleteI look back at Carol Moir's facebook and she had a 2010 album called Tessa and Scott's steering committee. A steering committee is a committee that plots strategy for an organization. Scott and Tessa are Olympic skaters. Traditionally, the entities that plot strategy for figure skaters are sports management/representatives and coaches. Of course many skaters have The Parent. But usually you don't have The Neighbors. Carol shared this album with the public, more, it seems, in retrospect, so the Steering Committee could show themselves off to strangers in the company of Scott and Tessa than so the public could see Scott and Tessa at a bbq.
DeleteWhat the hell did the steering committee do? Identify sham candidates for 2013? Schedule the photo drops?
It would be nice if all they did was identify sources of financial support, but then you wouldn't call them a steering committee. Everything around Scott and Tessa looks like making up jobs and reasons to involve people in their business, even if there is no real purpose for these people.
OC 9:21 -- I don't know where I got this idea, but I thought the Steering Committee Carol Moir showed in those pictures had to do with the planning/execution of the Ilderton celebration parade.
DeleteThey did do a good job. Except for the part where Jessica had the seat-of-honour in the family buggy. *That* was super special. But other than that, it looks to have been a successful event.
As far as professional management in general - it's more than obvious they have none.
Well that makes sense 9:56 PM - especially considering when it took place. As previewed, the parade sounded like a nightmare, with Scott and Tessa literally paraded like trophies in front of the town and the whole thing enduring three hours plus, but as executed it came off less intense than that.
DeleteThe buggy will never not be ridiculous. Right up there with mom, leading it. And Jessica obviously summoned at the last minute when the Moirs realized skating fans would be there.
I had no idea Persian dance was so versatile.
ReplyDeleteStrolling down memory lane....
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/vYdEWlvU0g4?t=2m8s
This is how you quickstep children
These two programs are the WORST. They are beyond awful. They're the worst programs DW have delivered in years. Both of them lay an egg as performance and in the skating.
DeleteAnd it's because they've stripped the programs of much of the hopping, skipping, twinkling and scampering, which, of all the shit DW put into the programs, the ISU apparently decided wouldn't cut the mustard, and asked DW to impersonate legitimate skaters as much as possible for the Olympic year. And what is left is pedestrian skating skills and junior mechanics in the elements, and the worst twizzles. Please those are Finnstep character of the dance twizzles?
It's as if they've tried less hard for these programs than any previous programs.
I get the dilemma. They're incredibly fit, athletic people who aren't the greatest skaters, and they apply their conditioning to their skating programs and their work-arounds and bull their way through. Somewhere along the line they ought to have worked more on the basics - cleaned up the mechanics of the lifts. Worked more off-ice or at the barre or somewhere on interdependent movement. Drilled the transitions using their edges. They didn't do any of those things. I don't know why after all these years Charlie's blade still rocks like a ship in a hurricane or why Meryl can't change edges without walking or gliding on two feet first, or why Charlie can't without leaping or lunging. They're smoke and mirrors and the short dance is flat, flat flat and the free dance showcases the worst of them, unadorned. And because these are their programs and because they're as calculated and ambitious as any skaters out there, I wonder what deals have been struck to make Davis White believe these programs will carry the day against Virtue Moir.
Weaver & Poje's SD...this scored 10 points less than D/W, but was so much better in every way:
Deletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo9nUW0VqAk&feature=youtu.be
From TSL:
Delete"Meryl and Charlie's short dance changed our lives. The dress. The step sequence. The TWIZZLES (emphasis mine). The rotational lift. The details. Living and dying for it. Dave may require oxygen. 73.67"
I'm calling it right now, TSL is actually a satire.
"It's as if they've tried less hard for these programs than any previous programs."
DeleteOne of DW's most ardent fans has already declared their FD a *masterpiece* based on the practice. DW don't need to do anything but stand at center ice and pose. Then laboriously get into some lifts with much clutching and grabbing -- and it's a masterpiece. Oh, and Charlie must fling his hair. Voila.
I wouldn't care so much what DW's fans are saying if the judges didn't have on the same blinders. But there's every reason to believe the ridiculous gushing over crappy skating is the same POV of the judges.
tessa and scott should bring that ex. back. just for the lulz.
DeleteI think a whole lot of DW fans know this is shit but part of the game is to hype it up BECAUSE it's shit. Fan yourself and pretend to cry because that's how it works when it's the Emperor's New Clothes. You can't stop fronting for a second or the whole thing unravels and everybody starts to see for themselves. It's diversion, distraction and trying to flog groupthink - actually, trying to get people not to think at all. They KNOW it's shit, and they're politicking. On the boards and among their partisans.
DeleteI believe the ISU knows the difference between VM and DW perfectly well and all they care about is - does the public know? Does the media know? If the public and media is fooled, then the ISU can score a pedestrian team over a superior team. The ISU isn't scoring what it believes. It's scoring what it thinks it can get away with. in the public eye.Does the public buy the bullshit? That's all they're monitoring when it comes to DW's programs and all they keep in mind when it gives DW feedback on their programs. NOT how it measures up against criteria/standards in the rulebook. How well it dupes the public.
The comments on TSL are nothing short of amusing:
Delete"A thousand times better than Virtue and Moir, if Davis and White do not win the Olympics then there's something wrong."
Um, no, if DW win, there is something really wrong.
That kind of overkill feels like push back against criticism aimed at Davis and White. Those types of commenters seem incapable of breaking down the skating so they resort to cartoonish levels of flattery.
DeleteAnd those are also the type of comments that will push fans who don't care either way or like both teams away from DW. That kind of effusive praise makes people say "oh yeah, what about..." A lot of people hate TSL anyway.
DeleteI cackled at Charlie's all-purpose pose. Seriously, how many times has he done that? Couldn't they come up with something better?
ReplyDeleteJust watched the DW SD & it's so bland. I was expecting more from them but oh well. Their finnstep didn't cover that much ice & the whole thing didn't have much character at all. A forgettable SD.
Also, their twizzles = lol. Same ones.
DeleteAnon 11:26
DeleteEh. Why change anything. The fans swoon. The scores go through the roof.
It's supposedly the kiss of death for ice dancers to repeat anything from season to season. All the elite teams are operating on that premise except DW. None of the rules have been applied to them--neither the established CoP rules nor the unwritten ones, like not doing the same things in the same way every year.
They say they change season to season, and that's good enough.
DeleteWay off topic but, how cute is Max Aaron trying to be Scott Moir with his FD costume? A-LA Bamboo shirt??? Trying to look like Scott much?
ReplyDeleteWhat level would that double set of twizzles be without the hop? Level 1?
ReplyDeleteI love the technical analysis over on TSL: "I think Meryl and Charlie have a superior SD and are better at Finnstep than Tessa and Scott. That particular pattern favors shorter skaters in my opinion."
ReplyDeleteReally? I think that particular pattern favours skaters who can ice dance.
Have those two ever even *attempted* to provide an actual technical breakdown of the skating? When watching last season, I was particularly impressed by Jenny Kirk's answer to a question about Pechalat and Bourzat's FD. When asked her opinion of the program, she decided to talk about how much she liked Fabian's red pants.
DeleteLots of brilliance to go around over there.
Shorter!?!? BWAH! They usually at least try to tie it to some pseudo-athletic talent like lightness or speed...
DeleteD/W in their FD costumes; haven't we seen these costumes before?
ReplyDeletehttps://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/114752713093749901763/albums/5923589187637995089/5923596509810689698?pid=5923596509810689698&oid=114752713093749901763
No ?!
DeleteI love D/W's SD and can't wait to see their FD!! It's so nice to see them getting so much attention here.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree!
DeleteWhat do you like about it?
DeleteThey're incapable of explaining why. As always.
DeleteWhat is new in SD D/W? Steps, lifts,twizzles...
ReplyDeleteThis post is one of your best. I can't decide which line is my favourite: monkeys in a tree, they are like a knuckled fist or he's been Persian the whole time. So damn funny and so damn true. D & W are running one hell of a scam.
ReplyDeleteAnon 11:27
ReplyDeleteDifferent twizzles? Bwahahahaha