#I’ve got a big ramble about body representation I’ll have to post here some day | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

cuttlefishkitch · 4 years ago

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hello! i haven't talked to you before, but ron said that i could ask you for some advice on writing eds? (i'd like to know things to avoid/common things that could come up in everyday life that would be good to mention/the sort of aids and stuff they'd have maybe?/anything else you think is relevant)

Hi! Sorry this took so long, a combination of ADHD and chronic pain slowed me way the fuck down. Thank you for being patient!

EDIT: WEIRD HEEL THINGS I FORGOT!!

So, before I get into this I should probably say I technically haven’t been diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS for anyone reading) because it’s one of those syndromes that takes forever to get diagnosed with (it took a friend of mine’s mother over 30 years to get dxed). Many doctors, and everyone I know who does have EDS agree with me that it’s probably what causes my chronic joint pain and some of my other chronic issues. But just because three separate doctors have said “Yeah Probably” doesn’t mean I’m diagnosed!! Only a geneticist can do that!! And they had two-three year waitlists BEFORE the apocalypse happened.

I am diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), Small Fiber Neuropathy, and potentially misdiagnosed with Fibromyalgia (once I get properly tested for EDS I might get undiagnosed with this because I don’t have most of the main symptoms of Fibro, but I got diagnosed with it anyway because it’s what doctors misDX you with when they don’t know what’s wrong with you and don’t want to do more tests).

All that said, I’ve done a lot of research about EDS (mainly because it’s the only thing that explains all my symptoms since doctors seem incapable of doing so), and know a few people who have either confirmed or suspected EDS, so I’ll link to some stuff, talk about the symptoms that often come with EDS, explain how the symptoms I have affect me, because just because someone’s not diagnosed doesn’t mean they aren’t having symptoms, and probs elaborate a bit about writing physical disabilities and chronic pain in general because it’s super important to me!

So RESOURCES aka how to make sure your post never sees the light of day because you’re linking things and tumblr hates it when people give other people information!!

Youtubers! If you want to know about the day to day of living with EDS or any disability or chronic illness I super suggest finding a youtuber that makes videos about their life. My EDS favorites are

Jessica Kellgren-Fozard

Annie Elainey

Amy Lee Fisher

Websites! If you’re asking random folks on tumblr I’m assuming (and hoping) you’ve already done the basic WebMD google searches and looked over the seemingly ridiculous lists of symptoms and related conditions, so here are a few websites that are made more for people than for doctors.

The Ehlers Danlos Society

OhTWIST (That’s Why I’m So Tired)

ChronicPainPartners (the fact that they have an entire section of articles called “Dealing with Doctors” should really tell you something)

Books! If you feel like doing actual reading! I suggest reading books written by people with Ehlers Danlos, to get a feel for how they portray themselves. I’m not saying steal, but it’s probably a good point of comparison to see how your portrayal feels. (haven’t actually read these b/c my ADHD doesn’t let me read)

Ria Ruse by Morgan S. Ray (a superhero book with a disabled super MC!!)

Mysteries of Maybelle by Imani Benfell (Imani is still in high school and has already written and self-published a book cause she didn’t have enough representation for herself how cool is she!!)

Bodies in Motion by Liana Brooks (tw for pregnancy problems and miscarriages in the link, because it’s a blog post talking about integrating EDS symptoms into the story without explicitly naming them as such)

OKAY, now for some rambling about EDS SYMPTOMS!!!

Ehlers Danlos is one monster of a genetic condition in complexity and variety. There are THIRTEEN different identified types of EDS, it often comes with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) and/or POTS, and can lead to various other conditions like gastroparesis, chiari malformation, craniocervical instability, and/or bad teeth. So if you’re going to be writing a character with EDS consider what other comorbid conditions they might also have. I’m mainly going to be talking about Hypermobile EDS (hEDS) because it’s what I probably have and what I’m most familiar with. That said there is a lot of overlap in symptoms with the other varieties.

I started typing this section and realized I was going to have to break it down even more so we’re going to talk about Chronic Pain, Unstable Joints (Dislocations and Subluxations), Skin Things, Mobility Issues, and Other Weird Shit and how those things get addressed separately.

Gonna get the Other Weird Shit out of the way first. Because EDS is a malfunction of connective tissue it can fuck up all sorts of random things. For instance, I and many other people w/ hEDS have trouble swallowing. Shit gets stuck in my throat, I sometimes choke on and have to cough up food, and pills can be hard to swallow, which sucks cause I take A Lot Of Pills. If it doesn’t cause full-on gastroparesis it can cause IBS or other digestive problems b/c the digestive tract is mostly made of connective tissue. It can potentially cause heart problems even if they aren’t as big of a risk as in some other forms of EDS. Premature osteoarthritis is common because what you need is more joint pain. And Fatigue OH BOY THE FATIGUE. And of course the headaches, can’t forget those pesky migraines can we!

AND piezogenic papules!! I completely forgot!! Piezogenic papules are little white bumps that appear when you put weight on your heel. In some people they hurt, but in others they don’t. They’re technically tiny little herniations of fat peaking through the fascia in the heel. They were added as part of the diagnostic criteria for hEDS in 2017!

Now for Skin Things cause it’s not as big a thing in hEDS as it is in other forms. Basically, in a lot of forms of EDS, the skin is extra stretchy and extra delicate. It bruises and tears easily, people with the extreme versions of this can accidentally scratch something into an open wound if they aren’t careful. My skin is pretty soft and sensitive, I def have the typical velvety skin, and as is pretty par for the course of someone with hEDS my skin is a little stretchy, and sorta delicate. I’m not as tissue-papery as some people get, but I almost always have at least one mystery bruise or scrape b/c existing is hazardous. Most of scars are also pretty normal, unlike the extremely papery and atrophic scars (though I have a few tiny acne scars that are atrophic) that are common with other kinds of hEDS. Something that I DO have is Lots of Stretch Marks, all over my thighs, and even down to my calves. Which wouldn’t be abnormal, except for the fact that I’ve never been over 145 lbs and I’ve never been pregnant. Having a lot of stretch marks or striations in the skin without due cause happens because the structure of the skin isn’t as strong as it is in people with a normal amount of connective tissue.

I don’t have to worry as much about my skin but people that do are usually very careful with adhesives because they can irritate or tear the skin, which sucks when you need a lot of bandaids cause your darn skin won’t do its job.

Now on to the meatier stuff and since I’m mostly working backward let’s do Mobility Issues!! These can happen in loads of ways, but a lot of what causes these in people with EDS are the other two things I wanna talk about. Unstable joints lead to increased risk of injury when doing stuff people with fully functioning joints can do.

For context, I’m an ambulatory wheelchair user, meaning I can walk, but a lot of the time it’s better if use a chair. Mine is mostly for my POTS symptoms, but the fact that my legs aren’t also in absolute agony is a big plus. I use a custom manual wheelchair with a SmartDrive (b/c I’m very fucking fortunate and have good insurance) whenever I leave the house and have to be “walking” for more than a few minutes at a time. I can’t fully self-propel in a manual chair because it would be damaging to the joints in my arms and hands, but the smaller chair is easier to maneuver in less than accessible spaces (like almost everywhere). There was about a month-long span where I used a very cheap and very bulky electric chair while I was waiting on the ideal set up I have now. Before that, I also briefly used, and sometimes still use, an up-right posture cane.

People with EDS have widely varying mobility issues because of how uniquely it can manifest. My cane only gave me a little help with balance because if I used it in any prolonged capacity any pain it took away from my legs was relocated to my arms, and as an artist, my arms are more important to me!

If you’re going to write a character with EDS having mobility issues as a result of their EDS the best thing to do is to narrow down their specific needs. Are their knees complete and utter garbage but their shoulders and wrists strong? Maybe they can get away with using a cane. Can they not stand for longer than 5 minutes because of the vertigo from their POTS? Maybe they need a manual wheelchair. Would propelling themself damage their back and arm joints? An electric chair might be necessary! Plenty of people with EDS use all sorts of combinations of these aides to get around their life, consider how your character’s good and bad days would be. Do they have back up plans if they overestimate themselves? There can be a lot to manage, but don’t let it scare you off! Sometimes I try and make it into a resource management game (because I’m a game designer and that’s what I do), to make evaluating my energy and mobility needs more fun!

But now let's tackle some of the reasons those mobility aides might be needed. Unstable Joints.

Ever stepped wrong and rolled your ankle? It hurts for a few steps and then kinda fixes itself, or maybe it bothers you for the rest of the day and you put it up and ice it when you get home? When I was walking around outside my house that would happen AT LEAST once a month, usually more. Some times I’m sitting wrong and when I get up my knee isn’t a knee anymore and decides to just give out from under me. My knuckles are made of unruly popcorn and they Don’t Want To Stay Home!! Oh! And my shoulder is more often out a little out of its socket than it is fully in.

Unstable joints lead to Dislocations and Subluxations of varying intensity, and some people get them more frequently than others. Some can be severe enough to necessitate hospital visits and even surgery, some subluxations are so banal (like my fUCKING SHOULDER) that you just learn to live with the pain.

If a character is going to be in high action, combat-heavy scenarios, chances are they’re going to be popping out joints left and right. Hell, depending on the severity of their joint laxity they could be doing the same sitting at a desk. Again, it’s incredibly varied. I’d suggest setting some sort of baseline for yourself, of what a character’s joints can and can’t stand up to, and maybe do some research on which joints are most likely to pop out in general (hips and shoulders are big culprits being the wacky ball and socket motherfuckers they are). Then maybe have something pop out or hold up every so often when it shouldn’t cause hey! EDS is kinda just like that! Unpredictable!

Some ways people manage joint laxity is with braces, KT tape, and physical therapy. Braces come in many different forms, since I’m currently getting pretty much no treatment for my shitty joints I use mostly compression braces made for sporty people. It really is amazing how much a bit of tight fabric can do to keep my wrist in place.

More specialized braces often have solid parts to prevent the joints from hyper-extending (bending the wrong way) and causing further damage. If you ever see someone with what looks like diamond shaped rings around a bunch of their finger joints, chances are those are Ring Splints, and are there to keep the finger shaped like a finger. I want to get my hands on some and get some on my hands Very Badly, because my fingers hyper-extend SO MUCH when I type, and it makes my hand pain way way worse.

KT tape is another thing people often use. It’s stretchy tape you put on your skin and it basically functions kinda like a second ligament as well as reinforcing the joint and keeping the bones mostly where they’re supposed to be. The problem with this is a lot of people with EDS have very sensitive and fragile skin like I mentioned before, so KT tape can cause allergic reactions, chronic skin irritation, or just straight up take the skin with it when someone goes to remove it. Hence a lot of folks are really careful with it.

Physical Therapy is kinda the best (and only) treatment for joint laxity aside from Very Invasive and sometimes Highly Experimental surgery. It focuses on strengthening the muscles around the joints so they can do the work all those bone ropes made of body glue can’t. The problem is finding a physical therapist that 1) knows what EDS even is, 2) knows you have it, and 3) knows how to treat it without doing stuff that’ll Phucking Hurt You Worse!! Because exercising wrong with EDS can do Permanent Damage!!!

Again most folks use a combination of all of these things, or have next to no access to them b/c healthcare sucks.

Anyway, on to one of my favorite topics, Chronic Pain!! One of the reasons this post took me so long!!!

Chances are if your character has chronic pain as a result of their EDS there are gonna be some things they hate, including stairs, rain, thunderstorms, stairs, hills, uneven terrain, oh and did I mention stairs??? It’s going to vary person to person, but almost everyone I’ve met with pain from EDS has complained about their knees. For me the most debilitating pain is in my fingers and wrists. They’re by far my least stable joints but I use them constantly for stuff like drawing, typing, and sewing.

Because my joint pain is so wide spread, like most people’s with hEDS, it effects every single part of my day to day life. I can’t carry a heavy ceramic plate, open a bottle, or even use my computer without pain. It’s practically impossible for me to get comfortable in any position be it sitting or laying down, and as you can imagine that makes it hard to sleep a lot of the time. Moving too much hurts, but so does sitting still. I’m constantly taking braces on and off or cracking/stretching my joints so they pop back into place and hurt less.

Also being in pain makes everything else That Much Worse. I get tired way faster than I did before my pain was this bad (I had chronic pain for a while before actually realizing it wasn’t normal to not be able to walk down the block without feeling like your foot bones are trying to escape). My sensory issues and anxiety disorder are more easily aggravated because my base level of comfort is way worse. It fucks with my depression. And OH BOY does it make my ADHD worse because being in pain is fucking distracting as hell and makes it harder to make decisions and switch tasks. Also my ADHD often makes my other symptoms worse cause I forget to take my meds, don’t drink enough water, or can’t find my fucking braces because the item eating black-hole that comes with ADHD stole them. The intersection of mental and physical disabilities is probably a rant for another time though, so back to chronic pain.

Does it suck? Yes, undoubtedly. Is this incredibly debilitating? Of course it is, I spent the last several months unable to feed myself without assistance because there was a staircase between my room and the kitchen and I could only manage to climb it once a day. Is it overwhelming? Definitely, I’ve frequently broken down crying from a combination of pain and frustration because I’m having a bad day and there’s no relief to be found. Am I able to predict when it’s going to rain with uncanny accuracy because any change in barometric pressure makes me feel like every bone in my body is trying to kill it’s neighbors? You bet your fucking ass I am!! Does it sometimes make me irritable, angry, and occasionally dismissive of when abled people get cold or a temporary injury because the stuff they’re complaining about is my life every single day and all avenues of treatment and recovery I have could take years and still not entirely solve my issues? Yeah, and while I deserve a little extra patience I also have to be sure to check myself because I don’t want to turn into someone who’s nasty to be around. Do I sometimes need to sleep for 17 hours straight because it’s raining, I have migraine, and I’m in too much pain to be conscious? Yup, sometimes a few days in a row. Does living in constant pain mean I’m unable to do all the things I want to and does that sometimes make me wanna curl up in bed and never leave? Yeah, it happens.

But! And here’s the big important but, that’s not everything! I still write, draw, and talk to my friends!! It might take me a little longer but I get there. I’m still happy and excitable and make the time to write out five page long posts about EDS because it’s something I’m passionate about! My chronic pain doesn’t stop me. I refuse to let it. I never really wanted to go mountain climbing anyway, so I’m perfectly happy being able to make it up and down the six steps in my house, even if sometimes I have to sit and bump down them on my ass, or crawl up them like a cat. Chronic pain isn’t all I am. It isn’t a fate worse than death. It isn’t the only thing your character should talk about (though I do talk about my pain a lot cause I’m a complainer about almost everything). You can have your character be hindered by their pain, realistically they would be. You can have them seek comfort, support, and relief. Other characters can commiserate and be sympathetic, but it doesn’t mean their whole life is going to be one big pity party, that would be incredibly fucking boring. I know I’d be bored out of my mind.

All that said dealing with chronic pain, especially from EDS, is Complicated. Physical Therapy is the gold standard, but like I said before it can be a long and difficult process, and isn’t always accessible. Stabilization methods like I talked about before can help prevent pain, or reduce it by keeping bones mostly where they belong. Heat and cold help joints, relax muscles, and reduce inflammation but keeping them applied is rough and the relief doesn’t always last. Doctors prescribe anti-depressants, anti-anxiety, and sometimes even anti-epileptic medication to help manage pain, but everyone’s mileage with those varies. And I’m not at all qualified to talk in-depth about narcotics or other heavy duty pain-meds, but suffice to say the war on drugs fucked shit up for people that legit need that kind of help BIG TIME.

Now for my closer/bonus rant about EDS and Disability Writing in General!

Everyone always says write what you know, so if you really want to do disabled people justice, get to know disabled people! Make friends with disabled people, get involved with advocacy groups, consume content made by disabled creators both about disability and not! Disabilities are so fucking diverse, even EDS is such a complex disorder, and comes with so many potential co-morbidities, that practically everyone with it has a unique experience. There’s no way I can fully explain everything in a tumblr post. Hell, even if I could talk to you for hours probably couldn’t give you enough info to answer all your questions (especially since I’m still in diagnosis hell :,) ), so talk to a wide range of people with EDS and other disabilities!! I know it sounds like a lot of work but trust me, disabled people are some of the strongest, raddest, coolest, people you will ever meet that it won’t feel like it.

And don’t be afraid either, the fact that EDS and other disabilities are so wildly varied means that you have a little bit of wiggle room with your character’s experience. There’s so little disability rep out their I think people are WAY to scared to try their hand at writing it. So long as your character is a fully developed person in addition to being disabled, you give some logical thought as to how it would affect their life, and you don’t make their disability the butt of any joke it isn’t difficult to avoid ableist writing. PLEASE WRITE MORE DISABLED PEOPLE AND PEOPLE WITH CHRONIC PAIN/CHRONIC ILLNESS!!

Okay that’s it, again sorry it took so long for me to get back to you! My fingers were being little pests about it, and my ADHD (which is honestly more disabling than everything else a lot of the time lmao) was being an asshole! Hope this helps, and feel free to ask me more questions if you need clarification! It might take me a bit but I do love talking about this stuff.

#neela-chaan #ehlers danlos syndrome #EDS #hEDS #hypermobile ehlers danlos #disability #writing advice #disability writing #Chronic Pain #asks #SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG IM JUST SLOW #also i'm sorry the formatting is such a wreck #my adhd won't let me go back and fix it #and i've already spent way too much time

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the-poutine-routine · 6 years ago

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Have you talked much about Valse Triste? Could be fun to go back to their first senior fd!

Ok… let’s do this *cracks knuckles* *plays vm spotify playlist*

Hi anon! I mean I’ve mentioned Valse Triste I think...? But never have I ranted about it in great detail, so... um yeah... I guess I’ll do that now.

Overall thoughts:

I think as a whole Valse Triste was super fitting to who Tessa and Scott were as skaters at the time. The music had both a sense of levity and of maturity that matched the situation of being a couple of kids thrown into a competition with a whole bunch of seasoned ice dancers. I guess the main thing that stood out to me as they performed was- to steal one of the commentators’ phrasing- how automatic they look. Even after skating together for only ten years (I know, it’s such a short amount of time), they fall into hold together so easily, they always know where the other is on the ice. Moreover, they look so prepared, they go through all the elements so smoothly and precisely as if they never have to even think about what’s coming next.

They look like they have something to prove.

So I love Valse Triste, it’s probably one of my favorite programs of theirs (that’s a lie, they’re all my favorites). I guess I see it as almost a pre-cursor to Mahler. It has the same sort of mood that I can’t quite find the words for right now... a brightness and joyfulness but with the faintest undertones of melancholy (damn, I sound like a pretentious asshole).

It’s almost like with Mahler they’re just a couple of kids dancing, showing the world what they’ve got; while with Valse Triste they’re just a couple of kids dancing, showing the world that they have something to give.

Initial notes on the limitations of my analysis:

Normally I like to give my overall thoughts (see above) at the end of these nonsensical rants, but this got insanely long and in depth (and illustrated) so I’m adding a break.

ALSO, normally when I’m doing analyses it’s from a specific competition and I’m comparing vm’s scores to another team, however, with this one, I’m not really out here arguing that Tessa and Scott were lowballed, so more than anything, I’m comparing them to themselves at present. I’m not saying that they were better or worse at any given time (although obviously Valse Triste was more than ten years ago, so they did make a lot of improvements from them until 2018...)

And, as always, I am no ice dance expert so everything that I say may or may not be complete and utter bullshit.

Oh, one last thing! I get super in depth about the program and all its elements yadda yadda, but then I have a blurb about why IJS isn’t that great of a judging system at the end so that might be worth while to read even if you don’t care about the rest of my rambling soooo yeah...

Ok hi! Hope you’re doing well!

Anywho, here’s the video that I watched. I used Worlds because, in theory, that should be their best skate / the best representation of the program as a whole.

Ok, so here’s the protocol:

The judging, base values, component scoring, etc. have all obviously changed quite a bit since 2007, however I’m too lazy to re-learn IJS based on the 2007 system, so we’re just going to have to make do with my knowledge of the 2018 system. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Technical Element Scores (aka me blabbering incoherently because I wrote this part after doing PCS and my brain no longer wants to be organized):

The first thing I noticed about the TES when looking at the protocol was that while vm got everything called (because they’re freaking legends. Oh my god.), they didn’t have super great GOEs. I guess this kind of makes sense, particularly in the lifts you can kind of see them setting up for them rather than letting them flow with the program.

I think to give this entire shit show of a post a bit more organization, I’m going to break each element down by type and give some quick, spur-of-the-moment, rapid-fire thoughts. Kapeesh?

Lifts:

I think it’s interesting how accurate of a representations Tessa and Scott’s lifts can be to the timeline of their career. The lifts in Valse Triste are all very low to the ground. Tessa has her head almost touching the ice in the straight-line lift, for example.

While the strength and balance needed to execute the lift are very obvious from looking at it, it’s not big or reaching outward like good ol’ cunniliftus or the curved lift from Prince and Moulin Rouge do. However, this isn’t a bad thing, it’s actually more fitting with the program and with who they were as skaters at the time. While they were spectacular ice dancers even back then, they also were just a couple of kids. Having huge lifts in this particular program probably would not only not fit musically, but also almost make it seem as if vm were trying too hard... if that makes sense? (Sorry, it sounds like I’m throwing shade, I promise I’m not, I really do like the lifts and think they’re perfect given the program).

Step Sequences:

Although this isn’t necessarily a technical attribute, I guess what stood out to me most about the step sequences were their confidence. They execute each turn so exactly, there’s no long drawn out edge going into them, every thing about the step sequences ooze self-assuredness, sort of like they’re saying “We’ve practiced this ten trillion times. We know what we’re doing. We’ve got this.”

Spin:

Honestly, I don’t have all that much to comment on this. A spin is a spin is a spin. What I notice more than the spin itself is the transition into and out of it, how quickly they execute it, and the speed with which they move out of it.

Twizzles:

Again, not much to say here... they’re twizzles... Scott does get a bit off on the second one but somehow manages to save it and come out at the same time as Tessa which is pretty amazing hehehe.

Program Component Scores:

Obviously, little baby 2007 Tessa and Scott had a bit of work to do before they became the Ultimate Ice Dancers Supreme™ that they are now, so there component scores were all in the 6-7 range (which is still pretty darn respectable), rather than maxing out in the 9-10 range like they did (crying that I have to use past-tense) in their later career.

Skating Skills:

Honestly, they’re fine? I mean yes they’re very good, but they still do have some work to do. I don’t know… they have very good edges and extensions as per usual, but they do seem to lack a bit of the up-and-down smooth knee bend movement that is super representative of Canadian skating and that they have boatloads of later on in their career. On a bit of a tangent, however, areas in which they do need to improve their skating skills almost lend themselves well to the program (the power of negative space, eh?). They add to the sense of innocence and youth of the program? As in as much as I love the Valse Triste, I think a lot of its meaning and pizzazz would not at all be fitting to a present day vm.

Linking Footwork / Movement:

So I’m going to equate this to the part of the score that’s now called “Transitions” because… yeah… I just am, I’m assuming it’s more or less the same thing. The transitions were actually one of the main things I noticed upon my re-watching of this program. I don’t want to say that their transitions were simpler than they are now, per se, as that makes it seem like they were bad back in the Valse Triste days, but they kind of were… simpler. Rather than using turns and footwork to link together elements, Valse Triste more used crossovers, mini lift-like moves (Tessa looping a leg over Scott, etc.)

and body movements to move from one element to the next. Now, in some ways, this is nice- especially as someone who is not an expert on every. single. ice. dance. element. (particularly those from 2007)- as it really accentuated … oop, writing pause, Come What May just came on and I need to take a sec to look forlornly into the distance … OK SO it really accentuated where each element ended and another began. However, if we’re thinking about flow, which is something that every program really should have, more full? (that’s a weird word, I know) transitions help the more modern vm programs to seem a lot more cohesive than much of their earlier work.

Choreography:

I know that technically on the protocol sheet, “Performance” comes before “Choreography” ties in to what I just blabbered about regarding transitions so… Ok so yeah, not going to lie to y’all, I’m not really a huge fan of Marina-esque choreography. She uses a lot of hops (brief side note: apparently vm got criticism for using hops to pick up speed, but this was literally part of the choreo. What gives?) and pauses as transitions which not only breaks up the elements and takes away from the cohesiveness of the program as a whole, but also doesn’t always make sense given programs with particularly um… ethereal… music, such as Valse Triste, or Mahler, or Seasons.

That being said, something that the choreography does do very well, is being matched appropriately with the music. Although some of this obviously plays into the “Musical Interpretation / Timing” score, the fact that specific body movements or elements were chosen to go at certain points in the program as the mood and temp of the music evolves is very telling of a well-choreographed program. A prime example of this is how the circle step sequence (starting here) is set to a much more lively piece of the music, which makes sense choreographically as they are required to complete multiple turns in quick succession.

Performance & Interpretation / Timing:

So, I’m just going to lump these two together because I’m lazy, because I can, and for reasons that I’ll explain in a hot sec. As always, I think Tessa and Scott did a stellar job of performing this program. Something that they excel at more than probably any other team ever…? is portraying characters and I think this program is a prime example of that. They make use of every body movement and ensure that everything is timed perfectly with even the smallest accent in the music.

Ok so sort of a choppy transition here, but in skating, I am kind of a huge fan of facial expressions (which doesn’t necessarily make sense, as I’m totally one of those people who will beat someone up if they say that figure skating isn’t a sport, but that’s besides the point). The video is not the best quality because like… 2007… but even without being able to see specific minute details of either of their faces, you can tell that they are emoting. For example…

…here you can sort of see their faces and what they’re doing with them which is great, obvs, but more than that you can almost tell the emotion that they are feeling / portraying from their extensions and from their overall body language / movement. They really emote through their entire beings which is a skill that many ice dance teams don’t even come close to doing.

The limitations of IJS:

That hot sec that I mentioned in why I lumped Interpretation and Performance together? That one? Yeah, that hot sec is right now.

Ok, so, one of the things I struggled with in trying to separate out each specific program component to look at is that any skating program is meant to be viewed as an entire entity. Yes, there are individual elements and individual components that all make up the program, but any skater and choreographer worth their salt (is that a saying? I don’t know) will try to add some sense of musicality and flow to a program, whether it be through having a storyline for the program or simply having certain movements that tie everything in the program up in a neat package from beginning to end.

This being the case, it’s really hard to look at a program and parse out which movements are part of choreography, what pieces are thought up by the skater themself as part of the performance, etc. So… yeah it was hard.

Another thing to note is that judging bias is a real thing. In this case I don’t think any biases necessarily came from judges being paid off or playing favorites or anything, but simply due to expectations. It’s not even anything to do with vm themselves, but with every newer senior team. First of all, when a team is placed higher in world rankings, they will skate in a later group at Worlds. This means that in the later groups there is a much higher expectation for the teams to do better and thus when a newer / lower ranked team is particularly good, the judges might be blindsided a bit and not give them that high a score simply because they did not expect that team to be good and consequentially do not see them as good (psychology, anyone?).

Another result of being in an earlier group is that the judges and tech panel aren’t going to want start right off the bat by giving all +3 GOEs and 10.00 component scores. There needs to be somewhere for the scores to go throughout the competition. So pretty much the earlier teams might be scored particularly harshly as they are pretty much setting the bar and being a baseline off of which all the other teams are going to be judged for the rest of the competition. (I mean technically, teams aren’t supposed to be compared to one another but like………)

Wow wow wow ok you made it! Yup, that was very long and probably made no sense and had like twenty different moods because I skipped around while writing it, but maybe you thought it was worth the twelve hours it took you to get through it? Probably not...

Anyway, thank you so much anon for inspiring my ranting :)

#Anonymous #anon #ask #rants and stuff #valse triste #tessa and scott #analyses #wow #I hate that I just wrote this whole thing #If I put this much effort into the rest of my life #...I could be so successful #ok #well have a nice night all!

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