Feb 16, 2022
Watching the Women's Short Program is like watch watching Salt Lake City all over again...
Seriously, who bribed the judges? This is insane!
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Watching the Women's Short Program is like watch watching Salt Lake City all over again...
Seriously, who bribed the judges? This is insane!
What is the average low, average, and high cost of a skating costume? And/all interesting things of mention that might pertain therein?
Skating costumes early in your career tend to be much less expensive, in the $200-$1000 range, depending on if they’re custom made, what fabric is used, how complicated the design is, and amount of beading. Younger skaters often buy gently used costumes at club-sponsored sales, because they grow so fast.
Olympic/World-class skater’s costumes range from $1000-$5000 each, depending on what designer, how complicated the construction of the costume is (fabric, mesh, weird design etc). and of course, how much beading. So, skaters are dropping about $10,000-$15,000 USD on costumes for every season (gotta have that exhibition outfit too!)
Designers often work with skaters to create a costume. After listening to the music, they sketch a few designs. Every skater has preferences (separate pieces, body suit, skirt fabric, sleeves, no sleeves, gloves etc). and costumes are constructed to fit exact proportions with seams that are reinforced to be flexible AND especially durable.
Sometimes a designer is NOT the person/team that actually sews your costume, so if they have a team of stitches, your costume is going to be more expensive.
Here’s an article from the last Olympics that talks about costumes and has an interview with one of the popular designers.
Fun Costume Facts (A Lot are Ignored by Ficcers):
There are actually ISU regulations regarding costumes. And you can lose points for violating them. I wrote a post about them here. (Memo: Yuuri and Victor must be much more clothed than they often appear in some writers descriptions. Yurio couldn’t wear his exhibition outfit for a competition).
Almost all mesh is LINED to prevent it from warping and stretching when it is professionally cleaned. Men sometimes get away without it, but tend to have it anyway…it’s COLD out there. So, no, Yuuri probs doesn’t actually have his skin showing under that Eros mesh…but he might.
Men wear dance belts under their costumes to support/secure their junk. None of the male characters are going totally commando under their costumes, regardless of what you want to happen afterwards. Women are wearing tights, but often wear no underwear (or a thong), because the panty line would show and they have “bras” built into the costumes.
Skating costumes can get wet (almost all bases are waterproof material due to those falls) but they aren’t machine washable because of the beading. Beading is applied BY HAND. And most of the money is going to the time spent by the designer/stitchers laying down your crystals. If they are Swarovski rhinestones, you are racking up a huge bill (i.e. probably Victor).
The warm-up jackets are used to keep the skaters muscles warm, since it’s bad for you to warm up, skate and then let your muscles “get stiff” and “be cold” suddenly. But they jackets are ALSO used to protect their costumes. It’s why you rarely see a skater walking around without one at a competition before or after they leave the ice. Smelly sweat is easy to clean out…stains…not so much. Also: you really wanna have to have those rhinestones replaced?
Exhibition costume aren’t always made by designers and skaters often wear old costumes or put something together themselves that fits the routine, depending on what they are skating to.
Gloves used to be frowned upon and considered ugly because they ruin the line of your hand (and they do and they are). They became more common with the advent of the CoP because elements with blade-grabbing earned more points.
Hope that helps!
Play That Funky Music, Skate Boy: A Guide to Selecting Music for Your Fics
Hello YoI Friends, Fans, and Ficcers! We have teamed up to help you overcome the roadblock in your fic writing process known as music selection. You want Victor and Yuuri to paint their feelings all over the ice, but you also want your fic to be realistic. You might be sitting at your computer wondering, is it this frustrating for real life skaters to choose their music? (Yes. The answer, is yes.) But we are here to help!
Who are you people? Who exactly is “we?” And why are you qualified to make this post?
We are PoetSnoreate and LittleLostStar. Poet Snoreate runs the SpiceCapades (aka this blog), your destination for all the info you need to write a more accurate skating fic or, if you just want to know more about figure skating. A former competitive skater and sister to a current skating coach (codename: Toepick), PoetSnoreate grew up in and around the sport of figure skating.
LittleLostStar is the author of fan-favorite story Setting Sun and ten other Yuri on Ice fic gems, including the new fantasy AU We are Wanderers Still. A human treasury of music genres, styles, and artists, she incorporates her knowledge into her fics and generously helps other authors in their search for the perfect piece to write to or, in this case, write about!
Both of us are friendly and you can stop on by our blogs to follow us and say hi!
Note: PoetSnoreate wrote this intro. And every word of it is true.
Let’s delve into the hows, whys, do’s, and don’ts of music selection under the jump!
why do u think viktor cut his hair? also...did u finish the ask meme?
Honestly, anon, everyone comes up with these really heavy reasons why Victor cut his hair. It’s fun to give Victor some extra baggage…but my idea for why Victor cut his hair is really practical. So here it goes:
THE OFFICIAL SPICE CAPADES THEORY ON WHY VICTOR NIKIFOROV CUT HIS LONG FLOWING LOCKS (WHICH IS NOT MEANT TO DISCOURAGE EMOTIONALLY LOADED THEORIES IN YOUR FICS, BECAUSE I LOVE TO READ THEM):
I think Victor, like a lot of skaters, probably went through a delayed puberty (this is seen more frequently in female skaters. However, from what we know in the show, and the fact that Yuuri, who’s half a head shorter than Victor and leaner can wear his Junior’s costume, this is my guess). Once you do go through puberty, regardless of your biology, you have to readjust to and condition your body accordingly to be able to perform jumps. This is often why skaters put on more muscle after they have crossed the puberty threshold. We see that Victor clearly did.
You rarely see skaters with waist-length hair, let alone those who skate with it in a ponytail* (or down for that matter)…because it weighs you down and drags behind you, and creates resistance (I’m not a science buff, so that might be the wrong term) when you jump. It also has the potential to whip you in the face.
Ergo, I think that Victor cut his hair to make it easier on himself to jump and spin as he got older. (Yeah, I just used ergo. It’s that kind of Monday, lol).
I think it’s perfectly in keeping with Victor’s personality to be super mysterious about something that was done for a practical reason, just to surprise his audience and keep them guessing.
*Note: female skaters and some male skaters do wear ponytails, but they are not as insanely long as Victor’s. I can tell you, the moment one’s hair is long enough to hit you in your face when it is pulled back, is when all skaters head to the hair salon, because it hurts more than you think it would.
And I have answered the following for the meme (is this still a thing, now that we’re on the other side of the weekend?) : 1-4, 6-8, 10-14, 19-23, 25, 26, 28-29 and 30.
(YOI ASK MEME)
So it seems pretty evident, given Victor's challenge, that Yuri in his early career as a junior (I think he was a junior in the flashback?) can at least do one quad (4T and/or 4S?). How early is it possible for skaters to try training quads? I know you've said there are juniors in RL with quads, but 13-19 is still a huge range and doesn't account for body type. Would novices be able to land one? When does it start being physically possible, and when does it stop being potentially dangerous?
In theory, it’s possible for skaters to start training quads as soon as they land all their triples. It’s all dependent on the individual skaters.
A quad is made possible via physics. So, as long as your body can provide the strength to get your specific body high enough in the air to rotate four times, and the smaller you are, the easier it is, you can quad.
In fact, for some skaters, especially the tiny and lean ones like Yurio, quads might be “easier” younger because the physics allows them to spin quickly in the air without having to get so much height off of the ground. If you want to see this in action, check out the Russian ladies’ triples. They barely hover off the ice sometimes. However, sometimes prepubescent skaters lack the strength to complete the jump prior to the muscles puberty gives, so I think it just depends on the individual body type.
Other skaters, like Victor, probably had better success post-puberty, and put on muscle. Clearly, as we can see from the difference in his costumes from his Junior days (Yuuri can fit into the same thing, for crying out loud) that Victor put on quite a bit of muscle and grew a few inches before quading his way to gold.
A novice may be able to complete a quad, but I don’t believe they are allowed to use them in competition (I can’t check right now, my usual source is down).
I tried to do some research for you, but didn’t have much luck with a definitive answer as to safety. Any quad, at any age, due to the insane force you’re landing with (or kissing the ice with) is potentially dangerous, and the amount of landing-leg stress fractures is sky-rocketing.
However, the very few dispatches I found agreed that quads are more dangerous for prepubescent skaters because a severe injury prior to the completion of growth can cause the affected can cause problems later in life (a lot like dancers who are put on point before their feet are fully developed) and, depending on the area, cessation of growth. I’m assuming, based on how tiny Yurio is that Yakov was preventing him from quading before it was medically safe for him to do so, and Yurio was taking after his not so secret idol and refusing to listen. Which is why, I think Victor intervenes and makes his promise to choreograph. But that’s all conjecture.
Sorry I don’t have more concrete answers for you this time, friend!
hi! i was wondering if you could explain the difference between jumps in skating (salchow, axel, etc)? thanks in advance :)
Hi friend!
The jumps are all differentiated by takeoff direction (forward, backward), whether they are edge jumps or pick jumps (the toepick is used to propel the skater into the air, or not), what edge the jump takes off from (inside/ outside) and what direction the jump rotates.
I did a detailed breakdown of all the jumps with video examples, which you can find on the bottom of my masterlist here. (All jump entries are entitled “I Say Jump, You Say How High: The Jump Identification Breakdown [insert specific jump here] Edition”).
Hope that helps!
GP seeding – what (INT ranking/TES/etc) determines whether a skater gets two events? One? One not in their home country? Are host picks filled at the same time as seeding/can they change? What could allow a skater who only got 1 compete in a 2nd anyway? (Like, host pick or replacement ofc, but can someone who did well then be invited to another event?) But wouldn't that be skewed towards skaters who a. their home countries host and b. the home event that year came later than their seeded event?
Hello friend!
Apologies for the delay in response to this question, but seeding is an ISU secret. I’m not even sure they really know how it’s done (I’m totally kidding, it’s in their rulebook) but it took me a bit of digging to find. Also, the rules for seeding have been adjusted over time, as most things are, so keep that in mind if you’re sending our boys through time and space (Note: Is there a Doctor Who AU because…that would hilariously awesome. “Yuuuriii, I’m the doctor!”)
The full treatise on seeding for the Grand Prix from the ISU can be found here. (It’s from 2016-2017). It’s a seventeen page document that answers all of your questions, but is really difficult to summarize.
Basically, if you finish 1-6 in your discipline at World’s, you are guaranteed to be considered to be seeded, by draw, for two events. If there are any vacancies (due to injury, retirement, etc.) after the first six in each discipline, the next highest ranking skater/team from Worlds will be moved up.
Skaters can be invited to compete if they finish 7-12 (Men’s and Ladies) or 7-10 (Ice Dancing/Pairs) at Worlds. If you invited and have this ranking, you are guaranteed to be selected for two events, should your score meet the requirements. You are also eligible to be invited if you previously qualified for the Grand Prix, but could not compete for some reason. Also, skaters who have an ISU World Standing of 1-24 and couples who have a SCORE in the Top 24 but do not hold an ISU World Standing placement of 1-24 will be considered for one event. Even if they don’t meat the minimum score for qualification, which is 3/5 of the highest score per discipline at the ISU World Championships the previous season. So it CHANGES every year.
Each host country can have three skaters maximum competing in a each discipline at their event. BUT, it looks like a host country must must have between 8-12 entries (Men’s and Ladies), between 6-8 entries for Pairs, and 8-10 entries for Ice Dance). This includes the skaters who are selected using the method above. You cannot have more than three skaters. And if you don’t max out your spots, using the above method, you can invite a skater with a top 75 best score. So, to answer your question, no host country gets an unfair advantage.
So, for instance, if you were at Skate Canada, the Canadian Federation can only have three competitors representing Canada in each of the four disciplines. But other Canadian skaters can be competing in other Grand Prix competitions, not hosted in Canada.
There are minimum scores to compete in the Grand Prix, if you are coming in from other ISU events, such as the challenger Series, Junior Worlds, Junior Grand Prix, etc. They are listed in the document.
Non-seeded skaters/couples cannot compete in more than one event. Invited skaters/couples cannot compete in more than two. It does not look like there is a way to get a second event by competing well. If any skater misses an event due to illness, injury, or other circumstances, it does not look like you are allowed to be assigned another and are thus, out of the competition and circumstances depending, a replacement team/skater will take your place in the competition.
I am assuming seeding begins with the Top finishers at Worlds. If those skaters/teams confirm, then it moves to the next top placers. And then so on down the line. Host seeding probably occurs as the last part of the process, once a federation knows if its top placers have qualified etc. so they can put forth the strongest lineup.
Yuuri it looks like, was seeded under the complicated caveat of “Returning Skater” because he did not compete at World’s the previous year…but this is really complicated (no, seriously, try and read this document) and I could be incorrect on this assumption.
I hope that answered all your questions, friend!
Whats your favorite part about competition and your least favorite part about it
R: I love to perform!! And the adrenaline rush you get in the middle of a program is just fantastic! There’s not much I dislike, but for me it’s probably the expenses. Figure skating is pretty expensive and it becomes hard to afford all the traveling and costumes.