Jessica Dube Loves Scott Moir

Here we go with posts sharing more great work from the cuteiceprincess tumblr and Lady B. I'm starting with the analysis below, but will continue with the Finn Step and other comparisons.

cuteiceprincess tumblr link:

Stuff every ice dance judging panel missed, year after year, but with all the good intentions in the world

Thanks very much again for the permission from the cuteiceprincess tumblr and thanks especially once again for Lady B's astute comparative analysis of technique and mechanics.

I'm going to say a few things first, and then Lady B's analysis will be clearly highlighted.

We see right here why Davis White crushed Virtue Moir in pcs.
The sport is subjective. We all know what that means.
Subjective means you can either ignore standards and criteria
 and judge however you want, or it means nobody really
knows what the hell is going on out there because we're
talking micro-seconds of time for each thing being judged,
so not even judges are able to tell in real time if the skating
matches the rulebook. Even when you can sort of tell,
the rulebook is just one of the things used to score
this sport. There's all this other stuff, such as is a team on
the ice said to be always giving 110%, or is it just 100%?
To some judges proper technique and deep edges are
important. For others, a mere gesture in the direction
of proper technique without actually executing said technique
is what they're looking for. As Lady B says in her anaylsis, go
ahead and "pose" technique instead of actually using it.
Indeed, this past quad, it's what MOST judges preferred.

I love this first illustration from the cuteiceprincess tumblr because it highlights Meryl's characteristic rocking her torso up and down like Duncan the Drinking Bird.

She never re-orients her center of gravity using her core and power from her blades. It's always this jerry-rigged mess. The strange aspect of her hyper extended arms in the top right screen cap is that her chest is closed and her face is aimed face down at the ice. Good extension/alignment involves an open chest, everything expanding/initiating from the core, opening from your center. Meryl's shoulders and chest are as unengaged as always, she's just got a freakish hyper-extension going on, as with somebody double jointed. The compensation in this woman's "technique" is, as always, both bizarre and mystifying. I wonder if the hyper extension with her arms stems from all the back-hooking she does with her arms, jamming her arm behind her, hooking it over her partner's shoulder up to the armpit in order to anchor herself in many lifts, seeing as she can't balance herself.

After Dancing with the Stars, I said I should really refer to Davis White fans as Meryl Davis fans, since Dancing with the Stars certainly exposed that as true. So, when referencing supporters of the American team, I'll try to remember what to call them.

Meryl Davis fans are welcome to come on in and show why Davis and White are actually doing some great skating here, and why their technique is superior to Virtue and Moir's. In the past, I've seen some Meryl Davis fans link to gifs or screen caps that show, for example, VM on their toes, apparently in the belief that a phrase of movement specifically choreographed on toe picks to highlight latin hip action is just the same as running across the ice on your toe picks in between elements because your stroking is subpar. It would be nice if just once, one of their passionate fans demonstrated how Davis and White are stronger skaters than Virtue and Moir in a way that correlated to the rulebook that governs scoring, and if they used Davis and White as their example. There's been a ton of bizarre complaints that slow motion distorts technique (it doesn't) or deconstruction of technique is irrelevant to the whole (even though taking a program's execution apart piece by piece is precisely how this "sport" is scored). I'd love to hear the case from Meryl Davis fans why Davis & White's skating, technique and execution is superior to Virtue Moir's, using Davis & White themselves as Exhibit I. They were given a gold medal in Sochi - how difficult can the challenge be?

Even Charlie is a mess in the bottom right hand screen cap.

Here's Lady B's analysis:

Look here. Tessa and Scott are perfectly upright with their torso , bend knees that makes having a deep blade run, the thrust (basic) of the outer edge is given by the forward bending of the knees and the control of the pelvis and torso.

Look at Meryl and Charlie. Bend forward their torso to give pushing. The forward thrust on the outer edge does not come from bending the knees as it should be, but simply with the movements of the body, to compensate for the boost.

Look at how TS are on the outer edge. blade angle, tilted pelvis, torso upright.

Meryl and Charlie are leaning on the blade, using the action-reaction of their torso, first brought forward and then brought back, to give the thrust.

And Meryl and Charlie nowadays have more points in skating skills, Realize, please.
The skating skills dates from the knees and the exploitation of the edge and the blade, the control of the bust!

This is my favorite. It’s one of the famous hip without closed mowhak. THE MOWHAK requires closed hip, the main rule is that differentiates it from chactaw.
Look at the first two images. Tessa and Scott have the hip perfectly closed, closed left leg over the right, the left hip to the right, as it should be done.
Now look at Meryl and Charlie: the leg is forward, but it is absolutely clear that the hip is not closed. The basin is open, Meryl and Charlie seem to be “supported” by a thread outer plate that has nothing to do with the mowhak. They are, as is their custom, "posing without using edges and regardless of the body.” 10 in skating skills.
The second two images do see the difference of the two pairs as they hold an inner edge. Look at Tessa and Scott, as they cross the left leg back with the other, showing their perfect equilibrium (which Meryl and Charlie do not), look at the angle of their whole body, the chasm between the pads and shoulders, the use of edges, the sustainability of physical time, there is a FORCE that is pushing them to the right and keep them perfectly.
Look at Meryl and Charlie: they are simply supported, as usual, “pose” on a edge that looks like inside, but that is only a fictitious internal angle of the blade. But the rest of the body what is doing?

On this last I think I have nothing more to add.

Look at the respective inclinations of the booties of the two different pairs. Even from the shoes you can see the difference between these two pairs.

There's more to come, but this is a start. It's important to keep showing these, and to keep remembering that there is supposed to be a link between what is happening, and what people say is happening. In ice dance, on and off the ice, the sport seems to believe it's unnecessary to have any connection between what actually is, and what they say it is. All that matters what people in power agree to say. I can't for the life of me figure out why this sport isn't more popular, just because it's gone out of its way to disenfranchise anybody with eyes in their heads,  a memory, operational brain cells, or any self-respect.