…a unit with no breaks… These are not my words. They are part of a statement made by Jenny Mast at one of the training seminars for judges organized by the ISU. I posted the links to Mast’s seminars, her slides, and quoted some of her words, in this post. As she explained, for a good program there must be continuity of movement into a unit with no breaks, including entrances and exits of technical elements, variety and difficulty. The body must be moved off its main axis while gliding on a precise edge, with harmony and elegance. The use of two feet skating must be minimal. The explanation continues with numerous features, for all the details I refer you to the Mast’s seminars.
A short program contains seven technical elements, but it is not just a succession of technical elements. Many years ago Jeffrey Buttle, commenting the free skate with which he won the World Championship, explained that
it is not just the jumps. We work whole sessions on spins and stroking and all those things in between because that is figure skating […] It’s everything that happens in those four and a half minutes. It’s not just about the jumps and… those in-betweens don’t mean anything at all.
Two years later, immediately after winning Olympic gold, Evan Lysacek had declared
If it was a jumping competition, they’d give you 10 seconds to go do your best jump. But it’s about 4 minutes and 40 seconds of skating and performing from start to finish.
So,
…a unit with no breaks… …those in-betweens… …skating and performing from start to finish…
All three are talking about components. The base value is one thing, the GOE another, and from their combination the technical score comes out, but the components are everything else. And so what is this performing, this everything else?
For the past few days I’ve been trying to figure this out with my posts. I tried to see what different skaters did, in some cases getting help from an analysis made by Roseline Winter and Elisa.
Based on their data, I made a graph. The data refer to the national championship, not the Olympic Games. From one competition to the next, all the programs have undergone some changes. For example, Hanyu complicated the exit of the combination, while the spread eagle performed by Uno before the triple axel was on outside edges in Japan, on inside edges in Beijing. I don’t feel like analyzing the programs completely as they did, so the data must be taken with a minimum of caution, but the differences are not so many as to make a check of this type meaningless.
The judges don’t have a chart like this to help them assign marks, this is just a help for us to understand if they did a good job. For all the skaters I counted the number of Power Skating (acronym PS in the table and in the graph, they are crossovers, crossunderers, swizzles, strokes and all those movements whose sole purpose is to make the skater gain speed), of simple transitions and of difficult transitions (acronym diff. Tr., these are the turns coded as difficult by the ISU: bracket, rocker, counter, most of the choctaw, loop, twizzle) present in the programs, and I compared them. The numbers do not include the difficult turns linked to the step sequence level.
Jason Brown and Yuma Kagiyama’s charts are very similar to each other, with Kagiyama appearing to have presented a slightly more difficult program. From the numbers it seems that this is the case, then we’ll see if it’s true. However, the difference between them is not great. Compared to them Juhnwan Cha has done more simple transitions, more difficult transitions, and less push, so his program is more difficult. The other three skaters presented very different programs both with respect to Brown, Kagiyama and Cha, and between them.
Shoma Uno is the one who has done the most push and the fewest transitions, he is the only one where the blue and brown columns are almost the same height, so his program is easier than the previous three. Yuzuru Hanyu stands out for quality, he is by far the one who pushed the least and at the same time the one who did the highest number of difficult turns. Nathan Chen is in line with all skaters (except Hanyu) in power skating number, he is the one who has done the lowest number of difficult turn, but he is by far the one who has done the most transitions. How did he get more of it? Because his movements last less, but that’s something I’ll come back to shortly.
.In the post dedicated to Hanyu (and I remember that I have already dedicated one post each to Uno, Kagiyama, Chen, Brown, Carrillo and Vasilievs) I inserted a table based on data from Roseline and Elisa. In this table I looked at what precedes (top row) and what follows (bottom row) a difficult turn (difficult, column on the left) or an element (element, column on the left, box in light blue). The subdivision is between a push (power skating, PS, box in light green), a transition (tr) a difficult turn (D, box in yellow, and an element (E, box in red). Since the table is based on data from Roseline and Elisa, there are no Carrillo and Vasiljievs but there is Cha. What I was interested in seeing is if the skaters are able to do difficult things one after the other or if they do a difficult thing, then, to use the words of Mast that I have already quoted in the post dedicated to Hanyu,
[…] we must have continuity of movement from one element to another. Common mistakes as we all know is that is as we have a few steps, skaters think that they’ve checked that requirement and now it’s time to get ready for the element. They go back to looking like maybe they’re in practice. They do the element, they come out, they do a little step, and they get ready, stop doing transitions, it’s time to get ready, they’re setting up, do the next element, and the pattern continues. We need to recognize the difference between those who have taken the risk… because it is a risk to have continuous movements from one element to another, that is seamless. They can do it with variety, ideally with difficulty […]
This table is about continuity of movement and risk.
Hanyu is clearly the one who takes the most risks and therefore deserves the highest score in components. Chen and Uno are the ones who take the least risk, and Kagiyama doesn’t do that much better than them, and therefore the ones who deserve the lowest score.
Don’t the judges have a table like this in hand? True. Perhaps the ISU should take action. One of the technical panel members can press different buttons depending on whether the skater is pushing, making a simple transition or a difficult turn. There is no need to distinguish between rocker and counter, not for this. But the distinction between rocker and crossunder is huge and must be recognized. If there is such a distinction, which a minimally skilled person is able to make in real time, the computer can process the data and deliver it to the judges, and the judges can have the reminder when they have to assign the marks. Judges can watch the flip and lutz edges, why shouldn’t they have such a reminder? The most important thing is the fairness of the competitions, and a scheme like this would allow for more correct results.
Or, alternatively, the skaters could provide the layout of the turns and steps, as they already provide that of the technical elements, and the technical panel should check if the layout is respected. In case of too big differences, the score must go down by a lot. This would avoid having crafty skaters, who at first take a few steps, to show that they know how to do them, then just jump, with very long runs, and do the steps again only in the step sequence, knowing that the judges will only remember the difficult jumps and the fact that they did not fall, and will award them high marks. This is a way to make fun of the judges, and from what I’ve seen it works great. Some skaters (and their coaches) have specialized in the loopholes featured in the rules.
Let’s go to my previous statement, when I wrote that Chen’s movements last less than the movements of the others, and that for this reason he does more. I have not checked the duration of the spins, nor the seconds of stillness in the program – at the beginning Chen remains motionless in the center of the rink for several seconds, but he was not the only one to make this choice. I looked at other things. Chen is the one whose jumps have the shortest running edge. After each jump, in less than a second Chen put his second foot down. In fact, his jumps doesn’t have a running edge. The other skaters usually glides for one or two seconds (I’m not speaking of the jumps clearly wrong as Uno’s combination). In the two seconds following the landing of his combination, Hanyu made two rockers, only then did he put his second foot down. In a position of deliberately precarious balance, because the position itself was beautiful. After the triple axel Hanyu did a twizzle, and only after two seconds he gave himself a single push before entering the spin. The longest time spent on one foot is that of Kagiyama, who after the quadruple salchow made a long glide that includes a counter, and only after 4 seconds put down the second foot.
In my controls I didn’t look at Cha (his is a beautiful program, but for time reasons I ignored him), on the other hand I looked at Vasiljevs and Carrillo, because I wanted to watch programs with lower PCS scores and check the differences, and they too after a jump did a glide better than Chen’s glide after their respective jumps. But the jump landing isn’t the only thing I’ve looked at.
For all of these skaters – Brown, Carrillo, Chen, Hanyu, Kagiyama, Uno and Vasiljevs – I checked how much time they spent on one foot. I have not considered the combinations of three difficult turns in the step sequence, by rule the step sequence must include two. I’ve considered the combinations only if the skater has chosen to do four or more difficult turns in a row. Of these seven skaters, Chen is the only one who has never stood on one foot for more than two seconds in a row. As soon as he gets the chance, he puts his second foot down. Obviously holding the edge, maintaining speed without pushing, are difficult things for him, so he doesn’t do them. You can check for yourselves if you want, the programs are on youtube.
Brown stands on one foot from 2:18 to 2:23. It is a combination of four difficult turns that last five seconds. And, again, he stands on only one foot for three seconds, from 2:47 to 2:50. Carrillo makes a very long glide, 5 seconds, from 1:26 to 1.31, before the triple axel. Brown and Chen make a 2 second glide that they use to find concentration before the jump, Kagiyama and Vasiljevs make a 3 seconds glide. The exceptions are Uno, who at a shorter run-up, and Hanyu, who doesn’t do the run-up at all. He does some cross rolls, a counter, and jumps. Carrillo stands at least five seconds on one foot. I say at least because at the beginning his feet are hidden by the balustrade, maybe there is an extra second. And, in the middle, he did a turn. Of course, in the end he also focuses on the jump, but the first part of his glide falls between the transitions, with a a long sustained edge, as Jenny Mast explained. And Carrillo’s second combination of difficult turns last 4 seconds, from 2:55 to 2:59, not three seconds as the combinations in which is included a twizzle. Hanyu did a long glide with a spiral from 0:50 to 0:53, three seconds, and two other times, from 2:35 to 2:38 and from 3:08 to 3:12, he skated on one foot for three seconds. Kagiyama did the long glide after the 4S, but skated on one foot also from 2:14 to 2:17, three seconds. Uno did a 4-seconds glide, from 1:08 to 1:12. Vasiljevs likes to do long combination of difficult turns, from 2:58:18 to 2:58:24, 6 seconds, and from 2:58:44 to 2:58:49, 5 seconds. So, only Chen has decided to never stay more than two seconds on a single foot.
Time is something easily measurable, but the quality of a program is not measured only by time. That’s why I looked at what the skaters do and how they do it. I’ve already written a post, Elegance and carriage, where I watched how skaters pick up speed. What interested me was their posture. These are their crossovers. Look at the tilt of the back, and the impression they give, of doing something difficult, or if they are relaxed.
Screenshots are cutted so as not to have too heavy images. Within the first image of the series of screenshot, and every time a second passes, I have entered the time. In this way, if you want, you can easily find in the videos the passages that I have immortalized in the screensot, and see precisely every move.
Crossover
Brown is totally focused on speed, with his back very leaning and his butt sticking out. Quality here? Not so much.
Carrillo is not particularly elegant, but works more with the legs than with the back, his effort is less evident.
Chen is making a tremendous effort.
In this program Hanyu only did six crossovers, four backwards. I didn’t have many choices for a good screenshot. In one, the camera changes mid-crossover, and it is never lateral. In another, it is very far away. In the end I opted for this, although the overhead camera makes it seem like Hanyu is more bent than he really is. And with a bad camera, he’s less bent than the other skaters. Not only. First, he did a ina bauer (that is not in my screenshot, the series of images begins when he is leaving the ina bauer). The initial position is still affected by the previous movement. After there is the crossover. When he finishes it, what does he do? Does he keep running? No, he straightens up completely and does a backward glide, completely relaxed, because he’s not making any effort, he doesn’t need to run. Only after a glide on a nice inside edge he moves on to the next mohawk. The difference with Kagiyama, below, is remarkable.
Kagiyama is less inclined than Brown and Chen, more inclined than Hanyu, is more or less in the position of Carrillo. He’s not looking for speed with all of his energy, but he’s clearly looking for it. As Hanyu, Kagiyama, after this crossover, does a mohawk. However, unlike Hanyu, he doesn’t get up before the mohawk. He remains bend and stretches out in an aerodynamic position, because he too is running.
Uno’s position speaks for itself. I just add that this desperate search for speed does not precede a difficult element. Uno has just landed the 4F, now he should connect the technical element with the rest of the program. Probably Uno doesn’t know what effortless means.
Apart from Hanyu, Vasiljevs is the one who has the most upright stance. His carriage is always beautiful.
The glance, something the judges don’t have, is this.
Judges can’t make such a comparison, but they should still see what each skater’s carriage is.
I notice one last detail. Everyone has their heads up. The only exception is Hanyu. Five skaters are looking at the rink, in the direction they are moving. These are all backward crossovers, and five skaters are looking over their shoulder. They are focused on speed, on evaluating the trajectory to follow, on the technical element who is coming. Uno is looking forward, he just did the technical element, so he doesn’t need to check the rink. He doesn’t control the body very well though, because that protruding butt is anything but elegant. Hanyu is the only one looking down. Even without knowing what his program is about – I know it, but judges and spectators don’t necessarily know – it is evident that he is interpreting the music. He will repeat this type of attitude at other times in the program. Even as he seeks speed, with just one crossover ending with a nice glide, Hanyu doesn’t forget to tell his story.
Looking at the programs of these skaters I took numerous screenshots. I have not made the same number of screenshots for everyone, because the screenshots are not related to the duration of the program but to what the skaters did in the time they had available. I ignored the technical elements, but also the difficult turns. The number of difficult turns is quantifiable, for six skaters you can find them at the beginning of this post, and these numbers should be provided to the judges to help them award correct marks, the judges should only evaluate the quality.
Each skater skated the program he wanted. There are gestures that someone has made and someone else has not. It is a personal choice that has nothing to do with quality. For example, in the choreo sequence of the the free skate Hanyu does a hydroblade, while Uno does a cantilever. They are movements that have no base value and are made for their emotional impact, but neither is more important than the other. Hanyu’s choice is no better or worse than Uno’s, it’s just different. The only thing that judges must evaluate is if there is a difference in the quality of execution.
Here, I focused on the way the skaters move, on that in-between between quantifiable things. Someone may have made a movement, someone may have made another. What interests me is whether the skaters did something or not, if there is variety as well as quantity, if what they did was difficult or not, and how they did it. I divided my screenshots in a completely arbitrary way, in categories invented by me. I did it for convenience of exposure and comparison, but the ISU does not use the categories that I use.
Glides
I start with the smallest details, the stroking. We have seen crossovers, we know how skaters do when they need speed. But in less frantic moments, when they are just moving, are their movements beautiful or are they clumsy? Are they able of giving elegance, breath, to simple skating? These are movements at the end of simple push, or, in some cases, a swing of a leg. The skater glides, just holding the edge.
I move back and forth in the programs. For all of the skaters I looked for the best moments. If you are interested, the indication of the time in the screenshot can help you find the gesture within the videos.
When he wants, Brown he has a nice extension. The lines of his body are elegant, at least in the moment of the extension. Brown extends his leg in this way (the second series of screenshots) at various points in his program. Unfortunately when he relaxes he tends to have his butt sticking out.
Swing with a nice outside edge and a choreographic movement of the arms. Nice gesture.
The starting position of this sequence, in which Carrillo is bent forward, is a choreographic choice. Carrillo bends at numerous moments in the program, something evident from the video, not in the screenshots. The position he takes for a moment is beautiful, on a nice outside edge and with a nice curve. The only unpleasant thing is his butt a little too much outside when he straightens up.
This is the moment I mentioned earlier, Carrillo’s long glide before the 3A. Only the last part is the preparation for the jump, the first part, up to the middle of the second line, is a choreographic choice. He can glide.
Chen’s swing. The starting position is less elegant than Brown’s, Chen’s left shoulder feels stiff, and his foot lifts less than Brown’s. The choreographic movement seems to be limited to the right arm, the left is flabby, as he doesn’t know what to do with it. This is evident from the position of the hand, extended in Brown’s case, feeble in Chen’s.
Little glide. Chen is moving forward, in a run-up. Does he embellish it? Does he do anything meaningful? It’s not clear from this camera, so I looked at what he did in the National championship. The technical elements, the correctness of the turns, must be looked at only in the Beijing program, because the GOEs are linked to the single program, but sometimes for the badly framed choreographic passages I have sought a confirmation to what the skaters did in the National championship. There can be differences, sometimes there are, but sometimes the comparison allows us to better understand a position.
OK, forget it. Chen lifts his left foot for a moment, but his position is simple and ugly. His body is stiff and with his buttocks out.
Shortly after, Chen makes another glide. I confess, I took a lot of screenshots of Chen. Because? Because I was looking for a moment when he was elegant. I believe I have failed. Here Chen lifts his left foot and lets himself glide a little bit, probably to say that he is not running, that he does not struggle, but he does it in a clumsy way. In the third screenshot he has his butt out, leaning his back, as if he doesn’t feel safe standing upright. His shoulders are stiff. I also looked at the National championship, wondering if it was a complicated position to maintain, for which commitment was needed, and it’s only I that didn’t understand the difficulty from the Beijing camera because it was not clear. But no, for a skater participating in the Olympic Games maintaining balance in that position should be simple. Yet, looking at him, it seems that he is struggling.
Another swing. Again, the leg does not go very high, and from this shot we see that the movement is broken into two phases, Chen moves first the thigh and then the lower leg. In this way the momentum is smallest, the leg rises less, the back does not participate in the movement, and the balance is easier to maintain. Chen does a bit of a scene, but it doesn’t do anything special.
Here he just did a crossunder, then he does a very short glide backwards – never more than two seconds on one foot, remember? and usually less than 1 second – with a choreographic movement of the arms, he changes foot and direction and continues with his in-between. I looked at Chen’s arms… and felt mine drop. But how stiff is he? How stiff is his neck, shoulders, back, legs? I know, raising our arms to shoulder height, bringing them backwards, is not really the most natural thing. To understand if the movement could be done with an ounce of elegance, I looked at another skater, a few months older than him (a few months older at the time of the video, however this skater did that movement even when he was 20 years old, not only at 23).
If I’m not wrong, while Hanyu moves his arms, with a very elegant gesture, he does a rocker. That is, he combines the technical part, a difficult turn, with the choreography, and since to conclude the movement he bends the legs and not the back, and that the head moves with the body, instead of seeming sticked over it, his carriage is always impeccable. There is gold, and gold.
In the fourth screenshot I succeeded: this is the moment when Chen’s posture is elegant (don’t watch the left shoulder). Do we want to talk about his butt before and after? Of his back? Of his shoulders?
Glide forward. For a moment in the front shot the position is beautiful. I did not go to check if there is a lateral view, I leave to Chen the benefit of the doubt. However, the position is simple, with the free foot very low, the arms well outstretched so that it is easier to maintain balance and the center of gravity central. I don’t say anything about the starting and ending positions of this sequence of screenshots.
This is not a particular move. Chen is simply moving on the rink. What we see is the maximum extension of the leg when he tries to give some elegance to his movements. If he find it… I leave the judgement to you
Again, really little glide, the free foot is low, and he is in a beautiful position just for a couple of screenshots, before and after we could talk about it.
This time I have to admit that Chen lifted the foot. This is the only time in the program that she has achieved this position. Okay, he didn’t have to do it multiple times, but let’s look at what he did. He raised his free foot just above knee height. By the time his foot is higher (screenshot 3), the leg he skates on is bent and the center of gravity is exactly above the foot, so it’s not a position for which good balance is needed, not for a skater at his level. Immediately afterwards he extends his leg and shifts the center of gravity towards the outside of the body, and although the angle formed by his legs has become acute (before it was obtuse), this is a more challenging position to maintain. We see the difficulty immediately after, when he puts his second foot on the ice, with his body in a very ugly position, because he urgently needs to find a stable balance. The left shoulder is stiff all the time, the right one only at the beginning and at the end, of the body position I do not say more. The whole movement – two feet, glide on one foot, two feet – takes less than two seconds.
While for Chen I took lots of screenshots in a vain attempt to find an elegant pose, I didn’t have to struggle with Hanyu. This is the same crossover we have seen before. After the push, Hanyu lifts his left foot (third screenshot), and glides for over a second. I stopped the screenshot just before he changes foot. His arms and shoulders are always relaxed, his head, which at first is deliberately lowered, is raised in an elegant position that extends the line of the back and leg. The center of gravity is far outward respect to the foot, to maintain this position he needs an excellent sense of balance, and when Hanyu abandons the position he does so by working with his legs, and keeping his back straight. It might be enough here, on a single crossover Hanyu did more that the other skaters I’ve already watched, but I took two more moments instead.
A few seconds later Hanyu makes his second crossover. And, again, he stretches his leg. Considering that his back is straight, his foot is a long way off the ice. It’s not clear from the image of Beijing, so I also took an image from the National Championship. The foot is back and to the side and, again, the center of gravity is shifted. Hanyu concludes almost all of his pushes by stretching out, transforming a gesture that serves to gain speed into a gesture that is beautiful to look at. And, even if you can’t understand from the screenshots, Hanyu stretches exactly in time with the notes. Skating skills, transitions, composition, performance (which is physical, emotional and intellectual involvement, projection, carriage and clarity of movement, and not doing so many quadruples without falling) and interpretation: there is everything in this simple gesture.
This position is reminiscent of another one that Hanyu did at the beginning of the program but, since the two movements are different, I will write about the other position at another time. Hanyu has just turned and, before his second pivot, complete his movement by extending his leg backwards. As in Chen’s case, the entire gesture lasts less than two seconds, but they couldn’t be more different.
The red line indicates the height of the free foot (I considered the center of the foot as a reference point). The vertical yellow line crosses the chin, showing how far the skater moves away from the center of gravity. I could have drawn another line, which passes from the shoulder that is further back, the left for Chen, the right for Hanyu. Which shoulder (the vertical line from the shulder) is more distant from the skating foot? The orange lines show the inclination of the body, starting from the head and crossing the back, with respect to the horizontal axis, and the inclination of the supporting leg. The green line shows the inclination of the shoulders with respect to the vertical axis. The sharper the angles, the more difficult the position is to maintain. The purple ovals show the position of the hands. A hand slightly behind helps maintain balance, a hand far behind is a difficult choreographic position (try moving one arm back like Hanyu does, then tell me if you are comfortable). A hand forward is reassuring, having none… ever had the doubt of the risk of slipping and break your chin on the ice?
This is Kagiyama’s glide that I have already mentioned. He is initially in the 4S landing position, then makes a long glide that includes a counter.
After a choctaw Kagiyama extends his leg back, then swings it. The leg does not rise very high, the best gesture remains that of Brown, but Yuma skates on only one foot for three seconds.
This is the maximum extension of the free leg during the simple skating. I haven’t looked at the whole movement, from these screeenshots we don’t see how he moves before and after, but it certainly doesn’t try to enrich the gesture. For him, a stroke is just that: a stroke.
Immediately after a swizzle Uno stretches like this. Positive aspect: the free leg is very high, comparable only to Hanyu’s. Neutral aspect: the inclination of the body is very small, the center of balance is in a position that is very easy to maintain. Negative aspect: do I really have to mention the butt at the beginning and end of the movement? At first it is less noticeable because the shot is frontal, but Uno starts from a bad position, moves to a good one, and ends up in a bad one.
Really long glide made by Uno, 4 seconds. When curving, Uno has a nice outside edge, and at the same time, he swings his free leg. The foot does not go up that much. What happens next? Uno puts himself in a position of perfect balance. The edge is flat, the weight of the body perfectly vertical on the skate. Only when he has reached a position that is easy to maintain – for someone who is able to glide, in Chen’s case I have some doubts – does he perform choreographic movements with both arms and one leg. Without shifting the weight of the body. The difficulty is in continuing to slide, not in the changes of position, and in fact Uno lifts one leg, placing himself in an awkward position for a moment, and comes out in the simplest way, shifting the balance to his right. The leg could have made him unbalance to the right, he exploited the unbalance by widening his leg a lot and shifting his weight to the right. It’s the easiest way out of that position. Not that it is wrong to do so, I simply notice that the whole gesture is not simple, but neither is it particularly difficult.
Taking Vasiljevs’s screenshots is much more complicated. His program is only within the video of the entire short program, and going back and forth to find a precise movement is more difficult. Here he has just done two crossovers, and since he has just picked up speed what does he do? He loses some with a backward glide, joined by a particular movement of the free leg. His back is straight.
Vasiljevs has just done the 3F, he pushed himself, then glide, with an elegant carriage comparable only to Hanyu’s. True, his center of gravity is comfortable, but his body line is perfect.
Swing. Vasiljevs lifts his leg less than Brown, more than Uno, and, it seems to me, as much as Chen did in the best of three swings he did.
Simple skating. Here Vasiljevs is not doing anything special – there is a swing, but from the shot we can hardly understand – but he is skating. Looking at his program we can’t help but notice: he is always erect, he always extends his legs well. Even when it is a succession of strokes, his movement is not a simple stroke. It’s a stroke, a choreographic breath, and then another stroke. With the back straight, and with the head and arms which are not rigidly attached to the body, but which follow his movements.
Even when he is looking for speed, Vasiljevs reminds us that between a crossover and the other one can assume a good position.
This is one of the difficult turn combinations. I ignored almost all of them because the step sequence has its own score, and every skater has to do two combinations of three difficult turns. Vasilievs, however, does four turns, then does a swing, another turn, and only after six seconds puts his second foot down. Difficulty of skating on one foot? Vasiljevs doesn’t know what it is.
For now I will stop here, in the next few days I will look at what else these skaters have done in their programs.
