Marshalls on now

[3ggi3]

Marshalls is on TV!
Ryan Jahnke is skating right now.
Rather bad skate though, poor guy.

[3ggi3]

I just want to make my comments on the event:
My marks given in parentheses.

MENS

Evgeni: His program was rather slow, but very exciting. There was a lot of two foot gliding, but he managed to keep up the passion of The Godfather with great technical elements. I like the costume. [5.8/5.8]

Evan: His landing wrap is kind of peevish. He did do a great job and his neat artistic additions are quite interesting. Nice costume. [5.7/5.7]

Johnny: He looked pissed off. Great costume. [5.5/5.6]

Brian: Nowhere near two years ago. I dislike the brown leather. I like his landings. [5.6/5.7]


LADIES

Michelle: Her dress is absolutely exquisite. I love it; although it is the same colour combination as her Aranjuez dress, the creative cut and the skirt and the gathers and ties are perfect for accentuating the music. I also love the simple gold detail. Her program had more interesting movements and spins, but she looked a little slow. She looked like she was enjoying herself, though. I can't wait to see what else she does for the program for Nationals. [5.6/5.8]

Sasha: I like this dress. I think it is her best dress yet. I think Pasdedeaux is too much like Swan Lake; it doesn't have the fire that can fuel Sasha. The choreography, though there were many technical errors, was more eye-catching. I like the choreographical improvements. I also like how she is adding more joy to her spiral and I love her back catch-layback spin. [5.3/5.7]

Jenny: Though her jumps tend to be underrotated she maintained a gentle flow. I love the spunk of her program, and her new costume is simple and stunning. [5.5/5.6]

Irina: Thank God they cut the skirt in half. It looks so much better on her. Though it shows off the lack of skating basics, it enhances her athletic style and her fabulous legs. I love her dress. However, she needs a new choreographer. I am so happy for her. She skated a clean program and made it look so easy. Watch out world! [5.9/5.7]

[Schmeck]

I've never seen Sasha look so bad on the ice - third place was an early Christmas present by the judges. She looked like she really got hurt on that second splat! Her program has great potential, but she just lost it - the beginning was spectacular, and deserved high presentation marks, but the middle third was terrible (as in no value to it at all, just a bunch of disrupting falls! - it should be weighed in as a negative presentation even), and the end had no jump content, so I cannot see how she deserved anything higher than a 5.5 for presentation. How would they score that in CoP, I wonder? Hopefully she got it all out of her system at this cheesefest, at least!

Michelle looked slow, and tentative, and I can't remember ever seeing her do such a wonky double axel. Her two new spins were interesting, glad she's added them to her arsenal, and the footwork sequence was brilliant - lots of multiple, one foot turning in both directions.

Michelle's scores seemed about right, but I didn't get to see the rest of the ladies - so I guess I can't really compare the scores. I just felt that Sasha's presentation scores were way too high. But then, they are just placeholders, so the actual number doesn't really count for much.

[Schmeck]

Bondo, I think three falls in a row, with no content in between can lower the presentation score a great deal - basically over a minute of skating crossovers, nothing else. Sasha's program was also front-loaded with jumps. She also hasn't cleaned up her obvious flutz, and only landed two clean triples, according to the commentators. And you don't think she let the falls faze her? Why'd she mess up three times in a row then? She looked very upset after the first one, worse after the second, and grimaced through the rest of her program. I do think the falls got to her. The higher presentation marks were a gift, pure and simple. It looked like same-old Sasha to me. Did she have any new spins, etc? When is anyone going to complain that she's in a rut? Luckily, it was just a cheesefest, and hopefully she'll get it all together for Nationals.

[MQSeries]

Marshall’s Review
Ladies
3. Michelle 5.4/5.5
Not fond of the skirt on this dress. 2loop on combo was underrotated.


If that 2loop was underrotated then there's a monkey coming out of my butt.

[Schmeck]

Yes Bondo, you gave Sasha a gift as well, and cleverly lowered Michelle's presentation scores, so that you would place Sasha over Michelle, again... :roll: :lol: It's getting very predictable, Bondo.

I'm hoping Santa brings me the DVD-rw/VCR combo for Christmas. I wasn't able to watch all of Marshall's, or record it either, so I can't comment very deeply on this competition, only that I thought the presentation scores for Sasha were pathetic, but that I also realize this competition was just a cheesefest, and not to be taken seriously. Of course, the casual fan that watched it must be totally confused about skating once again, LOL!

[hiliairyh]

Yes Bondo, you gave Sasha a gift as well, and cleverly lowered Michelle's presentation scores, so that you would place Sasha over Michelle, again... :roll: :lol:

ITA

It's getting very predictable, Bondo.

LOL!

That is call consistency

[turtlehead]

So, Bondo...you REALLY think that Sasha should be placed above Michelle with Sasha's terrible performance? Perhaps they should reconsider your memebrship of the reality based community. :roll: :lol: There is simply no way that you can justify putting Sasha ahead of Michelle. Above Jenny and Angela? ABSOLUTELY. Above Michelle, NO WAY! Your admiration of Sasha isn't part of the presentation mark.

[nyskatefan]

Michelle's presentation style doesn't merit high marks the past few years. There are variations between better and worse, but on the whole it won't be as high. If I am going to give her a higher mark on presentation she'll, have to...CHANGE. That can't be that shocking can it? If she adds stronger choreography, she can get back to higher presentation scores again from me.


Well maybe if Michelle works really, really hard ... someday you will give her better marks. I sure hope she doesn't lose too much sleep over this.
I can tell you Bondo, you used to annoy me with these sort of posts, but now I consider them a great source of entertainment. Thanks!

[Schmeck]

Like I said in my P.S. I don't REALLY think that Sasha should be placed above Michelle. I do however REALLY think that Sasha merited a 5.7 presentation score (as did some of the judges) and I really think the rest of my scores should be as they are. So despite not really thinking Sasha should be placed above Michelle, the nature of the system makes it so.

On thing about the presentation score...it is actually helpful that the falls were within a very short time because it is less distracting to the program to have them together rather than creating problems spread out through the program. That is another factor that probably made the .1 difference.

I don't know which part made me laugh harder, the 'nature of the system', or that the falls were less distracting since they happened right after each other. Thank you Bondo, I needed a good laugh tonight! :lol:

[phoenixxx]

I don't know how anybody can say the Nutcracker has "great" choreography, while Bolero has "no" choreography (minus the first 15 seconds). Or vice versa

They both suck in the choreo. department.

So, when I see somebody saying the one has more choreo. than the other...therefore it's "great"....it's pretty much clear who they're biased to.

ETA: This isn't solely directed at you Bondo....it's from what I'vve gathered from the message boards I frequent (MF, SF, FSU).

[Schmeck]

phoenixx, I agree, neither program has any great choreography. I wonder if that's because of CoP, having to focus on the stuff that gets higher points. Both programs appeared very raw. Hopefully, they are getting a bit cooked between now and Nationals, LOL!

[nyskatefan]

You see Bondo, that's just the problem ... you don't have differing points of view. You always find fault with Michelle, so that when she actually does have a program that's not up to par, it's difficult to take anything you say as honestly constructive ... sort of the like the boy who cried wolf.
The funny thing is ... I actually agree with some things you said ... you just don't make it easy.
My opinion (if you care), is that MK was slow ... really not up to par with this program ... yet. And that is the key word ... yet. If she goes to Nats and skates it like this, she will probably lose. That's assuming of course, that someone else takes advantage of that opportunity. So far noone has at Nats.
As far as Sahsa goes, I think she is an extremely gifted and beautiful skater ... and has the potential to be the best in the world. But clearly something is wrong. By now she should have had that breakthrough ... she should be able to skate a LP cleanly, at least some of the time ... when it counts. Until that happens, we will unfortunately see evenings like the one at Marshalls.

[_back_layback_]

I am not a great fan of MK, but I found that she always skated reasonably well. In this program, however, she seemed to skate more heavily on the ice, not moving as smoothly as usual. I also noticed her 3 flip was cheated. This surprised me because, while she is not to my taste, she always seemed to have strong jumps. I got the feeling that she cheated the jump first when she was skating her program, so I paid attention to her feet in the slow-motion reply, and saw that she turned the last of the rotation on her toepick.

None of the ladies really looked up to par this competition, possibly apart from IS. In my opinion she looked better than she has in a while, and her opening jump (I think it was a lutz) was just enormous. Way to go Irina! :bow:

[HSF]

Bondo, I guess what frustrates me is the fact that you keep saying your marks are "in the range of the judges." That is a meaningless statement. The mark of 5.6 by one judge can be the equivalent of a 5.8 of another judge. The marks are meaningless. It is the ordinal awarded by these marks that is relevant.

After Michele skated she got straight 1st place ordinals. That was irrelevant as she was the first skater and ANY marks she got would have had her in first place. After Sasha skated she got straight 2nd place ordinals. That was relevant because it meant every judge placed her below Michelle. Obviously, your scoring did not agree with any judge.

Of course Irina outskated both of them and bumped them to 2nd and 3rd. It was a well deserved win by Irina. She deservedly got all 1st place ordinals.

I guess I just don't understand your reasoning.

HSF

[fadedstardust]

Sasha: I like this dress. I think it is her best dress yet.


It's her 2nd swan lake dress from Worlds. Her Nutcracker dress got lost by the airline. I hate white dresses on white ice, and I think white only looks good with blonde hair, either way. I never liked this dress on her, all I liked were the fluffy feathers on her skirt.

[fadedstardust]

2. Sasha 5.2/5.7
First, as a preface, in 6.0 free skate, falls are not a deduction, they only count against the skater in interruption to the program on the artistic mark. So one must consider the tech that is there. The number of falls is irrelevant. She had two nice 3/2 combos. The spins are faster and have nicer positions. One major thing to notice is that the choreo remains throughout and doesn’t get crammed into convenient spots. She didn’t really seem to let the falls faze her, I suspect she knew this might not be her best program so she didn’t get as put off by it as usual. She holds her spirals, with strong edging, for so much longer than about anyone.

Coming off the injury, I was not expecting brilliance, the falls were unfortunate, but if you remove all the jumps, you’ve got the best skate of the night, beautiful spins and spirals, great choreography that runs throughout. If Sasha can get her jumps back, the program is there to put them into, perhaps with tuning up the difficulty of some entries like had been with the ina into jump. No one can predict how she’ll come along, but her program is prepared for her to compete with the best this year, even with less jump difficulty. She is even with Michelle right now overall, but the chances of Sasha’s jumps coming back seem higher than Michelle greatly reworking her program.


First of all let me say that I think Michelle's program is about the worst program I saw that night, and probably any other night. Same program for 5 years and running now, I think. Crossovers, jumps, spins, one change of edge spiral, two arm movements, done. I hate it, it's an abomination to Bolero. She starts off so well and then apparently gets bored. BUT, Sasha...I know that you love her and think you are being objective, but I don't think you are. She's my favorite ladies skater right now, which doesn't mean I can't say she's been going downhill and that she's hit rock-bottom. The jumps on which she did not fall were stiff and some landings were wobbly, with no height (though Sasha never had much jump-height). She had no emotion- first time in a long time did I see Sasha not even attempting to interpret the music. She was all over the place, sure her spins and spiral is nice, but if you "take out the jumps" then you're not at a figure skating competition, so you can't review a program that way. She may have the best spiral and best spins, but she can't land her jumps, so it doesn't really matter much in competition. Perhaps she should spend a little MORE time on landing jumps. We're not even talking 3/3 or quad here...just the jumps everyone else lands once in a while. Also, her spiral and spins have remained the same since 2000. They're great, but they're not any better at all, they are the exact same. If we are talking about Michelle not progressing (which, I think she has, her spins and stroking are faster and her jumps a little higher) then Sasha is regressing. She used to screw up ONE jump. She landed 1 truly good jump in her whole program, that's just not gonna cut it. I don't think this is her year, she's taken a TON of time off- some warranted, some not, and her coach is just so wrong for her. I mean did she ever SEE Sarah Hughes' jumps before deciding her coach would be good to help her? Jumps is all Sasha needs help on. She's not getting it from Robin. But yes, her program is beautiful. One of the only actually choreographed programs in all of ladies' skating, along with Joannie Rochette. Nice to see.

[fadedstardust]

I don't know how anybody can say the Nutcracker has "great" choreography, while Bolero has "no" choreography (minus the first 15 seconds). Or vice versa

They both suck in the choreo. department.

So, when I see somebody saying the one has more choreo. than the other...therefore it's "great"....it's pretty much clear who they're biased to.

ETA: This isn't solely directed at you Bondo....it's from what I'vve gathered from the message boards I frequent (MF, SF, FSU).

And yet, it's true. If you're too lazy to watch the program and pick off each arm movement one by one, just compare the footwork sections. One is challenging, mostly on one foot, goes heavily in both directions, and most importantly in judging the choreo. GOES WITH THE MUSIC, and one....does not. Go on, just look at them again. Same as Joubert vs Weir, one is challenging, goes to the music, etc...and one is just there to fill up space. Which is which?

[likes2skate]

Like I said in my P.S. I don't REALLY think that Sasha should be placed above Michelle. I do however REALLY think that Sasha merited a 5.7 presentation score (as did some of the judges) and I really think the rest of my scores should be as they are. So despite not really thinking Sasha should be placed above Michelle, the nature of the system makes it so.

On thing about the presentation score...it is actually helpful that the falls were within a very short time because it is less distracting to the program to have them together rather than creating problems spread out through the program. That is another factor that probably made the .1 difference.

3 falls are extremely distracting, no matter where they are. And personally, I think it is worse when they are all in a row, because I do not remember what happened in between all of the falls. I remember the beginning, and the end. All I remember from the middle is falling.

[icedancer2]

3 falls are extremely distracting, no matter where they are. And personally, I think it is worse when they are all in a row, because I do not remember what happened in between all of the falls. I remember the beginning, and the end. All I remember from the middle is falling.

I would agree with this. it seemed that once she fell, the whole rest of the program was about the 1st fall. She totally lost concentration -- I felt really bad for her of course, but the basic feeling was that she just wanted to get it over with.

Who could blame her?

[r3incarnation]

Woah, I never thought Sasha could be help up that much. Bondo has just proven that it is possible to place skaters according to their names.

[r3incarnation]

It's her 2nd swan lake dress from Worlds. Her Nutcracker dress got lost by the airline. I hate white dresses on white ice, and I think white only looks good with blonde hair, either way. I never liked this dress on her, all I liked were the fluffy feathers on her skirt.

I love white on white! It is so flowing and weightless a la Xue Shen in her Nutrcracker dress!

[danibellerika]

It's high time this stops. If Bondo's posts annoy you, you can go to your control panel and ignore him. Until then, this bickering is getting old :roll: We're all entitled to our opinions so long as it isn't bashing.