- Hey GQ, I'm Nathan Chen.
And this is The Breakdown.
[upbeat hyped music]
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Blades of Glory.
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[skates stroking]
[Dance Sucka by T. Ray plays]
[skates stroking]
- [Coach Robert] Ah! You nailed it!
- Yes I did! See that?
- [Nathan] Blades of Glory, a classic.
One of the best skating movies out there.
Honestly, they got a lot of things
pretty solid in this, you know.
In terms of choreography,
the time that we spend in doing choreography.
And skating is split 50/50,
basically with technique and artistry.
We have something called the technical element score,
and then the program component score.
And the program component score is basically,
encompasses a lot of the artistry,
and more of the performing aspects of the program.
So it makes a lot of sense
that we would spend a lot of time off the ice
and on the ice, working on choreography
like that butterfly sequence.
There's a lot of time that we spend
working on little, fine tuning the program,
making sure that we're matching the character,
we are matching the vibes of the program.
And, you know, just being able to be super comfortable
with music and being able to relate to the music
as best as we can.
Yeah, I've never actually seen like a warehouse rink.
So that's a, that's a new one for me.
Fortunately, in the US there are like rinks everywhere.
So wherever I want to find a rink,
I basically can find a rink.
I used to skate in a rink over in California
called Lake Arrowhead.
And it was sort of like a warehouse,
which I think now it is a warehouse.
But that was a really cool rink, no boards,
it's just like a pure sheet of ice,
so that was really interesting to skate on.
Most of the time, like I'm skating at rinks
that are traditional,
like rinks that I'm sure you can Google
and find a rink close by,
and basically that's what my rink will look like.
And then I have skated outdoors a couple of times,
which is super cool.
That's a 10 out of 10 experience.
So I grew up doing ballet.
I started ballet when I was really young,
maybe five or so.
Five, six.
And I mostly just did it
because my sisters were super into ballet
and they were like, "Hey Nathan, come with,
come with us and do it with us."
And I ended up enjoying it as well.
And it was, it was cool, there were a lot of other boys
that did the class with me, so I felt like I fit in.
And it was, it was a lot of fun.
And I think that growing up
and sort of just like understanding movement,
whether or not it perfectly relates
to what I do on the ice now,
at least it's something that I feel more comfortable doing,
you know, just basic movement,
knowing where basically I should put my hands,
and where I should put my feet
and all of that and where to look.
All these things are definitely things
that I learned in ballet.
And not just ballet too, all sorts of styles of dance,
you know, whether it's jazz, hip hop, contemporary,
all of these different styles of movement, you know,
can definitely play a role in skating,
considering that a big portion of our score,
is that aspect of skating.
Fairly accurate to an extent.
Obviously, you know, sort of dramaticized,
a little bit more drama
than you normally would see in competitions.
And now currently, you know,
typically men don't really skate with men for pairs.
But if something like that happens in the future,
you know, it'd be pretty cool to see.
If I could choose one partner,
I would choose a Jimmy McElroy,
given that my style of skating is like jumped based.
His style of skating is like beautiful.
So I'm a, let him take over that side of my score.
[white noise]
I, Tonya.
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[upbeat music]
[skates slice ice]
[cool music]
Actually the double that was in I, Tonya,
was one of the girls that skated at my rink
when I was growing up in California.
So it's kind of funny, like seeing her do the elements,
I'm like, oh, like I recognize her doing this element.
But at the same time, you know,
actually like they did a really good job replicating,
and sort of recreating
the original performance of Tonya and I mean,
if you asked me to replicate Tonya's programs,
like I would have a hard time doing that.
So the doubles did a really great job.
In Margot's case like, man, props to her
for being able to learn the choreography,
learn how to adapt it on the ice.
Moving off the ice, just feels extraordinarily different
than moving on the ice.
Sort of like learning how to adjust your body
while doing the positions is like, you know,
pretty big feat for her to be able to just like pick it up
and do that.
And for me, I can't really tell,
obviously there's like camera angles going on there too,
but yeah, genuinely she did a really good job.
[white noise]
- [Announcer] Nicely done.
- [Announcer 2] And now we will find out
whether she will be the first American to attempt
and complete a triple axle jump.
We will know that here, whether she tries it or not.
[skate stroking]
- [Nathan] Yeah.
Tanya was a pretty incredible skater herself.
Triple axle. That was like a huge element.
Even for me, I struggle on that element.
So for her to be able to do it that angle,
it's pretty impressive.
So we have a bunch of different elements,
or jumping elements in our programs.
One is called axle.
One is called salchow, toe loop, loop, flip and lutz.
All of them take off backwards except for axle.
Axle is the only one where you're charging forward
into the element.
So inherently it's a little bit more scary.
I mean, perhaps, going backwards is a little more scary,
but in my opinion, going forward is more scary,
'cause you can like see where you're going,
and you have to be really precise on how you like,
press into the ice,
how you cut into the ice,
how you stop your blade, so that you can basically
vault yourself in the air.
Whereas everything going backwards,
you kind of just like either slam a foot into the ice,
or you like carve the edge out.
Stepping forward is like a lot more tricky.
So for her to be able to do triple axle
in a time where people were doing triple triples, of course.
But a triple axle was still like, you know,
really next level.
Of course, there were some that did it before her,
like Midori Ito and whatnot.
But it's a really, really challenging jump,
so for anyone to do it, it's, you know,
they have my props.
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The Cutting Edge.
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[upbeat music]
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Those are two separate tricks
that they put together into one.
I'm not a pair skater.
So I'm not extraordinarily versed
in a lot of the pairs moves,
but I've skated with a lot of pair skaters.
So the first thing they did,
was like more of like an exhibition show sort of trick.
And then he like threw her up,
which is something that like never happens.
And then they like cut into something called a twist
where they'll like skate with a lot more speed
going backwards and puck the girl up and she'll,
she'll do a twist then he'll catch her
and put her back down.
And yeah,
that's something that like what they just did was like,
they just cut to two tricks together
that would never, ever exist.
Yeah, that was entertaining to say the least.
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Ice Castles.
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I mean, the program was good.
I don't know, she must've done something really good
because typically speaking.
People don't really stand up in the middle of the program.
So that's pretty new.
Good for her.
If you do have impaired vision,
I definitely think
there's the capability to do all of these things.
And I think a lot of it comes down to feel
when you're on the ice,
when you're doing these elements, a lot of it is feel,
and especially in the context of a competition,
when you're the only one on the ice,
you don't have to worry so much.
I think the most dangerous thing
is just being able to like make sure
that you're not running into other people
and knowing where the boards are, that's difficult,
but the actual movement and the jumps and the spins,
I think are all things it's definitely more difficult
than being able to have not impaired vision.
But you know, I think it's something totally doable.
I actually do recall seeing in Ice Castles,
the scene where she falls, I was with like,
it was playing at a rink and I was like with my friend
and the fall,
we could have done a much better job with that.
She like steps on a cable I believe,
like jumps into a cable and falls.
And that is, even if there was a cable on the ice,
like I would skate over
maybe I would like stumble a little bit,
but I don't think anyone really fall that hard.
[white noise]
The Cutting Edge Two.
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- Twist with twist.
- What?
- Trust me.
[cool music]
[skate stroking]
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Oh man, I don't even know where to start on this one.
I mean, okay.
It's first of all, this, the trick that they did,
it was something that's extraordinarily unbelievable.
There's no way this will ever happen in real life.
Again, they were doing a twist variation
where he does like a triple toe underneath,
like it never going to happen.
Like that was just completely unrealistic.
Not until recently,
where were we allowed to have lyrics in our programs.
So those again, perhaps not the most realistic thing.
In single skatering,
you have a little bit more of like leeway to be like,
Hey, like, oh, something went wrong early in the program.
Let's do a modification later in the program.
But with theirs is generally like, you don't have time,
you know, these people like they have to just do it on cue.
And there's a lot going on,
you know, music is loud
and of course you can talk to your partner.
Again, this is from a skater that doesn't have experience
actually skating with a partner.
But like from having friends that I know
have that experience, like they can talk,
they can sort of like organize slightly in the program,
but to sort of improv like that,
it's like pretty remarkable.
And that's something
that I don't think you would normally see.
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Ice Princess.
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[soft music]
[skate stroking]
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I've made a lot of mistakes in my career
in competition, out of competition.
We have two competitions.
We have the short program and the long program
or the free program.
And if short program doesn't go great,
you still have the opportunity
to bring up those points in the free program.
So again, keeping your mind in check,
making sure that you're focusing on the things
that you have to do forward and not looking back
because at that point, you know, it's already over.
So you gotta move forward and try to learn from that.
Definitely when in competition
being in the right mental state, being focused,
being geared in is like more than I would say, 80% of it.
You know, we already spent all this time in training.
We spent like every single day prepping our competitions
prepping our, and that's the thing with skating, right?
When we're competing,
we're doing the exact same thing that we trained.
So it's not like we're doing a brand new program every time,
or brand new routine, every time we go onto competition.
So it was all stuff that you prepare.
So, you know, all that work that you put into practice
should basically reflect the competition
as long as you're, you know, in the right head space,
as long as you're, you know, focused
and then doing the right things mentally.
[white noise]
[cool music]
[skate stroking]
I do love in all these skating movies
when they like make them do like triples or other jumps,
they'll like do the first part and immediately cut
and then have them like rotating down.
So it like doesn't allow
for how many rotations they did in the air.
Cause given now like a lot of the skaters,
men and women are doing like quads.
So you'll be able to see like,
just very clearly how many rotations they're doing for this.
It's like, oh, was that a double, a triple, a single,
like kind of hard to tell it, but yeah,
I mean the skating was nice. It was entertaining.
I also don't know when this was,
but we weren't allowed lyrics until quite recently.
I don't remember exactly what year,
but maybe post 2014
or something along those lines.
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Spinning Out.
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[cool music]
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In terms of tricks, in terms of like what they did,
this is the most realistic, I think out of all of them,
you know, this, the jump was like from the start to the end,
you could see the whole jump.
[cool music]
Like clearly they were doing side-by-side triple toes,
did a thorough triple loop.
So whoever the doubles were,
whoever was that, did this program actually
did a pretty good job.
Pretty good skaters.
Aesthetic choice tights over boots
is a little not common these days.
I think more and more so you'd see tights under boots,
but that's like a minute detail,
single skating and pair skating.
You'll see a little bit of difference
in terms of like the single elements that we do.
So commonly in single skating,
you'll be able to see jumps with more rotations.
So, you know, oftentimes in the men and the women
you'll see like quad toes, quad sal, quad lets,
more with pairs more often you'll only see triple jumps,
but they'll do like lifts.
They'll do twists.
They'll do a bunch more like acrobatic stuff,
which of course leads to more difficulty in certain regards
while quads lead more difficulty in other regards.
And also like something that's very distinctive about pairs
is more often than not you'll see guys
that are a little bit bigger in stature,
so they're more top built.
Whereas I think single skaters
are a little bit more bottom built
since we just try to be as light as we can get,
you know, as aerodynamic and as as much power as we can
off the ice to get rotations in.
Whereas these guys have to be really strong
and their upper bodies to be able to do lifts and whatnot.
I prefer single skating because I really liked the elements.
I like doing jumps. I like doing all that stuff.
That's like super fun for me. I'm also tiny.
Like I'm not a big guy,
so it'd be probably really difficult for me
to be able to lift and all of the pairs sort of maneuvers
props to all these athletes.
I mean, we work really hard, you know,
every athlete works really hard to do what they do.
So it's really cool
to be a part of this figure skating community.
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Flashdance.
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[cool music]
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Falls happen in skating, you know, that's okay.
We all make mistakes.
Typically in skating when you make a steak,
you just get back up and keep going,
especially in competition.
So that's something that has been ingrained in me at least
from my parents and my coaches to be like,
"Hey, you make a mistake, get up, keep going."
So unless she was hurt, I have no idea.
I don't know what happens to the rest of the program,
but yeah, she should keep going.
Also, this was, I don't know when this movie was,
but typically in competitions you won't see spotlights.
There was a period of time
when they would compete with spotlights,
but that's something that we don't really do anymore.
We all do spotlights for exhibition.
So for shows, for things that are more like,
you know, fun entertainment, style programs, we'll do that.
But things that were like competing and getting a score,
we won't use spotlights.
It was a little stage.
I mean, she just did two doubles
and both of them were kind of just like she sat down.
Technically there's some things she could have done,
like putting her body in a certain position,
you know, pressing her circle out a little bit more.
So she get a little bit more torque off the top,
but highly technical things are things that,
you don't really need that high level of technique
for a double.
So I think it was a little bit more staged than anything.
[white noise]
Thanks so much for watching these clips with me,
stay tuned for part two.
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