kind-of, sort-of Shizuka primer
This is a sort of primer on Shizuka, because Shizuka is AWESOME and I like to talk about her. It's also part picspam, part ship manifesto. To be honest, it's mostly me going *_*
This is Arakawa Shizuka.
She is amazing.
She started skating when she was five and went to her first Olympics in 1998 aged 16. You guys. She was landing triple Salchows by age 8. She is motherfucking hardcore. She says that she wanted to go into pairs skating but she was too tall for the short Japanese men :D She was serious about swimming for a while when she was young too. She says her figure skating idol was Kristi Yamaguchi.
When she was little, she didn't like to tell people she was into figure skating, because it wasn't a very popular sport in Japan. It basically stayed that way until she won and everyone started getting more interested in it.
She went to Waseda University and studied while still competing in figure skating. She graduated in 2004, which was also the year she became World Champion.
2004 Worlds Free Skate
She skated this only a few days after sitting her final exams. She lands seven triples in this programme. Seven. And she added a double loop to her first triple-triple combo, just because. Damn straight she won gold for that.
She was training in Connecticut under Tatiana Tarasova before Worlds 2004 but at the end of 2005, she switched to Nikolai Morozov. Morozov says one of the reasons he took her on is that she's a very quiet skater: her blade barely makes a noise on the ice, which is a very difficult feat to achieve. SHE IS SO GRACEFUL AND ELEGANT *_*
She was going to retire after 2004 Worlds but then...she didn't, idk. In 2005, she finished 9th at Worlds and decided that was NOT ON. It was not the glorious end to her amateur skating career that she wanted so she trained really really hard to come back for the Winter Olympics in 2006, skating the same programme that won her Worlds in 2004.
The Japanese FS Association was pretty much 100% on the Asada bandwagon at that point but Mao was three months too young to go to Torino. If she had hit the age requirements, Shizuka probably wouldn't have even been sent to the Olympics. The association basically buried her that season by sending her to all the same Grand Prix events as Mao and so she didn't even make it to the Grand Prix Final :( WHY YOU BE DOUBTING HER, JAPAN?
After the short, she was in third behind Sasha Cohen and Irina Slutskaya. There was less than a point between all three of them. Then both Cohen and Slutskaya fell in their free skates and Shizuka turned in this performance:
2006 Olympic LP
It's a pretty cautious version of the programme but then she knew she was basically assured a gold. She just had to skate clean. Which she did so
GOLD MEDAL BBS. She was only the second Japanese woman to win a medal for figure skating and the first to win gold. She's the second Japanese woman to win gold in ANY event at the winter Olympics. And did I mention that she was 24 when she won gold? That's practically ancient in ladies' skating! She was the oldest Olympic champion since 1920.
After she won, the Japanese president rang her in Italy to say that he was cheering her performance and that all of Japan was rejoicing with her. Apparently this programme made 'Ina Bauer' a household term in Japan. idek. After she won the Olympics, everyone in Japan basically went all hearteyes over her (which I can relate to). The Japanese president took her to the opera. Just Shizuka and the pres. Hanging out.
So! Adorable!
I have no idea what's going on here. Fashion show, what?
Shizuka is famous for her layback Ina Bauers.
I think most people think Ina Bauer is the whole position she gets into rather than just the feet.
Here is a video of Daisuke explaining to a Japanese ballet dancer that the layback Ina Bauer is the "Arakawa way." HEARTS IN MY EYES.
For all that the layback Ina Bauer is her trademark, she's insanely good at all elements. She can do a donut spin, which needs incredible flexibility and oh man, her jumps. She always skates really clean and she's so powerful! Here's a video of her doing 37 jumps in succession.
I can't even fathom the leg power that takes. She can land two different triple-triple combos and in practice, she sometimes throws out triple-triple-triple combos. She makes me *_*
Her skating style is usually very graceful and elegant. This is her Torino exhibition skate.
After the Olympics, she retired for real and now she does some commentating (she commentated Vancouver and said she was more nervous than in Torino) and does a bunch of skate shows, predominantly in Japan. She's skated for Ice All Stars, Champions on Ice, Festa on Ice, Art on Ice, Stars on Ice, Dreams on Ice, Expression on Ice, Theatre on Ice...a lot of stuff on ice.
An incomplete list of shows she's skated in:
-Expression on Ice 2004
-Dreams on Ice 2006
-Theatre on Ice (Japan) 2006
-Champions on Ice 2006/2007
-Prince Ice World 2007
-Friends on Ice 2007
-Art on Ice 2008
-Festa on Ice 2008/2009/2010
-Carnival on Ice 2008/2009
-Ice All Stars 2009
-Ice Jewellery 2009
-Stars on Ice (Japan) 2008/2009/2010
(By the way, if you're looking for her in the FOI 2009 finale, she's wearing the pink jeans :D)
She talks now about continuing to improve her skating even as she works as a pro.
Here's her programme to Madonna from Festa on Ice 2009. It's one of my favourites of her programmes.
When she does higher energy stuff, she looks like the actual cutest thing I've ever seen. From Ice All Stars 2009.
She says Beyoncé is her favourite singer. Here's an exhibition to Listen.
Check out the way she just throws herself back into that Ina Bauer. *__________*
Personality-wise, she's very reserved a lot of the time, which I think probably contributed to her "Icy Heart" nickname. But I don't even necessarily think that's put on for the public; when asked if she cried after winning gold, she said no, she was just excited. This article has a cute moment describing her playing with her medal and smiling at the press conference afterwards.
She can totes be funny too! Here is an article from January in which she jokes that she wants to take up curling. Unless she's being serious, in which case CURLING AU!
She changes her mind quite a lot about things -- whether to retire, whether to keep skating, and both her major coaching changes took place immediately before big competitions (before Worlds 2004 to Tarasova and before the Olympics 2006 to Morozov). You get the impression that she's quite strong-willed, particularly in regards to what she wants to skate. One of the reasons she left Tarasova was that she wanted to do her free skate to Carmen and Tarasova refused to work on it with her. In the end, she did stick with Puccini's Turandot but changing to Morozov probably gave her a bit of last-minute adrenaline.
I'm now going to post a bunch of pictures with very little commentary, because there's only a certain number of times I can say, "SHE'S SO GORGEOUS."
Spread eagles are one of my favourite figure skating moves. idk why. Shizuka does them a lot though, so yay!
My favourite thing about this one is how she looks so calm. Like, yeah, skating along with my foot above my head.
:D! Click through for the programme she skated with Jeffrey Buttle and Scott Moir, but only if you love joy.
She did a flamenco programme. Remind you of anyone else?
Shizuka and Stéphane: why anyone who doesn't ship them is a terrorist
I don't know when Shizuka and Stéphane met, possibly 2006, but they both just spent the last five years or so skating the big successful skating shows with huge international casts. If you check out this random Stéphane/Shizuka montage, you can see some bits they skated together in group numbers.
An incomplete list of shows they have both skated:
-Dreams on Ice 2006
-Champions on Ice 2006/2007
-Art on Ice 2008
-Festa on Ice 2009
-Carnival on Ice 2009
-Ice All Stars 2009
-Ice Jewellery 2009
-Stars on Ice (Japan) 2009
Certainly this picture looks to be circa 2007 and it also, coincidentally, the picture of my heart.
THEY ARE THE ACTUAL CUTEST I CANNOT HANDLE IT :DDDDDD
Here's a video of her, Stéphane, Johnny and Elena Sokolova doing a photoshoot for Dreams on Ice 2006.
SHE IS ADORABLE. She's so not comfortable being all loose and touchy as the others. The bit where Johnny tries to get her to wrap her leg around him is comedy gold to me. Plus, it makes me :D at the end when she finally gets up on his back.
This is a big thing about how Shizuka is seen. She's always presented as very demure and reserved, which makes for really great contrast with Stéphane's touchy-feely outgoingness.
This is an interview they did in 2009 for Art on Ice in Switzerland.
They're so cute. This part features Shizuka apologising for speaking Japanese and Stéphane saying he likes it (needs fic where she talks to him in Japanese during sex and he's all *_* about it). Stéphane also explains his magical zebra in winter with wings costume. It was apparently the first time Shizuka had heard this story. The look of dawning realisation as he talks is hilarious. Partly just because Stéphane is crazy.
The second half is when they talk about each other.
The first couple of minutes make me :D Stéphane is talking about his revolutionary new judging system and Shizuka is like, "Uh huh, never going to happen."
Then when he's talking about her! She gets all embarrassed and he offers to get her chocolate. Of course, Stéphane. How is he such a caricature of himself?
From about 4.10 on, she's talking about him. This is the translation, which I grabbed from this very kind soul.
[4:10]
Shizuka: Is it okay if I speak in Japanese? Because I can't express myself so well in English.
The greatest thing about Stéphane is that, I feel so much passion from him.
It's because Stéphane has the passion when he skates, and it becomes the power that pulls all the people into watching him.
The skaters, the audience, everybody is pulled into him. Even when he was a competitor he was an entertainer.
There are very few skaters in this competition like him, who has this star quality, this presence.
It made me feel disappointed when I heard that he decided to retire from competition.
There is no other skater who can make us forget that it's a competition.
Everybody has their mind set on what he has to do, first this and next that, and it makes you feel rigid when you watch them.
Stéphane doesn't make us feel that way. It is a very rare thing.
And this quality about him is polished even more in shows. I feel the passion growing in him as an entertainer.
[6:00]
Shizuka: Another thing is that he has the presence of a king. When he's on the ice, he's the king.
He has this aura, but once he's off the ice he's dedicated to his fans. That is what makes us love him even more.
He shows us many different sides to his personality. We like him as a person. He's kind.
(To Stéphane) I love you. We love you.
At the end, he's all, "Thank you *blushblush*" and then he says, "Aishitema-su" which is 'I love you' in Japanese. I GENUINELY CANNOT STAND IT.
In March of this year, she went on ABC's Thin Ice and was paired with Stéphane. This was an excellent life decision from whoever made it.
This is the first routine they did. Shizuka does a triple-double-double jump combo and Stéphane lands a quad! Also featuring Dick Button forgetting Shizuka's name :D
The fluff beforehand is unbearably cute. Her face when the guy asks her if there's anything going on between them!! Stéphane's adorable coyness! Even ABC's producers ship Shizuka/Stéphane!
They are so insanely gorgeous together.
This picture is just so hot to me. Their hands, ngh.
They were criticised for being too separate for their first routine. Their second was choreographed by hip-hop choreographer Hi-Hat, which makes me lol because both of their styles are usually so elegant/balletic.
It's still awesome though because they are awesome. They do side-by-side triple toes and spins (although I feel sorry for anyone who has to keep up with Stéphane spinning).
Once again, they are the cutest.
lol look at how touchy Stéphane is! :DDD
They finished in third place overall, although apparently they won in terms of viewers' votes. This is probably because the viewers recognised that they were the most beautiful skaters they'd ever seen. They were probably pretty handicapped by the fact that they're both singles skaters; they were up against pairs who could perform lifts and the like. Here's a quote from Dick Button saying "We're not expecting Stephane Lambiel to lift Shizuka Arakawa over his head." I WOULD PAY SO VERY MUCH MONEY TO SEE THAT.
This picture is from Thin Ice too. LOOK, IT IS NOT MY FAULT I LOVE THEM THIS MUCH.
This video is the most wonderful 44 seconds of footage in the world.
They're skating off the ice after Thin Ice and he has his arms looped around her neck! Then he's pulling her around the ice! Then he puts his face in her chest for reasons unknown! Then she takes his hand and they walk off the ice together! This is the greatest video I have ever seen!
This gif represents everything I love about them as a pairing. She's like *patpatpat* and he's like :D! *patpatTOUCHTOUCHTOUCHSQUEEZEtouch* :D
To conclude, Shizuka is awesome and beautiful and powerful and she skates so clean. She and Stéphane are the most gorgeous couple in the history of the world. People should write me all the fic about them, especially where they have to deal with cultural differences and different personal spaces and not speaking each other's languages and Shizuka not being comfortable expressing herself in English and Stéphane being clingy.
There is not nearly enough fic about them currently in existence but here are two I love.
untitled kinkmeme fic by idk
This is exactly the fic I always want to read about the difference in their levels of touchiness. I love the way the author describes what Stéphane wants to be doing compared to how much Shizuka can take.
Baby One More Time by perculiousfic
This is Shizuka/Stéphane/Johnny and it's AWESOME. I love the way Stéphane's clingyness is what brings them together and what makes it perfectly logical for them to have hot hot threesome sex. Plus it has Shizuka speaking Japanese during sex!
And as a bonus, possibly my favourite ASW remix, by loreleilynn
This is Arakawa Shizuka.
She is amazing.
She started skating when she was five and went to her first Olympics in 1998 aged 16. You guys. She was landing triple Salchows by age 8. She is motherfucking hardcore. She says that she wanted to go into pairs skating but she was too tall for the short Japanese men :D She was serious about swimming for a while when she was young too. She says her figure skating idol was Kristi Yamaguchi.
When she was little, she didn't like to tell people she was into figure skating, because it wasn't a very popular sport in Japan. It basically stayed that way until she won and everyone started getting more interested in it.
She went to Waseda University and studied while still competing in figure skating. She graduated in 2004, which was also the year she became World Champion.
Click to view2004 Worlds Free Skate
She skated this only a few days after sitting her final exams. She lands seven triples in this programme. Seven. And she added a double loop to her first triple-triple combo, just because. Damn straight she won gold for that.
She was training in Connecticut under Tatiana Tarasova before Worlds 2004 but at the end of 2005, she switched to Nikolai Morozov. Morozov says one of the reasons he took her on is that she's a very quiet skater: her blade barely makes a noise on the ice, which is a very difficult feat to achieve. SHE IS SO GRACEFUL AND ELEGANT *_*
She was going to retire after 2004 Worlds but then...she didn't, idk. In 2005, she finished 9th at Worlds and decided that was NOT ON. It was not the glorious end to her amateur skating career that she wanted so she trained really really hard to come back for the Winter Olympics in 2006, skating the same programme that won her Worlds in 2004.
The Japanese FS Association was pretty much 100% on the Asada bandwagon at that point but Mao was three months too young to go to Torino. If she had hit the age requirements, Shizuka probably wouldn't have even been sent to the Olympics. The association basically buried her that season by sending her to all the same Grand Prix events as Mao and so she didn't even make it to the Grand Prix Final :( WHY YOU BE DOUBTING HER, JAPAN?
After the short, she was in third behind Sasha Cohen and Irina Slutskaya. There was less than a point between all three of them. Then both Cohen and Slutskaya fell in their free skates and Shizuka turned in this performance:
2006 Olympic LP
It's a pretty cautious version of the programme but then she knew she was basically assured a gold. She just had to skate clean. Which she did so
GOLD MEDAL BBS. She was only the second Japanese woman to win a medal for figure skating and the first to win gold. She's the second Japanese woman to win gold in ANY event at the winter Olympics. And did I mention that she was 24 when she won gold? That's practically ancient in ladies' skating! She was the oldest Olympic champion since 1920.
After she won, the Japanese president rang her in Italy to say that he was cheering her performance and that all of Japan was rejoicing with her. Apparently this programme made 'Ina Bauer' a household term in Japan. idek. After she won the Olympics, everyone in Japan basically went all hearteyes over her (which I can relate to). The Japanese president took her to the opera. Just Shizuka and the pres. Hanging out.
So! Adorable!
I have no idea what's going on here. Fashion show, what?
Shizuka is famous for her layback Ina Bauers.
I think most people think Ina Bauer is the whole position she gets into rather than just the feet.
Here is a video of Daisuke explaining to a Japanese ballet dancer that the layback Ina Bauer is the "Arakawa way." HEARTS IN MY EYES.
For all that the layback Ina Bauer is her trademark, she's insanely good at all elements. She can do a donut spin, which needs incredible flexibility and oh man, her jumps. She always skates really clean and she's so powerful! Here's a video of her doing 37 jumps in succession.
I can't even fathom the leg power that takes. She can land two different triple-triple combos and in practice, she sometimes throws out triple-triple-triple combos. She makes me *_*
Her skating style is usually very graceful and elegant. This is her Torino exhibition skate.
After the Olympics, she retired for real and now she does some commentating (she commentated Vancouver and said she was more nervous than in Torino) and does a bunch of skate shows, predominantly in Japan. She's skated for Ice All Stars, Champions on Ice, Festa on Ice, Art on Ice, Stars on Ice, Dreams on Ice, Expression on Ice, Theatre on Ice...a lot of stuff on ice.
An incomplete list of shows she's skated in:
-Expression on Ice 2004
-Dreams on Ice 2006
-Theatre on Ice (Japan) 2006
-Champions on Ice 2006/2007
-Prince Ice World 2007
-Friends on Ice 2007
-Art on Ice 2008
-Festa on Ice 2008/2009/2010
-Carnival on Ice 2008/2009
-Ice All Stars 2009
-Ice Jewellery 2009
-Stars on Ice (Japan) 2008/2009/2010
(By the way, if you're looking for her in the FOI 2009 finale, she's wearing the pink jeans :D)
She talks now about continuing to improve her skating even as she works as a pro.
Here's her programme to Madonna from Festa on Ice 2009. It's one of my favourites of her programmes.
When she does higher energy stuff, she looks like the actual cutest thing I've ever seen. From Ice All Stars 2009.
She says Beyoncé is her favourite singer. Here's an exhibition to Listen.
Check out the way she just throws herself back into that Ina Bauer. *__________*
Personality-wise, she's very reserved a lot of the time, which I think probably contributed to her "Icy Heart" nickname. But I don't even necessarily think that's put on for the public; when asked if she cried after winning gold, she said no, she was just excited. This article has a cute moment describing her playing with her medal and smiling at the press conference afterwards.
She can totes be funny too! Here is an article from January in which she jokes that she wants to take up curling. Unless she's being serious, in which case CURLING AU!
She changes her mind quite a lot about things -- whether to retire, whether to keep skating, and both her major coaching changes took place immediately before big competitions (before Worlds 2004 to Tarasova and before the Olympics 2006 to Morozov). You get the impression that she's quite strong-willed, particularly in regards to what she wants to skate. One of the reasons she left Tarasova was that she wanted to do her free skate to Carmen and Tarasova refused to work on it with her. In the end, she did stick with Puccini's Turandot but changing to Morozov probably gave her a bit of last-minute adrenaline.
I'm now going to post a bunch of pictures with very little commentary, because there's only a certain number of times I can say, "SHE'S SO GORGEOUS."
Spread eagles are one of my favourite figure skating moves. idk why. Shizuka does them a lot though, so yay!
My favourite thing about this one is how she looks so calm. Like, yeah, skating along with my foot above my head.
:D! Click through for the programme she skated with Jeffrey Buttle and Scott Moir, but only if you love joy.
She did a flamenco programme. Remind you of anyone else?
Shizuka and Stéphane: why anyone who doesn't ship them is a terrorist
I don't know when Shizuka and Stéphane met, possibly 2006, but they both just spent the last five years or so skating the big successful skating shows with huge international casts. If you check out this random Stéphane/Shizuka montage, you can see some bits they skated together in group numbers.
An incomplete list of shows they have both skated:
-Dreams on Ice 2006
-Champions on Ice 2006/2007
-Art on Ice 2008
-Festa on Ice 2009
-Carnival on Ice 2009
-Ice All Stars 2009
-Ice Jewellery 2009
-Stars on Ice (Japan) 2009
Certainly this picture looks to be circa 2007 and it also, coincidentally, the picture of my heart.
THEY ARE THE ACTUAL CUTEST I CANNOT HANDLE IT :DDDDDD
Here's a video of her, Stéphane, Johnny and Elena Sokolova doing a photoshoot for Dreams on Ice 2006.
SHE IS ADORABLE. She's so not comfortable being all loose and touchy as the others. The bit where Johnny tries to get her to wrap her leg around him is comedy gold to me. Plus, it makes me :D at the end when she finally gets up on his back.
This is a big thing about how Shizuka is seen. She's always presented as very demure and reserved, which makes for really great contrast with Stéphane's touchy-feely outgoingness.
This is an interview they did in 2009 for Art on Ice in Switzerland.
They're so cute. This part features Shizuka apologising for speaking Japanese and Stéphane saying he likes it (needs fic where she talks to him in Japanese during sex and he's all *_* about it). Stéphane also explains his magical zebra in winter with wings costume. It was apparently the first time Shizuka had heard this story. The look of dawning realisation as he talks is hilarious. Partly just because Stéphane is crazy.
The second half is when they talk about each other.
The first couple of minutes make me :D Stéphane is talking about his revolutionary new judging system and Shizuka is like, "Uh huh, never going to happen."
Then when he's talking about her! She gets all embarrassed and he offers to get her chocolate. Of course, Stéphane. How is he such a caricature of himself?
From about 4.10 on, she's talking about him. This is the translation, which I grabbed from this very kind soul.
[4:10]
Shizuka: Is it okay if I speak in Japanese? Because I can't express myself so well in English.
The greatest thing about Stéphane is that, I feel so much passion from him.
It's because Stéphane has the passion when he skates, and it becomes the power that pulls all the people into watching him.
The skaters, the audience, everybody is pulled into him. Even when he was a competitor he was an entertainer.
There are very few skaters in this competition like him, who has this star quality, this presence.
It made me feel disappointed when I heard that he decided to retire from competition.
There is no other skater who can make us forget that it's a competition.
Everybody has their mind set on what he has to do, first this and next that, and it makes you feel rigid when you watch them.
Stéphane doesn't make us feel that way. It is a very rare thing.
And this quality about him is polished even more in shows. I feel the passion growing in him as an entertainer.
[6:00]
Shizuka: Another thing is that he has the presence of a king. When he's on the ice, he's the king.
He has this aura, but once he's off the ice he's dedicated to his fans. That is what makes us love him even more.
He shows us many different sides to his personality. We like him as a person. He's kind.
(To Stéphane) I love you. We love you.
At the end, he's all, "Thank you *blushblush*" and then he says, "Aishitema-su" which is 'I love you' in Japanese. I GENUINELY CANNOT STAND IT.
In March of this year, she went on ABC's Thin Ice and was paired with Stéphane. This was an excellent life decision from whoever made it.
This is the first routine they did. Shizuka does a triple-double-double jump combo and Stéphane lands a quad! Also featuring Dick Button forgetting Shizuka's name :D
The fluff beforehand is unbearably cute. Her face when the guy asks her if there's anything going on between them!! Stéphane's adorable coyness! Even ABC's producers ship Shizuka/Stéphane!
They are so insanely gorgeous together.
This picture is just so hot to me. Their hands, ngh.
They were criticised for being too separate for their first routine. Their second was choreographed by hip-hop choreographer Hi-Hat, which makes me lol because both of their styles are usually so elegant/balletic.
It's still awesome though because they are awesome. They do side-by-side triple toes and spins (although I feel sorry for anyone who has to keep up with Stéphane spinning).
Once again, they are the cutest.
lol look at how touchy Stéphane is! :DDD
They finished in third place overall, although apparently they won in terms of viewers' votes. This is probably because the viewers recognised that they were the most beautiful skaters they'd ever seen. They were probably pretty handicapped by the fact that they're both singles skaters; they were up against pairs who could perform lifts and the like. Here's a quote from Dick Button saying "We're not expecting Stephane Lambiel to lift Shizuka Arakawa over his head." I WOULD PAY SO VERY MUCH MONEY TO SEE THAT.
This picture is from Thin Ice too. LOOK, IT IS NOT MY FAULT I LOVE THEM THIS MUCH.
This video is the most wonderful 44 seconds of footage in the world.
They're skating off the ice after Thin Ice and he has his arms looped around her neck! Then he's pulling her around the ice! Then he puts his face in her chest for reasons unknown! Then she takes his hand and they walk off the ice together! This is the greatest video I have ever seen!
This gif represents everything I love about them as a pairing. She's like *patpatpat* and he's like :D! *patpatTOUCHTOUCHTOUCHSQUEEZEtouch* :D
To conclude, Shizuka is awesome and beautiful and powerful and she skates so clean. She and Stéphane are the most gorgeous couple in the history of the world. People should write me all the fic about them, especially where they have to deal with cultural differences and different personal spaces and not speaking each other's languages and Shizuka not being comfortable expressing herself in English and Stéphane being clingy.
There is not nearly enough fic about them currently in existence but here are two I love.
untitled kinkmeme fic by idk
This is exactly the fic I always want to read about the difference in their levels of touchiness. I love the way the author describes what Stéphane wants to be doing compared to how much Shizuka can take.
Baby One More Time by perculiousfic
This is Shizuka/Stéphane/Johnny and it's AWESOME. I love the way Stéphane's clingyness is what brings them together and what makes it perfectly logical for them to have hot hot threesome sex. Plus it has Shizuka speaking Japanese during sex!
And as a bonus, possibly my favourite ASW remix, by loreleilynn