Japan Skates

The headboards of our hotel beds fell off the wall so the hotel upgraded us to a two-room suite! We now have four beds (for my family of three), two bathrooms and two TVs. Now I know why they call it “suite”!

Gonna make this a short entry. Went to ladies practice again today at 12:45. Fumie’s practice today was the opposite of yesterday. A bit more laid back, while the other ladies kicked it up a notch. But this time Fumie went right into her jumps before her official practice session.

I will post my jump notes as I did yesterday but want to mention one thing I saw today. Fumie’s triple lutz is absolutely awesome. I saw her do one today where she lifted so high she actually had a subsecond pause before starting her spin. It reminded me of Michael Jordan where he would jump, go up, and then he went another five inches!! She looks really really really strong.

I remember when I interviewed Fumie she mentioned she went to Morozov to work on jumps. Perhaps that did not work out. But I believe she is getting the jump training now that she has been looking for. She needs to bring it to the competitons.

Ok here’s the synopsis of the practice today.

Today Fumie practiced her short program. As most of the athletes do, she did not do the entire program start to finsh. This is what I saw her do:

• layback spin
• double axel
• popped a triple lutz, but I think it was on purpose. She’s nailed every lutz in practice so far.
• Straight line footwork. The whole thing.
• sit spin
• time of program 2:52

Jump list

• triple lutz, double toe, doube toe. As good as any skater on the planet.
• perfect double axel
• perfect double axel
• blocked by
• popped triple lutz
• 2 footed/popped lutz
• Triple lutz, double toe, double toe. popped second double toe.
• spin seqence
• another perfect triple lutz. I think she hit the ceiling this time!
• Took a bow and left the ice. Yesterday she was the last one on the ice but not today.

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Hi folks.  This is Gregg  and I, with Mark, run Japanskates.com.  This is my first attempt at a blog so bear with me!  I’m running a bit behind so I’ll get to the pleasantries later.  I’m here in Lake Placid attending Skate America 2009.  I’d like to begin with my practice report from yesterday’s practice.    I scribbled some notes on the back of the schedule.  These were my observations watching Fumie Suguri practice.

Fumie began the practice with her straight line footwork.   I think she has increased her flexibilty and her moves looked very quick and rather dramatic. She performed them twice then went into her layback spins.  Her coach Alexei Mishkin often called out instructions  to her as she skated.  Can’t say I’ve ever seen that before.  He looks tough.

Fumie skated her free skate at practice.  Again she focused on the program component elements.   I think her footwork section looked very aggressive but with lots of emotion; very “Fumie like”.  She even did a move where she goes up on her tippy toes and chops up the ice.  Excellent!

After the free skate practice it was jumping time.  I’m going to  list what I saw as I typed it in my notes:

• Perfect triple lutz
• Stepped out of a triple salchow
• Blocked by Yu-Na on her second attempt at the salchow.
• Perfect double axel
• Perfect tripe jump combo.  I think it was triple lutz, double toe, double toe.
• Another popped triple salchow.  (I thought those were easy jumps?)
• Next try on triple sal perfect
• Again a triple salchow but two footed landing.

Now at end of practice she puts on a jump show to take advantage of the remaining minutes.

• Triple lutz at each end of rink
• Double axel, step, double axel combo
• Doubles a triple flip attempt.

She then took a bow, to much applause I might add, and left the rink. 

Overall this was a very aggressive practice.  I think she took the most advantage of the session compared to all the other ladies.  I am anticpating seeing her free skate in competition.

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