She is a better performer than most. Nor are her skating skills fundamentally worse than the other top skaters. If you're talking about Ashley in the early years of her career, you may have an argument. But you're simply ignoring the leaps and bounds that she has made since she started with Nicks in 2011, and which have allowed her in a period of 5 years to be more than on par with the other top skaters. Her PCS are deserved when you think about her competition.
Ashley Wagner's coaching/choreography
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She is a better performer than most. Nor are her skating skills fundamentally worse than the other top skaters. If you're talking about Ashley in the early years of her career, you may have an argument. But you're simply ignoring the leaps and bounds that she has made since she started with Nicks in 2011, and which have allowed her in a period of 5 years to be more than on par with the other top skaters. Her PCS are deserved when you think about her competition.
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Those are your opinions, but you're stating them as fact. They're not facts. Of course, part of what goes on with component skills is that every viewer and every judge has preferences as to performance dynamics, musical expression, and ways of conveying emotion with movement. That's what makes figure skating so enjoyable and unique.
Do you really think Ashley has that much power with the judges? It doesn't look that way to me.
I think Ashley's technique is beautiful. There's much more to skating skills than counting URs, flutzes and lips. There are many better qualified than I am to speak of technique, on this thread and elsewhere, who dispute your view of her skating skills.
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Most of what goes on with component skills is seniority, the location of the venue, skating order, balance of nationalities, among other factors that make figure skating judging contrived and theatrical rather than analytical of the skaters capabilities.
Right there's skating on one foot, sustained speed, movement from the core rather than just limbs, matching the tempo and phrasing of the music with steps and speed. Ashley is inferior on most of these areas. That's why people call her 'the actress on the ice' because what's special about her skating isn't actually her skating.
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A cynical view. I don't see it that way.
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You don't provide any real reasoning for why you don't agree. "Based on her early years" she was better than you say - Look at that 3Lutz+3Loop! With musicality, expressiveness, attack, and pretty good attention to positioning throughout the whole performance.
Everyone was going wild over Caroline Zhang at the time, and Rachel Flatt also gained a lot of clout that year, but Mirai and Ashley had the most potential to me. And now look 8 years later, those two skaters were on the 2016 World team, and the other two nowhere to be seen. It's unfortunate that neither of them have had the best guidance over the years, even when it was available to them at times...
She didn't need that alteration of reality to happen in order to reach the level of success that I am talking about. What she needed was better programs, starting in 2011 or possibly even earlier, as far back as the 2008/2009 season. The 3 years she spent with Priscilla Hill were not ideal; Priscilla didn't seem to understand CoP skating particularly well and Ashley's skating become more rushed under her. Although it's understandable if Ashley wouldn't have wanted to leave the area where her family was living up through the 2010 Olympic season. Some years of disappointment isn't necessarily a bad thing either, it can be motivating if you have right mindset. Ashley has always been a fighter.
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She still had the flutz but that's as good a back end 3Lo as I've seen.
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That was awesome. What I loved also about that whole performance was her conviction. Great music for Ashley.
I understand a little better now that you were expressing dissatisfaction with Ashley's coaching and choreography. (Which is, of course, the title of the thread! ) Was Hill considered a coach with the stature of John Nicks or Frank Carroll at that time? I know she was Johnny Weir's coach for a few years but that's all I know about her.
I guess my point was that a different coaching choice would require an alteration of what was reality at the time. Nicks or Carroll might have taken her on in JUne 2008. But having been a military kid who hadn't had a stable base of operations, so to speak, it would've been quite a leap to go so far from her family IMO; she'd just turned 17. But of course, there might have been other coaches within reach that would have made different decisions for Ashley.
Ashley never gives up. That's one of the things that makes her such a great champion.
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Yes I'm serious. Ashley can skate to any music and I think Mao is more limited thannAshley.
I disagree. Ashley is not the most balletic skater and slower classical music shows her limitations. Her range is limited to mostly powerful music where she can play a strong fiery character. But she is mostly one dimensional. Yes she's very good at what she's best at but not the most versatile skater.
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She isn't the "most" balletic skater, but she does have good capability in that regard ("had" anyway, back when it was more of a focus for her). Look at what she did with Somewhere in Time. In parts of Black Swan she showed some good balletic detail too. As for other cases of her being great to things that aren't "fiery music", The Red Violin was one of her best and it had more subdued sections.
Mao has good range but she can't really do sexy.
Mao has good range but she can't really do sexy.
In what part is "Hip Hip Chin Chin" tied to playing a strong fiery character? "Spartacus"? "Pollock"? "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"? "The Red Violin", etc. etc. etc.? There's nothing one-dimensional about Ashley's body of work. In addition to "Somewhere in Time" and "Black Swan", I thought her "Romeo and Juliet" was pretty good in terms of balletic detail - sure she didn't love that program at the end of the day, but it didn't mean she wasn't able to skate it effectively. Yes, given the massive success we've had with "Moulin Rouge", we tend to associate her with that program, but to say that she's one-dimensional simply ignores the diverse mix of programs Ashley has put out year after year.
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:agree2: :agree:
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I hope you change your view after Ashley kills this season with her new, slow, non "strong-and-fiery" freeskate :agree:
Seriously, if at any time she's gonna show versatility (which she already has) it's gonna be this season. And something tells me this new fs is gonna leave a lasting impression...
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She said in the interview that she tries to avoid lyrical, because "other skaters can and will do it better" than she. I'm glad about her music choice this year, I think she got the needed confidence push after worlds for that
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That someone skates to different types of music doesn't mean they have a vast artistic range. Whatever she skates to, she relies very heavily on her face and arm movements to interpret the music. None of this is a knock on Ashley; she knows what she does well and mostly sticks to that. Contrast that with Mao, who uses her face and personality more when she skates a jazz piece but uses more of body movement to interpret things like Swan Lake.
But shouldn't skaters always be using every tool in their body to interpret music - from faces to arm movements to body movements? I look at Ashley's body movements in Moulin Rouge v. Hip Hip Chin Chin, and I'm not seeing the same body movements. She moves completely differently in both programs - the only constant is her total commitment to selling the programs.
This. She has the exact same OTT way of performing all her programs.
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I think Ashley can veer into OTT expressions a bit with "Moulin Rouge," but I disagree she does that in all her programs. Overall I think she's a strong performer, and I enjoy most of her programs.
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Since working with Nicks in 2011? She called the 15-16 season season her "year of transitions." In this narrative of your mind, did Nicks make her a master of every aspect of skating other than transitions? She is a markedly more sluggish than pretty much every other woman in the top 5. She doesn't have particularly beautiful body lines. She isn't very fast. She can't do steps nearly as well as the top women. Exactly what qualities to her skating warrants the high marks in your mind, and if so was she just getting unfairly marked for the last half decade, or did she just all of a sudden get that much better?
