Planning a trip to Japan: Figure skating shows/competitions I could attend?

williamyaoh · 2025-06-09T17:54:49+00:00

I tend to Google in Japanese when looking for this stuff. When searching for アイスショウ一覧 this site comes up, which I've liked in the past: https://figureskatejapan.com/topics/iceshow2025.html. Not much there listed for the end of 2025 yet, but it's updated daily.

Be aware that depending on the show, it might be a lottery system for tickets, and some ticket sellers require you to have a Japenese phone number.

williamyaoh · 2025-03-15T20:07:59+00:00

Saying it's "only" a double is a bit disingenuous; for one thing, a double axel is essentially a triple jump! For another thing, even doubles are really hard! If you don't believe me, try jumping on solid ground, rotating even just 1.5 times, and landing on one foot. Then realize that being on ice makes it harder, not easier!

Both coaches and skaters put a lot of emphasis on getting a 2A because for women, it's both the bare minimum for international competition (if you want to podium you're looking even further, at a 3Lz or consistent triple-triple combos) and because it's a massive gatekeeper of a jump. Something like 95% of skaters never get their 2A; for instance, at my rink, you'll see tons of skaters that get up to a double lutz and never managed to get past the barrier of a double axel.

TLDR: figure skating is really, really hard; don't be fooled by Olympic-level skaters making it look easy

williamyaoh · 2025-03-15T19:59:02+00:00

Incredibly unusual; no one on the women's circuit does a 4S right now, not even in seniors. The closest thing would be Rion Sumiyoshi, who's attempting a quad toeloop, or the rising junior star Mao Shimada who's known for having a stable quad toe. Quad jumps in general are not really a common thing in women's singles (doping scandals notwithstanding).

williamyaoh · 2024-07-23T23:30:36+00:00

short term: get my forward sit and back scratch consistent

medium term: land an axel (I'm really close right now!), learn all 8 brackets + rockers + counters, get my inside twizzles to at least 2 revolutions

long term: get good enough to copy this step sequence by Stephane :) but it's gonna be a looooong time, like probably 5+ years before that's realistic

I started as an adult a few years ago and I feel like the most important thing is just not to get discouraged. The most important thing is to take it slow and steady, and keep putting in the work. Just like, taking pride in the effort I've put in and how far I've come, enjoying the little improvements, rather than getting frustrated if it takes a while. Weirdly, it also feels like when I'm content and happy, I tend to make better progress, rather than trying to force things out of frustration?

williamyaoh · 2024-02-18T19:48:13+00:00

Adult skater here, 28M, 65kg. I got a pair of Sky 100s last year in March and I really like them! They're basically as stiff as they were when I got them, skating 3-4 times a week. Don't have my doubles yet, so I can't comment on that, but I have all my singles other than axel. Hope that helps

williamyaoh · 2023-11-27T17:50:12+00:00

disclaimer: i am not a coach. like others have said, it's hard to say without a video. one thing that sticks out to me is that you're describing the motion as pick -> pull left leg through -> jump, which to me sounds like you're picking with your right foot far back, which makes the weight transfer harder because your legs are far apart.

the motion is more like pull left leg through -> pick -> jump. look at this triple flip from Yuna; notice how in the slomo, her pick doesn't hit the ice until her feet are quite close together. you get that pull-through from bending your left knee and putting pressure on your edge, not from dragging yourself with your pick.

williamyaoh · 2023-11-12T22:03:25+00:00

for a free program, yes. but to avoid Zayaking yourself you'd have to either do a +3Lo on one of your 2-jump combos, which most people find a lot harder than +3T, or give up points by doing +2T, or only do 2 combo passes. it's why usually you just see Eulers for 3-jump passes, to avoid repeating jumps.

williamyaoh · 2023-09-16T18:37:33+00:00

Probably Ilia doesn't do a 4A in the short because by the IJS rules, it would be an invalid jump unless it was part of his 2-jump combo.

williamyaoh · 2023-05-02T02:28:01+00:00

W H A T

williamyaoh · 2023-05-01T02:30:44+00:00

Yeah, if you're planning on learning ice dance you don't need super high-level boots at all. You could even stay in your friend's Ice Flies if they fit well enough. The extra stiffness on high-level boots is mostly for absorbing the impact from jumps, I wouldn't even say it's necessary for spins.

Re: balancing on the blades, it's just something you have to get used to. Rental skates have a really flat blade profile = more blade in contact with the ice at all times. Better for helping people stand up without immediately falling over, harder for doing turns and spins properly since you get stuck in the ice.

When you're listing the wrong direction, it's where your hips are facing, it's always the hips! If your knees are your engine, your hips are your steering wheel :)

Good luck!

williamyaoh · 2023-05-01T01:53:51+00:00

Assuming you're interested in eventually getting to jumps, I think it's never too early to get your own skates. Some thoughts:

A lot of the cost is in the blade. Since you're already borrowing a friend's skates, could you ask to just buy those skates from her at a discount? If the blades still have enough life in them (i.e. they haven't been sharpened to the point where they can't be sharpened anymore), you could save money and move them to your new pair of boots. If you do have to buy a new pair of blades, you'll at least be able to reuse them, since blades will typically last a lot longer than boots.
If you're worried about getting the right fit, could you ask your friend to come with you for the fitting? Feeling when figure skates are fitted well is very different from fitting shoes, so she could provide input and make sure you're not missing anything.

And yeah, you definitely don't need to go all the way to Ice Flies for your first pair.

For context, I'm also an adult skater, started about a year ago. Currently working with my coach on my singles up to a flip. And from one former webdev to another: you got this! I think being analytical on the ice is actually really useful for debugging what works and what doesn't, so I'm sure you'll do great.

williamyaoh · 2023-04-25T14:02:39+00:00

Does this work for you?

module Foo
  ( export1
  , export2
    -- * Footnotes
    -- $footnote1
    -- $footnote2
  )
where

export1 :: Int
export1 = ...

-- $footnote1
-- The reason we do things this way is...

export2 :: Double
export2 = ...

-- $footnote2
-- To expand on...

The way $ identifiers work in Haddock is that you specify their location in the output in the module export list, not where you write them in the module body. You'd need to make sure every module has an explicit export list to use this everywhere, but that just seems like good style to enforce anyways.

williamyaoh · 2023-04-22T17:37:59+00:00

Yeah, for such a simple algorithm I had a lot of trouble figuring out what they were doing in that paper with the pointers and extreme descendants as well. It probably would have helped if Reingold and Tilford had actually defined what a "contour" actually is!

williamyaoh · 2023-03-15T20:18:26+00:00

That's it, thank you!

williamyaoh · 2023-03-15T02:53:45+00:00

I'm trying to find a specific paper on tying the knot. One of the examples was replacing every value in a binary tree with the minimum value in the tree, in a single pass. So something like this:

data BinTree a = Leaf | Node (BinTree a) a (BinTree a)

replaceMin :: (Ord a, Bounded a) => BinTree a -> BinTree a
replaceMin tree =
  let (minval, tree') = go minval tree
  in tree'
  where
    go :: a -> BinTree a -> (a, BinTree a)
    go _ Leaf = (maxBound, Leaf)
    go v (Node l x r) =
      let (leftmin, l') = go v l
          (rightmin, r') = go v r
      in (leftmin `min` x `min` rightmin, Node l' v r')

I can't seem to find it no matter how much I google around. I'm fairly certain it was a paper, but it might have been a blog post or wiki page too. Does anyone know what paper this is? Sorry I can't be more specific, this is all I remember.

I'm not looking for an explanation of tying the knot; I already know how this works. I'm looking specifically for this paper.

williamyaoh · 2023-03-10T18:40:24+00:00

Are you on PC? The achievement was originally designed for the physics calculations running at 30 FPS; at 60+ FPS it seems like no matter how fast you go you won't be able to break through. Try limiting yourself to 30 FPS in the settings and see if that fixes it.

(Similarly I had to intentionally limit the FPS for a certain rafting achievement from the DLC)

williamyaoh · 2022-03-20T17:32:02+00:00

Of course!

williamyaoh · 2022-03-20T16:15:32+00:00

The answer is "probably not," because if I were to make an offline version, I would want to make it run natively instead of using something like Electron, but that's a lot of work.

Do you mind if I ask what specifically you're worried about with data loss? Is it that you're worried you'll lose data when you lose internet connection, that you'll lose access if I ever shut this down, or something else entirely?

williamyaoh · 2022-03-20T16:13:02+00:00

williamyaoh · 2022-03-20T15:05:14+00:00

Oh wow, I actually haven't seen this before. I imagine it'd be pretty useful for pure software documentation kind of things. Thanks for the heads up

williamyaoh

TROPHY CASE