august

I don't know if you're meaning this in skating as in skating skills or skating overall, but his exceptionality in pure skating skill is pretty much without question. The key things are the appearance of effortlessness and also the balance between speed and precision. He can generate speed extremely easily and quickly, and his accelerating/decelerating isn't abrupt. he doesn't need to do furious crossovers to get up to speed and he doesn't grind to a halt when he has to do more complex steps/turns. He has better control over his higher speeds than lots of other skaters. He can skate quickly without hopping loads of turns or everything becoming shallow and rushed. Even when he has very fast and complex clusters and demanding musical accents to hit (hello I Wish) he can hold it together, because his command of his skating is so good.

One of the things I find hardest to watch in skating is when someone reaches their step sequence, but they're tired and maybe behind the music, so they're kind of scraping and grinding out the necessary turns and barely covering any ice and it's all a bit frantic. I sound so mean saying this but it like genuinely stresses me out a bit lol. It makes me feel physically impatient and it kinda feels like pressure on the front of my brain? I think that sounds deranged lol. It's probably the OCD. But it's the best way I can think of to describe it. I never feel that with Yuma.

Overall, though, I think inevitably the question of 'the greatest' is to some degree subjective and depends on what you value. Probably I think he's the best because all the things I care about and think are important in skating, he does lol.

I care about:

Good flow and cohesion throughout a program

A sense of effortlessness

Attentive musicality and pace

Attention to, consideration of, and interest in program subject matter

Consistent high quality across all aspects of skating

Yuma has:

The ability to make all of his elements, including his jumps, flow together into a coherent whole. His landing running edge is one of his greatest assets to this end.

The above also aids the sense effortlessness across the board.

Accurate musicality across multiple genres, and adjusts the speed of his skating according to the tone and pace of the music.

Investment and interest in his programs, clear opinions on his material (both positive and negative lol) and understanding of what he is presenting. He is also interested enough in the choreographic process to want to do it himself, which I admire.

Beautiful jumps, with quality maintained even on his quads, good spins, and good steps, and rarely drops levels. Has no glaring weaknesses.

I think to be great you need to be able to balance the scales across all aspects of skating. In the last few years, Yuma's found that balance imo. Not every time, but when he does, it is exceptional.

If I were to give him any criticisms, I would say:

I don't even know if anyone else has noticed this, but he must breathe through his mouth when he's skating because he almost always has his mouth open. sometimes it's a bit distracting or hinders facial interpretation imo.

Yuma I don't mind you fiddling with the choreo here and there but please stop accidentally blasting through small details especially when you get excited

Stop showing the audience that you're disappointed when things go wrong. I find it endearing that you gaf but honestly you have to pretend it didn't happen for the IN score man