Anastasiia Gubanova | Page 8 | Golden Skate

Anastasiia Gubanova

puremagic

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Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 14, 2016
Thank you, my angel. You are incredible. All what I predicted here - came through. I kept my 500 post for this. So this is it. Good luck to you in the JGPF and Russian nationals.
 

mish

Match Penalty
Joined
Sep 30, 2016
Congratulations for being an angel on ice, Princess Anastasia. :agree2: :luv17:
 

sjid

Final Flight
Joined
Apr 17, 2014
This is the program I will be watching over and over again in the coming weeks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqlNy_kzWPk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqlNy_kzWPk

That was superb, just incredible.

The music is in four chapters. Together they trace the experience of first love. The first chapter portrays a girl who has only dreamed of love. Notice how the music is child-like. From her first beaming smile, Anastasiia is a carefree girl in her own world, her every movement is a delight.

At 1:26 she suddenly enters another level of awareness. An arm is thrust out and brought back to her heart, her arms open as they fall, her private world is now shared with another. The music throbs like blood coursing through ones veins. Watch her movement after the spin, the variations of falling arms and reaching out are all about falling in love. The standing sequence 2:02 to 2:07 is a summary of her awakening to first love. Her head snaps back, emotionally she is no longer the carefree child we first met. Everything stops as her entire being is directed toward love. Watch her expression, she makes this a very moving experience.

Then the music transforms the scene. We hear an ethereal flute, stars sparkle, and balalaikas strum in the background. Chapter 3 is all about the transcendent experience of love, the spell of love. This is the jump section, she leaves the earth again and again.

At 2:52 she brings her arms down to signal a new chapter. Intensity builds and builds, notice the pushing away gesture at 2:55 and the spinning turbulence from 3:04 to 3:09. This is her first experience with passion. The rest of this chapter is devoted to her experience of mature love. Beginning at 3:09 the music returns to the melody of chapter 3, but now it is orchestrated fully. She rotates 4 times, then goes into a series of spins. As Aretha Franklin sings about love, I am lost in a spin. The transcendent melody surges in great waves, this is quite dramatic. But Anastasiia isn't finished. At 3:30 she breaks from the spins, we see her lift her arms and drop them forcefully with open palms, then an extended arm, and then a hand extended upward as if in a salute. This explosion of feeling using now-familiar gestures is reinforced with a dramatic modulation in the music. She is at her best as she animates this great climax. She then jumps to another level of being, and a final spin.

The program seems last much longer than 4 minutes. There is so much content presented so well, time stretches with the experience. It is a program without weaknesses, with Anastasiia its greatest strength.
 

puremagic

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Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 14, 2016
One thing which bother me - it's Nastya's 3Lz-3T. Earlier, in previous seasons, she did 3Lz-3Lo. But in the past season something started to go wrong and she often fell on this combo. They decided to change it to 3T. And I think this is the main reason why she do this combo so, uhm, I don't know how to call it. She needs to reload herself and it looks not good like her other jumps. I'm okay with her turns before 3Lo because jump looks gorgeous anyway. But combo 3Lz-3T makes me feel not good. I hope she will come back to the 3Lz-3Lo. It will give her more points and also more esthetic look at combo overall.

Oh, and at this competition I heard an absolutely wonderful music. It's Hana's Eyes by Maksim Mrvica. I swear I will cry (in a good way of course) if Nastya will use it in the next season. It will be sensational.
 

Pracygr

On the Ice
Joined
May 6, 2016
One thing which bother me - it's Nastya's 3Lz-3T. Earlier, in previous seasons, she did 3Lz-3Lo. But in the past season something started to go wrong and she often fell on this combo. They decided to change it to 3T. And I think this is the main reason why she do this combo so, uhm, I don't know how to call it. She needs to reload herself and it looks not good like her other jumps. I'm okay with her turns before 3Lo because jump looks gorgeous anyway. But combo 3Lz-3T makes me feel not good. I hope she will come back to the 3Lz-3Lo. It will give her more points and also more esthetic look at combo overall.
She didn't always use loop combos. In fact she only used them for one season - the previous one, and it wasn't very successful for her. Although I think the main problem she encountered was tilting in her Lutz. It made adding any jump, loop or toe, very difficult. And the thing is, she didn't have that in training. It made me very happy to see in Dresden that tilting was gone. Anastasia mentioned in a short interview that this time around her mental preparation for competition was different. I think what was happening before is that agitation she started to get in competitions messed with her timings.

As for 3Lz-3T, the thing that doesn't look quite so smooth right now is her reach back for 3T and it wasn't always problematic. For example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhwKKMP1dMk&feature=youtu.be&t=19. At her age body grows the fastest, and that can cause motions that worked well for you before to no longer work quite as well. But now that the main obstacle is off the way she will work it out.
 

puremagic

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Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 14, 2016
So many bad news in the last time. I guess I should stop watching figure skating until Russian Nationals. But this lady always inspire me and give me a hope.

Good luck to you, my angel.
 

Sam-Skwantch

“I solemnly swear I’m up to no good”
Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 29, 2013
Country
United-States
I can't wait to see her skate again at JGPF :hap85: Her programs are so good but with her it's all about the delivery. She's become one of my absolute favorites this year without a doubt. Good luck to Nastya
 

puremagic

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Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 14, 2016
2nd December was Nastya's birthday. She's 14 now :)

I wish you all the best, my angel. I still can't forget her tears at Junior Russian Nationals 2016. This moment changed me. Before this I thought she's just ordinary girl. But through her tears I saw her soul. She is angel.
 

puremagic

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Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 14, 2016
Even without a combo and with a fall - very solid and wonderful short program. Her spins, her movements looked awesome. I wish you a clean skate, Nastya. Everything else you have.
 

The Finn

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 27, 2015
She was so amazing today!! I am bit sad that she didn't win but Alina was in a class of her own here.
 

sjid

Final Flight
Joined
Apr 17, 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIsRr57IXKA All time cues refer to this video. (For convenience, I suggest you go to that video where you will find a copy of this post. There you can cue up the times automatically by clicking on them.)

Anastasiia's R&J traces the emotional journey of first love. It shows us Juliet's changing emotions as her attraction to Romeo evolves into mature love. R&J has been done before, but Anastasiia's method makes this program different from all others. She uses variations of two symbolic gestures, falling arms and arm pulled to heart, to trace evolving love. Here are some examples of how she varies each gesture to represent changes of emotion.

1. Falling arms: This gesture is introduced in the daydream at 1:10, here it is brusque and mechanical, there is no depth of feeling (it is the imagination of a girl before being touched by love). We see a variation of this gesture at 1:34, here arms are lowered with awe and reverence (this her first impression of Romeo). A graceful variation introduces the standing section at 2:03, where her world stops from the strength of her feeling (here she reflects upon Romeo with tenderness). At 2:56 falling arms end a sequence of jumps representing bliss (this urgent variation is the transition between two sections, from bliss to passion). At 3:38 the gesture becomes an emphatic snapping down of her arms (this is the emotional climax of the program, she is completely possessed by love for Romeo).

2. Arm pulled to heart: This gesture is introduced at 1:30, her first encounter with her sweetheart where she pulls him into her heart. Next is the very moving variation at 2:08 where she pulls both arms to her heart which becomes an embrace. We see another two-arm variation at 3:10, here it ends the passion section like an emotional exclamation point. The pulling gesture is reversed at 2:59 to show resistance to overwhelming emotion, and it becomes a jubilant salute at 3:40.

Both gestures were carefully chosen for their emotional context, the falling arms gesture represents Romeo, and the arm pulled to heart represents her love for him. Variations of these two gestures let us trace her deepening feelings visually, we see her emotions evolve and intensify. As we see familiar gestures change, we feel the evolving emotions of first love.

Variation of carefully chosen symbols for dramatic affect is common in classical music, ballet, etc., but rare in skating. Yulia Lipnitskaia is the only other skater who uses this method (watch her Leningrad, Skate America from the perspective of symbol development). Skillful variation of gestures-symbols to connect varying emotions raises Anastasiia's program to a high artistic level. There are other symbols in R&J, even spins and jumps become symbols in this intricate and moving program. Anastasiia, her coach and her choreographers deserve much praise.

EDIT: Last and final change on 12-11-16, I'm mostly satisfied with it now.
 
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