Repeating Programs - Pros and Cons

andromache said:

Wow it's so cool when someone gets all over-emotional and offended over nothing, then someone explains to them why they're wrong, and then the first person pretends like they never really cared in the first place lol

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oh when did i get all emotional? i think you may be looking a little too deep into some of these responses bud

OS said:

Hanyu for me used to be the perfect balance of artistic and technical skater, but with this season's decision, it seems he decidedly wanting to become a Plushy more than anyone else.

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Well, to be fair, Hanyu is putting his "best-of-my-past-programs" across both the SP and LP, instead of just in the freeskate.

chillgil said:

oh when did i get all emotional? i think you may be looking a little too deep into some of these responses bud

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PS you are still in error about believing that people called Hanyu lazy

In the interest of returning to a meaningful and productive discussion - how do we feel about the difference between repeating programs that have already been skated perfectly versus programs that have never before been skated perfectly? Personally, I can get on board with the latter moreso than the former. It's so satisfying to finally get THAT perfect performance, like the second time around with Hanyu's Chopin and Javi's Malaguena.

andromache said:

PS you are still in error about believing that people called Hanyu lazy

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chillgil said:

"taking the easy way out" is another way of saying lazy by the way

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I don't believe any skating fan would call Hanyu lazy, however else they feel about him.

OTOH, equating "taking the easy way out" with "lazy" is mental laziness.

Hanyu, along with other skaters, have opted to using programs from previous years, particularly ones that worked well for them which audiences/judges responded well to.

It's lazy in the sense that it takes more effort to come up with a new program, that to go with something tried and tested. And I think folks would be cooler with it, had he only done it for one programs. But nobody is saying he's a lazy athlete or laziness defines him. This decision is taking the easier road compared to a new program with 5 quads or a new SP, but that's not so much lazy as it is playing it safe (again, it's not referring to the content, it's referring to the choice of not doing something new).

andromache brought up a good point - I'm also curious to know how many skaters who are defending the repeating of programs have also bashed Javier for doing mainly character programs (I'm sure some are bashing his choice of a Chaplin SP, and if Javi announces he's repeating a past FS they'll doubly criticize him for it too), or suggesting that Osmond is limited in her range of program selections, or who have criticized Medvedeva for doing similar choreo/programs, etc. etc. etc. I'm sure I could find at least one or two people who criticized Chan for repeating Four Seasons, or Brezina for bringing back Kodo Drums, and obviously a slew of people have criticized past repeat-program skaters like Joubert and Bonaly. People who accuse other skaters of doing the same old, but then when their favourite skater literally picks the same programs all of a sudden, they're absolved from the same criticism reserved for other skaters.

beki said:

They were, and I think that spurs some of the whiplash now. But last year expanding his artistic boundaries was his goal, and this year winning the OGM is.

I understand the branding idea, but it's something I really dislike about modern life. How we're all supposed to create personal brands, commodify and sell ourselves quickly and coherently in elevator pitches. No, please let's be multifaceted, living breathing human beings instead. Let's be a little different every day, and every year.

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Yuzuru is fascinating in that his performances of LGC and H&L of the same program can vary from competition to competition. Especially in H&L, his NHK performance was wonderful. I hope to see the same from him this season too.

Yuzuru said Seimei was the program that allowed him to be himself, perhaps it's the personal connection he feels with Abe no Seimei himself and his affinity towards Japanese theatre. I feel like this is sort of well, an obsession or attachment for him at the moment. Not that I know much about him, but his visits to the Seimei shrine and fawning over Mansai Nomura suggest that a lot lol. So to me, it's probably a very personal program for him that he might feel deserves a bigger stage and to be done in a way where his technique and artistic execution can finally inch closer to his perceived ideal SEIMEI which is basically what he thinks equates to an OGM winning performance.

CanadianSkaterGuy said:

andromache brought up a good point - I'm also curious to know how many skaters who are defending the repeating of programs have also bashed Javier for doing mainly character programs (I'm sure some are bashing his choice of a Chaplin SP, and if Javi announces he's repeating a past FS they'll doubly criticize him for it too), or suggesting that Osmond is limited in her range of program selections, or who have criticized Medvedeva for doing similar choreo/programs, etc. etc. etc. I'm sure I could find at least one or two people who criticized Chan for repeating Four Seasons, or Brezina for bringing back Kodo Drums, and obviously a slew of people have criticized past repeat-program skaters like Joubert and Bonaly. People who accuse other skaters of doing the same old, but then when their favourite skater literally picks the same programs all of a sudden, they're absolved from the same criticism reserved for other skaters.

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I can't speak for the other skaters, but Medvedeva has been running the same pantomime schill for 4 seasons now...

FCSSp4 said:

Yuzuru is fascinating in that his performances of LGC and H&L of the same program can vary from competition to competition. Especially in H&L, his NHK performance was wonderful. I hope to see the same from him this season too.

Yuzuru said Seimei was the program that allowed him to be himself, perhaps it's the personal connection he feels with Abe no Seimei himself and his affinity towards Japanese theatre. I feel like this is sort of well, an obsession or attachment for him at the moment. Not that I know much about him, but his visits to the Seimei shrine and fawning over Mansai Nomura suggest that a lot lol. So to me, it's probably a very personal program for him that he might feel deserves a bigger stage and to be done in a way where his technique and artistic execution can finally inch closer to his perceived ideal SEIMEI which is basically what he thinks equates to an OGM winning performance.

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Fair enough... how do you explain Chopin?

OS said:

Fair enough... how do you explain Chopin?

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Haha! Reading his interviews, he was hesitant about doing it again but he feels 'comfortable' with it as well. This move seemed a lot less personal and a more strategic move especially since his layout is more similar to his '14 one which was the 'original' Ballade no.1 before he decided to add two quads mid-season '15-'16. He does say however that he feels like he can improve upon it which I thought was non-sense at first (because revisiting a program the third time can come off as outrageous even to me, a big time Hanyu fan) but his renditions at Fantasy on Ice showed what's improved in his skating, especially the spins and having a 4T3T as your last jumping pass-- it's quite daring to say the least.

But yeah Seimei, he said outright that when he skated Seimei clean two times during the 15-16 season he decided it'd be his Olympic freeskate. Boy, he really likes Seimei. I don't blame him, Abe no Seimei was a cool dude with ~*magic*~.

So it comes off that Ballade is something he can have to regain his confidence in SPs and Seimei is just Yuzuru reaaalllyyy loving that program. I'm just a fan though so I might be completely off the mark here.

To get the topic back on the general pros and cons, and away from a single skater- which can make comments seem personal and pointed (even if they are not meant that way) Is anyone keeping track of who in the past has repeated programs and whether it was considered to be a good, or bad decision in the end? -This is so we can see the general trend and outcomes of such choices, not to mock or belittle other skaters. Past examples also have the added benefit of having more time for the dust to settle and we can put on our 20/20 glasses.
Example: Shizuka Arakawa repeated her Turnandot (warhorse-recycle double whammy!) at the Torino Olympics and it became an epic moment for her and many skating fans will consider it a moment to remember. -So, good decision.
Any that have turned out badly?

OS said:

Okay, apologies for the long response to GKelly. Please skip if you dislike art theory/ideologists like me to rant about COP again!! ( Haven't done one of those for a while... here goes...)

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I love to discuss art theory, but I don’t think that it is appropriate to hold competitive sport to criteria developed to evaluate art for art’s sake.

If you’d like to discuss how to evaluate skating performances from the perspective of trained artists, art critics, aesthetic theorists, etc., and what appropriate rules might look like for an artistic skating competition, let’s start a thread for that purpose. I bet we would agree on a lot and stimulate some good new thoughts from each other in that context.

But in the context of Olympic-style sport, I think most of those criteria are irrelevant or subordinate. That’s where we fundamentally disagree.

OS said:

The elite standard of anything demands elite quality of judging like anything to do with the optimum peaks of human possibilities.

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Depending how you’re defining “elite,” keep in mind that the IJS (and for that matter the 6.0 system before it) was not developed specifically for elite use only.

The ISU makes rules under which all senior competitors are judged – be they world/Olympic medal contenders or below-average entrants in a small senior B competition or anywhere in between, and all junior competitors ditto.

Ideally the system should be flexible enough to allow judges to make fine distinctions between gold and silver medals, or between who does or doesn’t make the cut to the freeskate at Europeans. And insofar as most federations use the ISU rules verbatim for their domestic qualifying competitions, also between who qualifies to advance from a sectional or similarly named event to the national championships. The skill levels may be different, but the principle is the same.

And a skater who hopes to qualify through sectionals to Nationals to Worlds gets to compete under the same rules all season long and not suddenly face different short program requirements or element base values or PCS factors from one event to the next.

By the way, I fundamentally disagree figure skating programs requires to be 'entertaining'. Instead, they should be judged on the quality of delivery of key concepts, artistic ambitions, and the processes of getting there: how visible and well thought out they are, acknowledging and understanding of source material, decisions on why and how to they make it uniquely true to the performer and success on deliverying the intention of the program.

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I don’t maintain that skating programs “should” be entertaining – just that that is one possible effect of performances that aspire to artistry.

But I also think that all the criteria you name above are not fundamental to evaluating good skating. There is room for judges to consider and reward them under some of the Performance, Composition, and Interpretation bullet points. But they are not, in my opinion or my understanding of the ISU's intentions, more important than the other bullet points of those same program components that relate more toward skill mastery. Key concepts, being well thought out, understanding source material, etc., probably fit most under the “purpose” bullet point of the Composition component. And often they relate more to the coach/choreographer’s vision than the skater’s.

And ISU competition isn’t a choreography competition, it’s a skating competition, with the purpose of determining who is the best skater on that day. The skater’s execution of the choreographic choices are better measures of who is the best skater than the artistic vision of whoever came up with the idea and the specific choices for this program.

Now, if we were talking about a different kind of competition where the artistic vision is primary and the skater’s technical skills are only means to that end, then we’d be looking at very different kinds of competition formats and rules.

I would very much enjoy watching such an event and seeing skaters develop their artistic sensibilities along with their technical skills to succeed in that arena at the highest level. But I don’t think it belongs in the Olympics or Olympic-track skating competitions leading up to it.

OS said:

Performance art is Arrrrt daahling

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Yeah, well, SEIMEI 2.0 has a big chance to be same artisticly great as the first one so is Chopin 3.0. So will we miss art in Hanyu department this season- honestly? No. There will be both risky TES and beautiful programs with a lot of artistry involved. Not new, sure. But totally artistic all the way.

lilahozi said:

I can't speak for the other skaters, but Medvedeva has been running the same pantomime schill for 4 seasons now...

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A comment like this was exactly what CanadianSkaterGuy referred to.

lilahozi said:

I can't speak for the other skaters, but Medvedeva has been running the same pantomime schill for 4 seasons now...

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There are actors who perform similar roles most of their careers, and that never stopped them from getting work or discouraged people from watching their movies. If the entertainment industry can be forging of something like that why can't the figure skating community do the same. This is a sport and skaters are using the programs to present their skills in the best package possible. If they felt more comfortable with a certain style or character, they can stick to it for as long as they want. We can be bored with it as fans, but it is still within the roles and they are not doing anything wrong.

Neenah16 said:

There are actors who perform similar roles most of their careers, and that never stopped them from getting work or discouraged people from watching their movies. If the entertainment industry can be forging of something like that why can't the figure skating community do the same. This is a sport and skaters are using the programs to present their skills in the best package possible. If they felt more comfortable with a certain style or character, they can stick to it for as long as they want. We can be bored with it as fans, but it is still within the roles and they are not doing anything wrong.

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oh, but I can´t tolerate that certain famous young actress who won some oscars and she always is acting exactly the same :disapp:

MaiKatze said:

I am undermining the effort? Me? Wow, I didn't know I had such powers.

Now, let's look at this without getting emotional. Yuzuru chooses a program he already skated to before. Yes, he might change things around. But essentially it is still Seimei, Yuzuru still connects to the character of Abe no Seimei, the onmyōji. It is the same story, the same persona, the same connection. He doesn't have to find that connection. He's essentially doing what Javier does when he skates to Chaplin. He's already found the character and interpretation. So let's assume he would skate to something completely new, like at the beginning of last season to a Prince song, Let's go crazy. This is significantly harder because it's new, and he had to find the character and interpretation first. And that takes time. So, yes, I think it is easier. But what do I know, I'm simple minded after all.

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You don't need powers just common sense.

I'm lack of emotion to be honest I honestly don't mind people disappointed, there will always be two side of a coin but I do mind when people assuming things based on their own personal judgement that skaters can be laid back since they are repeating program, or skaters are lazy, or skaters is taking the safe route in order to win. Because I know, I am just a spectator who in no way would know how hard these athletes work. I wouldn't know how discussion goes that leads them to make this decision, what kind of matter did they consider etc for me to accuse this decision being easy.

I'm sure if it is easy everyone from top to bottom could skate to that program. [Bolded#2] You just mentioned exactly why he chose to skate to the program as he mentioned in the interviews, he already understand the characters and the interpretation, he is familiar with it. Having that in bag, he could focus on polishing the elements that as a whole package, the flowing steps, the ease of entering in and outside of jump, consistency in tackling the program as whole. Because whether you like it or not, skaters can fake interpretation and character, they can imitate it differently from program to program some people will still say he didn't feel the program or some people said he embodies the program, because it's subjective, however you cannot imitate a quality jump (landing it everytime), steps, transition. Those elements need to practice and rehearse (it takes years even), and so just like interpretation it's time consuming. So if your perspectives concluded that this is easy to practice within 8 months for a skater to perfected everything, then I admire you.

gkelly said:

I love to discuss art theory, but I don’t think that it is appropriate to hold competitive sport to criteria developed to evaluate art for art’s sake.

If you’d like to discuss how to evaluate skating performances from the perspective of trained artists, art critics, aesthetic theorists, etc., and what appropriate rules might look like for an artistic skating competition, let’s start a thread for that purpose. I bet we would agree on a lot and stimulate some good new thoughts from each other in that context.

But in the context of Olympic-style sport, I think most of those criteria are irrelevant or subordinate. That’s where we fundamentally disagree.


Depending how you’re defining “elite,” keep in mind that the IJS (and for that matter the 6.0 system before it) was not developed specifically for elite use only.

The ISU makes rules under which all senior competitors are judged – be they world/Olympic medal contenders or below-average entrants in a small senior B competition or anywhere in between, and all junior competitors ditto.

Ideally the system should be flexible enough to allow judges to make fine distinctions between gold and silver medals, or between who does or doesn’t make the cut to the freeskate at Europeans. And insofar as most federations use the ISU rules verbatim for their domestic qualifying competitions, also between who qualifies to advance from a sectional or similarly named event to the national championships. The skill levels may be different, but the principle is the same.

And a skater who hopes to qualify through sectionals to Nationals to Worlds gets to compete under the same rules all season long and not suddenly face different short program requirements or element base values or PCS factors from one event to the next.



I don’t maintain that skating programs “should” be entertaining – just that that is one possible effect of performances that aspire to artistry.

But I also think that all the criteria you name above are not fundamental to evaluating good skating. There is room for judges to consider and reward them under some of the Performance, Composition, and Interpretation bullet points. But they are not, in my opinion or my understanding of the ISU's intentions, more important than the other bullet points of those same program components that relate more toward skill mastery. Key concepts, being well thought out, understanding source material, etc., probably fit most under the “purpose” bullet point of the Composition component. And often they relate more to the coach/choreographer’s vision than the skater’s.

And ISU competition isn’t a choreography competition, it’s a skating competition, with the purpose of determining who is the best skater on that day. The skater’s execution of the choreographic choices are better measures of who is the best skater than the artistic vision of whoever came up with the idea and the specific choices for this program.

Now, if we were talking about a different kind of competition where the artistic vision is primary and the skater’s technical skills are only means to that end, then we’d be looking at very different kinds of competition formats and rules.

I would very much enjoy watching such an event and seeing skaters develop their artistic sensibilities along with their technical skills to succeed in that arena at the highest level. But I don’t think it belongs in the Olympics or Olympic-track skating competitions leading up to it.

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Love and agree with all of your points.

ranran said:

You don't need powers just common sense.

I'm lack of emotion to be honest I honestly don't mind people disappointed, there will always be two side of a coin but I do mind when people assuming things based on their own personal judgement that skaters can be laid back since they are repeating program, or skaters are lazy, or skaters is taking the safe route in order to win. Because I know, I am just a spectator who in no way would know how hard these athletes work. I wouldn't know how discussion goes that leads them to make this decision, what kind of matter did they consider etc for me to accuse this decision being easy.

I'm sure if it is easy everyone from top to bottom could skate to that program. [Bolded#2] You just mentioned exactly why he chose to skate to the program as he mentioned in the interviews, he already understand the characters and the interpretation, he is familiar with it. Having that in bag, he could focus on polishing the elements that as a whole package, the flowing steps, the ease of entering in and outside of jump, consistency in tackling the program as whole. Because whether you like it or not, skaters can fake interpretation and character, they can imitate it differently from program to program some people will still say he didn't feel the program or some people said he embodies the program, because it's subjective, however you cannot imitate a quality jump (landing it everytime), steps, transition. Those elements need to practice and rehearse (it takes years even), and so just like interpretation it's time consuming. So if your perspectives concluded that this is easy to practice within 8 months for a skater to perfected everything, then I admire you.

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I don't know if it's a language issue, or we're just having a fundamentally different understanding of the sport, but I'll opt out of this discussion now and say, let's agree to disagree. I stand by what I wrote, and your points and argument make no logical sense to me. Just think of me as simple-minded and let go. :giveup:

andromache said:

I see some fans in here trying to have it both ways.

1. I'm so excited to see Seimei again! It was the best program ever, and I'm glad he is doing something he is comfortable with that we know people will appreciate.

2. Yuzuru is putting in just as much effort into "re-working" Seimei as someone who does a completely new program.

Um, if Seimei is going to basically be an entirely new program, why are you so excited to see it "again"? If it's going to be soooooo completely re-worked, how are we so sure that he will be as comfortable with it as the original? If that's the case, wouldn't it just be easier to get music from a new source? There are plenty of Japanese music sources that have gone unused by figure skaters, and many of them might not even be too different from Seimei, and will have plenty of mass appeal.

Skaters don't owe us anything and they can decide to do whatever they want - but we as fans are completely within our rights to be disappointed. We don't owe skaters our undying love and appreciation.

I'm usually 100% on board with skaters repeating a program, especially in an Olympic season when it's important to know what works and what doesn't work for such a huge, mainstream audience - but repeating two in one season goes a little beyond the pale for me, especially since he's already done the SP two season already. If Ashley Wagner was repeating Hip Hip Chin Chin AND Moulin Rouge, I think this entire board (Ashley fans included) would be dragging her choice through the mud.

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Not this Ashley fan.

But other than that .... I agree emphatically with your last sentence. Ashley would be getting so much vilification if she'd chosen to repeat two programs that the whole forum would be sagging with the weight of it.

Just goes to show.