#i wonder who the iamo dance teachers are

[sunskate]

A/V are carried by her extensive training in Vaganova ballet. Teams can get away with murder below the knees with judges and audiences alike if the girl has perfect carriage and gorgeous arms and hands and carries no tension in her neck and shoulders so it always looks effortless even if everything is going horribly wrong (Madi Chock is one of the most decorated ice dancers of all time through this avenue). Ontario needs to find a serious ballet teacher if London has one because their most promising team V/B have everything going for them except for that and they’ll lose to less skilled skaters who do have it as a result.

oof. it’s true there seems to be a bonus for beautiful dance carriage ... for some teams lol - is it bc judges differ on what they value in skating skills but extensive ballet training sets a few skaters apart?

but if a skater has beautiful ballet carriage and gorgeous arms, then reflect that in Presentation and the 'multidimensional movements and use of space' criteria of the Composition score, don't give them blanket higher PCS for it? flow, power, speed, and glide are part of the Skating Skills score, and it doesn't always feel like those are adequately rewarded. like if there's a beautiful dancer bonus, then there should be a long glide, filling the rink with your power and speed bonus too

this is not a criticism of Aboian/Veselukhin - they're doing amazing straight out of the gate, have beautiful qualities and have been executing their programs well. i notice that seeing them on video magnifies what they do well, and that it's much less noticeable they're skating small etc than in person

but the judges are there in the arena, so idgi. W/T had a twizzle mistake in the RD, and i didn't love their FD program, but i don't understand how the judges gave them lower PCS for their skating skills than A/V in the FD or how they were down a point each in GOE on their lifts and step sequence by comparison

W/T's scores felt low for what they put on the ice. and i'm simultaneously puzzled about these programs and packaging. they can still make JGPF and the Junior Worlds podium, but thinking back the last couple seasons to the Mrazeks, B/B, N/M, L/Q and more - their Jr Worlds programs had stakes - you can see it when a coaching/choreo team is swinging for the podium, and i don't get that vibe here. which is odd, since they have the potential

[sunskate]

looking at IAM's website, they have lift coaches, an acting coach, and 3 dance coaches on staff -

London, Ontario's metro area has a population of 543K - i have to translate to US terms bc it's just my frame of reference, but that's about the size of Akron, Ohio, New Haven, Connecticut, or Des Moines Iowa -

IAMO doesn't lack anything skating-wise in their training, and Adrian and Scott must be great lift coaches. but i'm curious about the dance component. you can have incredible talent in any field in any place. but what smaller cities often don't have is depth - like in their dance community - to find teachers with the right personality, a good fit for your school - the way Sam Chouinard seems like a mainstay of IAM by now - i wonder who they have in London to do off ice dance with the skaters

i was just listening to Charlie White on a podcast, he said they have a dance studio at Arctic Edge and they have a professor of dance from University of Michigan on staff. but Detroit metro area has 4.3 million people

we never hear of or see anyone but outside dancers like Sam, Sarah Steben and the choreographer Layla Karnes brought in from Europe at IAMO, though the skaters do seem to be taking dance classes (and not like they show us much 😅)

[sunskate]

Didn't V/M do some of their most inspired programs with a local choreographer, like Pink Floyd and Carmen? I get what you're saying about depth and area, but I'm not looking at MIDA's programs and thinking "wow, they must have great choreographers" - quite the opposite. I'm actually impressed by what IAMO is putting out, they're really nailing it for me.

i was wondering about dance teachers, like who do the teams do their regular ballet classes with, who do they work with on ballroom, Latin, contemporary dance on an ongoing basis. they have brought in dancers for a week at a time. i was curious who works with them after Sam goes home

MIDA’s choreographers are Charlie, Tanith and Greg. just like the IAMO choreographers are the skating coaches. supplemented by the dancers they work with. but both MIDA and IAM have dance coaches on staff giving regular sessions to skaters