Three years in the making

I looked at the lift and cut it up into screen caps which I'll post a little later. (Done. Below.)

But here's what can be reported.

Up until that lift Meryl and Charlie are sliding and two footing and dragging instead of skating. "Persian" in Meryl and Charlie language = lunging. They're not dancing or skating and their skates and bodies are miles apart.

The component parts of the lift show, no surprise, that Marina has again used tricks to extend the move and make it appear more is going on than there is. Most of it happens before the lift. Charlie is planted on two feet and pulls Meryl past him in the shoot the duck. He turns around as she goes past him (both of them are still on the ice). We are still in lift prep, not in lift. The trick is in the lasso grip, which is straight out of basic pairs. When he pulls her towards him they are facing each other gripping with arms crossed (his right hand holding her right hand, left holding left). As he swings her past him (swinging her as she is still on the ice) their arms open up because they're now facing the same direction. She twists her lower body towards him from there, he adjusts 3/4ths as he swings her onto his shoulders.




The mechanics are - it's a lasso lift and she lands face down, pelvis plastered to his shoulder/neck,  as opposed to in pairs where they keep the hand hold until the lady is extended above his head. While she's in that position he hooks his left arm between her legs above her knees, up to his elbow, pinning her to his neck, shoulders, assisting her rotation to her back and the next position change.

When she rolls forward for the next position, her leg is braced against his bent leg. When Tessa slides into the crouch, she's carrying her own weight and maintaining lower body stability herself, not by bracing a leg against Scott.

Meryl's not on his back. She's on his shoulders and draped across his neck, his head and back bunched foreward. Shocker. The whole thing is a dressed up fireman's carry.

What I'd like to know is, is this the lift, or is this the transition into the lift, or the preparation for a lift? If it's the lift, there's no lifting going on. She's being dragged. There's no skating either. He's planted on two feet, she's on a flat being dragged. In the discussion on the ISU's new rule about interruptions, the judges need to determine if the interruption happened as part of the element, or if the skaters were merely in between or en route. Is this the element itself? If Charlie got a cramp would the judges consider this the element?

My favorite part is they don't even come near each other in this thing.
Until she's landed, they're arms' length apart. Their skates
and bodies are in different universes. Starting this far apart,
much of the prep on the ground, also facilitates that
run-the-clock down thing they love, as they need to close
 the gap before they can do anything. That seems to be why
re-set by separating so frequently.

Meryl is dropped super low to create resistance when Charlie yanks, so they have momentum when she's in the air and she doesn't have to use her core strength to keep her legs extended. However, she's not yet in the air, so she's not lifted yet. In fact she's the opposite of lifted. She's gone lower to the ice. It's almost like one of those shoot-the-duck entrances into a death spiral - one of the ones that drag.

And here's the actual lift. It's a pairs lift. I bet I could find shoot-the-duck lifts in pairs in juniors. But the lift only starts here.

He turns to face the same way she's facing as she plops across his shoulder his back face down.  As is typical with Meryl and Charlie, her pelvis is pasted to his shoulders. Their centers of gravity are locked together. This is nothing new.

A little boost there with his right arm, pushing her over the shoulder.

She's draped across his shoulder, not on his back, and hanging on with both hands. We've seen them in this position many times before.

I don't know what you'd call this, but she ain't on his back. Looks like she's on his head. His posture in lifts is, as ever, divine. Broken at the waist. Not in a lean from the pelvis with an extended line in the torso, a la Scott. Just hunched.

Look at his left arm - it's blurry, but it's hooked between her legs and she's completely on his neck/shoulders.

She's lying across his NECK, on her back, and he's got his arm hooked between her legs on her upper inner thigh. And that's the whole thing.

What a fireman's carry does is distribute weight across the shoulders to make it easier to carry something a longer distance. Charlie's got his whole arm hooked around Meryl's leg above the knee, pinning it to his shoulder. It also helps him push her down into her position change. When weight distribution varies as in many of Virtue and Moir's high level lifts, balance is achieved by the female partner distributing her own weight and carrying it, and the male's balance. The fireman's carry is for dead weight. Meryl is in a fireman's carry on Charlie's shoulder.

Everyone on icenetwork needs to revisit basic anatomy. She's not on his back, she's on his shoulders and his neck. It's a little dicey considering what I believe are the rules, and considering nobody can argue she's not supported there, given Charlie's arm. Last year there was talk when Tessa "sat" on Scott's shoulders as one of the positions she hit in the rotational but with her it's easy to argue she's carrying herself and not sitting up there. Here, we've got Meryl on Charlie's shoulders and neck and he's clearly bent over, and we can see his back, and she's not on his back.