#aci 2023 rd

[sunskate]

this RD today-

Pate and Bye were the cleanest and the performance closest to their intention, so credit to them. it felt like watching two different kinds of ice dance at this event, though -- PB take many small short steps and strokes to build speed and kind of stitch together everything that happens between elements. you never see a long glide. they're capable of it, because in the warmup they speed around the rink in long strokes, but not in the program. so because of that, they don't cover much ice with each stroke. they're good at disguising it, but if you watch what they're drawing on the ice, it's very choppy and serpentine - they never ride an edge for more than 2 beats at a time on one foot. and i think in the long run, you're never going to be as beautiful as teams with glide and deep edges. the flow and the range to portray different speeds and characters of music isn't there if you don't glide.

i watched it again, and it's kind of making me mad lol on a blade level, they're practically walking on the ice. on a screen you can get fooled by the choppy steps thing because the tempo of the steps is faster-- you see the feet moving a lot, and that can look like more energy, but it doesn't necessarily translate -

Olivia and Tim cover far more ice than anyone else here - it’s big skating and really exciting at times to watch. the late part of the program feels a bit empty, but on a skating level, it’s so dynamic, and she's so good. talk about drawing big lobes on the ice with her blades. she does look like she's leading him at times and like he's working to keep up with her. but mostly he is

IAMO teams have glide and cover more ice in long strokes but i think it takes time to develop the ability to do everything this way with speed and precision - Alyssa and Jacob have grown so much in the last year, but they can be a bit slower overall than some of the other teams, and it felt like the panel was pretty harsh on them. but watch the beginning of their program - they're making these arcs on the ice and not using a ton of crossovers or little pushy steps to do it, and when the music changes energy, they're musical - they're responding to it. i think that's why some of the silly dance moves (flexing their biceps, kissing them) don't bother me, though maybe the judges didn't love it. same for Leia and Pietro - the new MSS shirts that say "ride the glide" reflect what that school teaches, i think. VM and HD certainly skated that way. a number of the IAM teams here skate more like this too

i like Lopareva/Brissaud's RD a lot. i love this music - i didn't know Mylene Farmer before. Evgenia lost balance in that knee slide and touched a hand down, which she didn't do in practice this morning, and that didn't get called a fall, and their twizzles also didn't get docked in GOE much despite his bobble. (this event had soo many twizzle errors)

Wolfkostin/Tsarevskiy are doing so well for being brand new - i'm happy for her. was thinking about that Florence+the Machine FD she had last year and how it never got near potential and how uncomfortable she and Jeffrey looked all season- there really is such a thing as chemistry

coaches wrangle jackets, skate guards, water bottles, and tissue boxes for the skaters - every coach no matter who does this - but i'd never sat behind them to see that after the skaters blow their noses, they ball up the tissue and leave them on the boards in front of their coach😅 i keep getting distracted watching the skating and miss whether the coaches actually have to dispose of those too lol imagine leaving your snotty tissue for Marie-France Dubreuil to clean up