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Impact is everything

I had a strange dream last night.

Ray and I became two of the judges out of 8 judges in a fashion event !


And there were about 10 models.

I was impressed by two models’ fashions and for the rest of the models, not so memorable.

It’s just a dream, however I could feel the situation of judges through it.
Even if a model has good taste of fashion, if the model doesn’t make an impact to judges, the judges don’t remember him/her.






Creative photos



That’s how I felt in my dream.

And when I woke up in the morning, I started thinking about Freddie Mercury who was saying similar things when he first met Brian May and Roger Taylor, which was something like,

“ You have so much talent, but you need more impact, because without making an impact you will never succeed. “
Freddie Mercury told them this ( before Freddie and John Deacon joined the band ) when Freddie first saw Brian May and Roger Taylor live in concert with their earlier band called Smile.

Freddie was a genius artist who often said he knows nothing about business, however, it’s clear that he knew the point of marketing and the need to make an impact to succeed.

Impact !




Creative photos


If one is looking for more detail and analysis , Brian May’s way of explaining things may be more clear but this Freddie’s quote is the most impressive for everything to me.
Because whatever we do, ( not only for musicians & performers ) but also for any kind of business, entertainers, and Figure skaters and other judged sports, they all need to make a big impact to succeed.

And I started thinking about figure skating,
When Ray and I went to ice shows, I did notice the difference.

Who had the impact in the show?

Johnny and Melissa and Denis’s Trio number
“ Fallen Angels “ performance.





That was the biggest impact in the show.

Why ? Because it had everything, power, drama, beauty, creativity, and the music has ups and downs and very dramatic with excitement.

Also the idea which one single men’s skater and ice dancers get together, doing trio was unique, which no one ever done before (?).

Sasha Cohen’s
“ Hurt “ by Christina Aguilira also. Sasha’s skating has impact as well as her looks. Uniqueness plus beauty, similar to Johnny’s skating.

Evgeny Plushenko ‘s energy was high and powerful. He also has strong charisma on ice.

I ‘m not a fan of Evan Lysacek, but in the show, we had to admit his energy, speed and power was amazing, although it‘s not balanced.

To me it’s too much yang energy, need a balance between yang and yin ( hard and soft in every movements) and I was exhausted after finished his performance.
He skated with dance music, and did 3+3 combination jumps, twizzle, kicking, skating with big noise, his movements in the number was okay. The music he used really fit his skating.

I was wondering why he was often judges favor.


Patrick Chan, I also thought his skating also has impact, the way how he skate, even though I don’t think his arms and body movements are connected to the music and no details, and no balance, his expression always look unnatural, and skating with big noise.

But his jumps look dynamic, like heavy metal has fallen on ice with big noise. However, he does usually land smoothly.

Impact.
And it’s judged as high skating skills.


Daisuke Takahashi’s skating also has big impact depending on the program.
Especially his hip hop swan lake which was very unique and got huge hit in the season.

His dynamic, speedy, complicate footwork has been making big impact besides his musicality and good expression.
He and Lambiel’s skating is more balanced for their movements which has up and down, hard and soft. Their movements are not so detail, not so sensitive with beautiful lines like Johnny and Sandhu.

More of outgoing performances get bigger impact than quiet ingoing performance.

Soft landing, quiet flow jump and footwork get less impact even though I consider that looks to be a much more difficult skill than big noise footwork.

Figure skating Judges are judging technical parts and component parts both, same judges are doing both of them within minutes.

How it possible to check all the technical elements and components at the same time even though they trained for it ?

I’ve read about that someone who actually trained figure skating judge said, it’s impossible to do all of them accurately, besides art parts are subjective.

Plus many of the judges have no background knowledge for artistry, according to one of the judges who judged the Vancouver Olympics.
I think component scores are all impact.
Energy, speed, and power.
Plus outgoing expression and body languages and music which is familiar to people.

Impact.


Johnny got huge impact in Torino Olympics, Vancouver Olympics on & off ice, besides his Poker face performance.
After these big impact, it may be pressure to keep that impact to audience for every programs.

In my eyes, Johnny himself has already impact ( it factor) , even he is just standing on or off ice, even if you just see him skating from the back, even if he’ just crossing on ice.

I’m sure he wants to get another huge hit number again.

I’m not sure that bringing back to Swan theme with different music or, re-choreographing Poker face can get similar good result.

It’s risky but my feeling is challenging to new style of music & new theme may be more impact to audience.

In movies which has 1,2,3,4,5, such as Rocky, or Back to the future, Pirate of Caribbean , I thought Part 1 was always the best to me.

Part 1 got huge hit, so they made part 2, part 3, part 4, it was good to see, but didn’t get more impressive feeling than I had in part 1.

Poker face, I remember how Johnny decided to perform poker face number.
He was going to perform “ Feeling good ” number in Vman’s fashion event.

But he was told something which fit with trend which audience in the show would love.

Johnny picked three music which he can do ( including Poker face ), and they picked “ Poker face”.
It was so new style from Johnny’s original style and past programs. And he performed so well. From the beginning which was still work in process, I fell in love with the number.





He created it within a very short time in February, during the depressing time from Nationals 2009.

Music, Program, choreography, besides skater’s skating and artistic talent, and how skater skated in every event.

When all of them has impact, it will be the masterpiece which will be memorable.
No one can make satisfaction to everyone because there is always a taste and it’s subjective , but If majority of people gave positive reviews, I think the program is successful.





We can talk many subjects using impact to succeed.



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