General Skating Chat

[Danibellerika]

32 minutes ago, ainjxx said:

i can't rmb where but i think he did mention before that having the free skate the next day right after the sp also affected him because they have to wake up early for tests and practice. that's why i'm worried 😟. i also rmb how yulia did so well at the team event but faltered during the singles event. while it may be also because of nerves, i think the team event having pretty close to the singles event was also a factor. i hope yuzuru and hial team will do the best and wisest decision because i want him to skate 2 clean programs and win his 2nd gold medal because he deserves it and he wants it that much 😣 imma cry if he won't be happy on that day 

You are right, the lack of a break didn't help. I don't think it'll help now either but the events being in the morning could help so they have time to have a more restful night.  I don't think he'll run into Yulia's situation where she got spooked by her overnight fame. You can't really get much bigger than a Yuzuru Hanyu in this sport.  It'll just depend on if he feels up to it.  Should he go for it, at least the Team Men's SP and Team FS are a few days apart.  I think I'll be crying no matter what on Men's FS day. I'm just hoping it's tears of joy which can only happen if he wins again. 

[xeyra]

One more in my list of useless google sheets. The Top 10 Scores, PCS, TES and GOE tables from a while back transplanted into Google Sheets, and now including ladies too.

 

TOP 10 SCORES, PCS, TES AND GOE - MEN AND LADIES

 

Some observations:

• Yuna Kim has 4 of the 10 highest TES in the Short Program but appears nowhere in the top 10 SP PCS. This is an interesting example of how high the PCS inflation has gone since her time. 
• Similarly, Carolina Kostner has 4 out of 10 of the highest SP PCS but is nowhere near the Top 10 in TES. And 3 out of 4 of her best SP PCS came in 2017. 
• On the ladies side, only Evgenia appears in all Top 10s, with Yuna Kim only missing on the SP PCS Top 10. Of the men, Yuzu dominates but Javi also appears in all the Top 10s at least once. So, in effect, these 3-4 skaters could be considered the most balanced skaters of modern times. 
• Yuzu only loses once in the Top 10s, and that's in FS PCS, to Patrick Chan, by having one less Top 10 score than him. 
• Despite having the highest BVs and quad number in the field, so far Nathan only appears twice in the SP TES and twice in the FS TES highest scores (8th and 9th in both), but in effect appears only once in the top 10 scores (FS, in 9th)

 

These tables only consider sanctioned ISU competitions that count for PBs otherwise I'd have to bring in Shoma's TCC 2016 SP or many ladies Japan Open 2017 FS results.... 

[katonice]

LOL

 

[fireovertheice]

While waiting some news about Yuzu (I hope soon...) I also continued with my not much useful counts .

This time I checked how many crossovers and 1-foot turns/ change direction Yuzu had in his last three seasons LP/FP and combining them with the different jumps layouts used. This is the result:

 

	SEIMEI 2015/2016 (GPF 2015)	Hope&Legacy 2016/2017 (WC 2017)	SEIMEI 2017 (CoR 2017)
Jumps PT1	4S, 4T, 3F	4Lo, 4S	4Lz (4)3Lo, 3F
Jumps PT2	4T+3T, 3A+1Lo+3S, 3A+ 2T, 3Lo, 3Lz	3F, 4S+3T, 4T, 3A+1Lo+3S, 3A+ 2T, 3Lz	4S, (4)2T, 4T+3T, 3A+2T, 3A
Tot. Jumps (planned)	3 quads (1 in combo), 2 axels (in combo), 3 triples	4 quads (1 in combo), 2 axels (in combo), 2 triples	5 quads (1 in combo), 2 axels (1 in combo), 1 triple
Crossov. TR1	12	6	8
Crossov. TR2	10	12	16
Crossov. ChSq	1	4	2
Tot. crossovers	23	22	26
1-foot rev./change dir. TR1	8	6	8
1-foot rev./change dir. StSq	11	14	14
1-foot rev./change dir. TR2	6	12	7
1-foot rev./change dir. ChSq	10	5	9
Tot. 1-foot rev./change dir.	35	35	38

 

Some observations:

- despite the increase of difficulty in the jump layout, his programs didn't become simpler o voider in difficult transitions in between;

- it is clear that passing more difficult jumps in the second part of the program caused a little increase in crossovers in this section (and a decrease in the first); however it has always been balanced by difficult transitions, also if a little bit more in H&L, probably because of a different composition of the program/music rythm too;

- there has been an increase of difficult turns in the StSq from last season, maybe to try to receive always a Lv4 for StSq;

- ChSq of Seimei is a bit longer and with more difficult turns and steps vs. crossovers than H&L

- this season Seimei improves the old version not only in difficulty of the elements, but in the StSq too, following the direction already taken with H&L. There is a slight increase in crossovers in the second part, anyway balanced with an increase of difficult turns too, also if in a minor quantity.

 

Seeing what the other top men have done or are doing (we will see also what Nathan will actually propose at Nats), is admirable what he has done last two season and what he is trying to achieve in this: increasing difficulty of the elements without decreasing difficulty of transitions and the overall quality and balance of the programs. I really hope that he can fully recover, to give to himself and to us one of his beautiful and astounding performances at Oly.

 

Looking at this numbers, what do you think ?

[Neenah]

Interesting post from Jaki Wong, there are things I agree with and of course others I don't but I thought it would be good for starting discussions on some of the points he makes

http://www.rockerskating.com/news/2017/12/27/opining-on-the-isu-judging-system-5-calls-to-action

 

I am personally interested in what you guys think about lowering the BV for all elements and not just the jumps to keep the balance with PC

[Lunna]

14 часов назад, Neenah сказал:

I am personally interested in what you guys think about lowering the BV for all elements and not just the jumps to keep the balance with PC

Interesting point, but why not just increase PCS maximum for men? Or better just to judge properly and not based on TES.

Didn't know about cameras for replay. Also I agree about rippons and tanos that it should count for bullet point let's say not more than 2 times in FS and once in the SP (the same like jumps repeating).

[yuzuangel]

4 minutes ago, Lunna said:

Didn't know about cameras for replay. Also I agree about rippons and tanos that it should count for bullet point let's say not more than 2 times in FS and once in the SP (the same like jumps repeating).

Yeah, or take "varied air positions" at its face value. If all your jumps have rippons/tanos, it's not varied..but if you have one or two tanos, one or two rippons, etc. then that could be very interesting.

[robin]

On 1.1.2018 at 1:27 PM, Lunna said:

nteresting point, but why not just increase PCS maximum for men? Or better just to judge properly and not based on TES.

 

Yeah, just scale by 0.6/1.2 or something. Although I don‘t actually like the idea of giving PCS more weight than it already has within the current corrupt judging. At least TES is a way for skaters to control their own fate, giving PCS more weight would also give judges more power and idk how to feel about that. The root of the problem needs to be solved first. I guess re-educating judges or firing them all and reinstating neutral judges that have no connection to feds.... but judging from how judges from smaller feds (like Mexico) seem to be the easiest to sway I don‘t think that would solve it either. It seems kinda hopeless as long as the sport is succeptible to corruption and fixing something that fundamental is a long shot

[liv]

I was really surprised with the 1 camera thing, as well as it being beside the judges. No wonder so many obvious URs are missed. I think it is awful when so many closeups are available from pro cameras and the world can see them clearly. 

 

And ita about arm variations. If you have trained that way all your life, it is technique. Yuzu and Mai adding them now, for example, and for just 1 jump is something extra. I remember when Boitano started it... it was so effective!!

 

They have to fix the tunnel pcs scoring.... it IS possible to score differently in each category, judges should learn to use it properly.  Just because you have tons of transitions does not mean your choreography, performance or interpretation is great... I find it can be the exact opposite, and vice versa. 

 

 

 

[EisElle]

My opinion on J. Wong's five points

(wall-text, for the short version you can skip to the end of the post) 

 

1. Re: more cameras.

YES. Please YES. It's dumb refusing to use technology when you have it, more so if said technology can make the panel's work easier and maybe reduce a bit the saltiness from fans and improve the reputation of the sport among casual audience. If ISU wants to popularize skating more this would be a nice and sensible start. Can ISU be nice and sensible? Idk

Btw in soccer slow motion replays are being used in sport programs on tv since forever but their use is still only being tested during the actual matches. 

So ISU is in good company in being technology-phobic.  

 

2. Re: recalibrating components 

I don't get why one would go through the pain of changing all the BVs of all the elements when there is a solution as easy as just changing one darn multiplier for PCS (ok, two, but still less than all those BVs). If you don't want to change the PCS multipliers for whatever reason, fine, just add a multiplier 0.8 or so for the TES. There. Problem solved. We can move to more serious problems. Like how you train judges. How you review their work. How you punish those who need to be punished, so judging gets fairer. Or implementing better technology for review of jumps etc.

Thank you.

 

3. Re:  10% bonus  

If I got this right, JW's idea is to make the +10%BV bonus not count for jumps with mistakes in the 2nd half. But the jump has been jumped when the skaters are more tired, would it be fair to give them the same BV received for a jump with the same mistake but executed in the first half? If the point is to reward a difficult element executed when the skater is more tired, well, the mere going for the jump is harder in the 2nd half, even without taking the landing into account.

Then I could also argue that a mistake in the first half should get an harshest  punishment because there there isn't the excuse of being tired, so we should demand skaters to go cleaner there.

 

Iirc once Dolfini from ita Esp was saying that according to studies, skaters have the highest heart rate during the stsq (likely because of the prolonged effort) so jumps wouldn't be the most "demanding" elements when talking about physical exertion, therefore the bonus could take this into account. Now, those are interesting datas. But then, if we want to redefine the 2nd half bonus for the elements that require more effort, it would be necessary to ascertain if, when executing the same set of elements (jumps, spins and steps), a certain order is globally more physically demanding than another (e.g. steps first, then spins nd jumps, or jumps followed by steps and spins). The mere heart rate during a single element isn't enough, imo. Is the heart rate for steps higher in 2nd half after jumps than in first half before them? And how much? Are jumps more physically demanding after steps? 

If we consider the mere psychology, I don't think there are many doubts that doing jumps later in the program is harder, too.

In addition, if we talk about quality of jumps, I believe the data we currently have say quality is usually lower in 2nd half. And when most of the skaters still do the harder elements earlier in their programs despite the bonus, I'd say the bonus is fair from a purely athletic point of view.

For those who think a fully backloaded  (or frontloaded) program is inherently "unbalanced", imo it depends on music, choreography and execution. Kostornaia's FS, fully backloaded, is better than many "balanced" programs. But if ISU wants to add "not totally unbalanced temporal distribution of jumps", then nothing easier than just  saying: "the bonus can be given to xxxx number of jumping passes at most, and if you backload more you do it without BV reward". There, easy. Let's move on.

 

4. Review of how (and how often?!?) bullets are counted

Imo JW is wrong when he mixes GOE bullets with features for spins that decide the spin level, so its BV (and have nothing to do with GOE on the spin). We can put togheter the intervention to limit the overuse of the Biellman with the Zayak rule, as both have the aim to force skaters to execute different elements. But GOE aren't about innovation and not even about the elements, they are about the grade of execution  of elements, and why should any bullet be given only a limited number of times? Matched to music, height and distance bullets have nothing to do with doing something for the first time, or only one time in all the program. Heck, I'd like to see every jump to check those bullets in every program! Even for entries and exits of jumps, innovations come into play only for those (very subjective!) bits about  creative/original, but you can still get the bullets for  "difficult"entry and good extension on exit and you don't need to be creative or innovative at all. 

 

In particular

Re: tano and rippon 

I am against forcing a limit on their number, unless it is proved that they don't make the jump harder at all. That I can find them boring should have 0 impact on the "quality of execution" of a jump (tho, of course, it could weight on PCS score). Otherwise one could say the usual air position without any tano or rippon is boring and ask for mandatory arms variations on at least two jumps. 

I can see that e.g. Evgenia sometimes seems to use the additional wrench from her tano arm to do her jumps, but when she has skated injured she has dropped most of her arm variations, which makes me think her usual tano jumps are still harder for her than the non-tano.

We can complain all we want about the overuse of tano but then why would we not reward skaters just because they can consistently hit one particular bullet? Let's say one day a skater does programs with all the jumps entered from counter, wouldn't he/she still meet the bullets for difficult entry, even tho there is no creativity/originality?

Imo it could be taken into consideration the quality of the arm position itself, but it becomes too subjective then. And btw, right now (I don't know how the bullets/goe will work next season) that bullet accounts only for half goe. When we consider how creatively goe are sometimes given, it looks like excessive tano is an overrated question, tbh. Also, if the tano results in ugly/bad air position, poor flow in the jump or other flaws, the scoring system already allows for the proper goe deductions (e.g. -1 to -2 for poor speed, height, distance, air position vs a +0.5 for the arm variation). As always, it's up to judges.

 

5. Re: better training for judges 

Absolutely yes. I might add, more serious measures for people not applying the rules properly (which could be sometimes tricky to see, but other times it's quite easy e.g. judges giving 10 for programs with falls and -1 goe for falls on jumps or anything more than -3 on SP solo jump without steps).

 

 

To sum the wall-text: I don't think arm variations and "unbalance" due to backloading are a real issue, not yet. There are more urgent and serious problems: implementing current technology to help panels (and I might add allow slow-mo for prerotation of jumps, too), more consistent tech calls, GOE and components reflecting what really happens on the ice, 

 STICKING TO WHAT'S WRITTEN IN THE RULEBOOK.

Imo ISU should think about the beams first and leave the motes for later. 

 

 

 

[Aotoshiro]

36 minutes ago, LadyLou said:

My opinion on J. Wong's five points

(wall-text, for the short version you can skip to the end of the post) 

 

1. Re: more cameras.

YES. Please YES. It's dumb refusing to use technology when you have it, more so if said technology can make the panel's work easier and maybe reduce a bit the saltiness from fans and improve the reputation of the sport among casual audience. If ISU wants to popularize skating more this would be a nice and sensible start. Can ISU be nice and sensible? Idk

Btw in soccer slow Moriondo replays are being used in sport programs on tv since forever but their use is still only being tested during the actual matches. 

So ISU is in good company in being technology-phobic.  

 

2. Re: recalibrating components 

I don't get why one would go through the pain of changing all the BVs of all the elements when there is a solution as easy as just changing one darn multiplier for PCS (ok, two, but still less than all those BVs). If you don't want to change the PCS multipliers for whatever reason, fine, just add a multiplier 0.8 or so for the TES. There. Problem solved. We can move to more serious problems. Like how you train judges. How you review their work. How you punish those who need to be punished, so judging gets fairer. Or implementing better technology for review of jumps etc.

Thank you.

 

3. Re:  10% bonus  

If I got this right, JW's idea is to make the +10%BV bonus not count for jumps with mistakes in the 2nd half. But the jump has been jumped when the skaters are more tired, would it be fair to give them the same BV received for a jump with the same mistake but executed in the first half? If the point is to reward a difficult element executed when the skater is more tired, well, the mere going for the jump is harder in the 2nd half, even without taking the landing into account.

Then I could also argue that a mistake in the first half should get an harshest  punishment because there there isn't the excuse of being tired, so we should demand skaters to go cleaner there.

 

Iirc once Dolfini from ita Esp was saying that according to studies, skaters have the highest heart rate during the stsq (likely because of the prolonged effort) so jumps wouldn't be the most "demanding" elements when talking about physical exertion, therefore the bonus could take this into account. Now, those are interesting datas. But then, if we want to redefine the 2nd half bonus for the elements that require more effort, it would be necessary to ascertain if, when executing the same set of elements (jumps, spins and steps), a certain order is globally more physically demanding than another (e.g. steps first, then spins nd jumps, or jumps followed by steps and spins). The mere heart rate during a single element isn't enough, imo. Is the heart rate for steps higher in 2nd half after jumps than in first half before them? And how much? Are jumps more physically demanding after steps? 

If we consider the mere psychology, I don't think there are many doubts that doing jumps later in the program is harder, too.

In addition, if we talk about quality of jumps, I believe the data we currently have say quality is usually lower in 2nd half. And when most of the skaters still do the harder elements earlier in their programs despite the bonus, I'd say the bonus is fair from a purely athletic point of view.

For those who think a fully backloaded  (or frontloaded) program is inherently "unbalanced", imo it depends on music, choreography and execution. Kostornaia's FS, fully backloaded, is better than many "balanced" programs. But if ISU wants to add "not totally unbalanced temporal distribution of jumps", then nothing easier than just  saying: "the bonus can be given to xxxx number of jumping passes at most, and if you backload more you do it without BV reward". There, easy. Let's move on.

 

4. Review of how (and how often?!?) bullets are counted

Imo JW is wrong when he mixes GOE bullets with features for spins that decide the spin level, so its BV (and have nothing to do with GOE on the spin). We can put togheter the intervention to limit the overuse of the Biellman with the Zayak rule, as both have the aim to force skaters to execute different elements. But GOE aren't about innovation and not even about the elements, they are about the grade of execution  of elements, and why should any bullet be given only a limited number of times? Matched to music, height and distance bullets have nothing to do with doing something for the first time, or only one time in all the program. Heck, I'd like to see every jump to check those bullets in every program! Even for entries and exits of jumps, innovations come into play only for those (very subjective!) bits about  creative/original, but you can still get the bullets for  "difficult"entry and good extension on exit and you don't need to be creative or innovative at all. 

 

In particular

Re: tano and rippon 

I am against forcing a limit on their number, unless it is proved that they don't make the jump harder at all. That I can find them boring should have 0 impact on the "quality of execution" of a jump (tho, of course, it could weight on PCS score). Otherwise one could say the usual air position without any tano or rippon is boring and ask for mandatory arms variations on at least two jumps. 

I can see that e.g. Evgenia sometimes seems to use the additional wrench from her tano arm to do her jumps, but when she has skated injured she has dropped most of her arm variations, which makes me think her usual tano jumps are still harder for her than the non-tano.

We can complain all we want about the overuse of tano but then why would we not reward skaters just because they can consistently hit one particular bullet? Let's say one a skater does programs with all the jumps entered from counter, wouldn't he/she still meet the bullets for difficult entry, even tho there is no creativity/originality?

Imo it could be taken into consideration the quality of the arm position itself, but it becomes too subjective then. And btw, right now (I don't know how the bullets/goe will work next season) that bullet accounts only for half goe. When we consider how creatively goe are sometimes given, it looks like excessive tano is an overrated question, tbh. Also, if the tano results in ugly/bad air position, poor flow in the jump or other flaws, the scoring system already allows for the proper goe deductions (e.g. -1 to -2 for poor speed, height, distance, air position vs a +0.5 for the arm variation). As always, it's up to judges.

 

5. Re: better training for judges 

Absolutely yes. I might add, more serious measures for people not applying the rules properly (which could be sometimes tricky to see, but other times it's quite easy e.g. judges giving 10 for programs with falls and -1 goe for falls on jumps or anything more than -3 on SP solo jump without steps).

 

 

To sum the wall-text: I don't think arm variations and "unbalance" due to backloading are a real issue, not yet. There are more urgent and serious problems: implementing current technology to help panels (and I might add allow slow-mo for prerotation of jumps, too), more consistent tech calls, GOE and components reflecting what really happens on the ice, 

 STICKING TO WHAT'S WRITTEN IN THE RULEBOOK.

Imo ISU should think about the beams first and leave the motes for later. 

 

 

 

YES to all this, especially varied arm position. If it's ugly, you can deduct a -1 (I think? I don't have my rulebook file open), so if that's the only bullet, or say, a second bullet with matched music composition (which is the most subjective one, so the easiest to give without backlash imo), GOE=0 so it's not worth it=you drop it. End of the story.

Actually, I wonder if this was possible, but I wonder if implementing a checking GOE bullets option in the Judging system would help(and leave counting each checks number to the computer)-that way not only us would get an explanation on random GOEs, skaters on their protocols could see what the judges thought of their jumps! So, for example if the judges didn't check the matched to the music, the skater and choreographer could work on redesigning it to a different, more fitting place instead of blindly trying to guess what the hell they have to do to get more bullets...yeah, I know, we can dream -,-'

[katonice]

Haven't watched this yet, but definitely should be interesting.

 

[Xen]

On 1/1/2018 at 6:17 AM, Neenah said:

Interesting post from Jaki Wong, there are things I agree with and of course others I don't but I thought it would be good for starting discussions on some of the points he makes

http://www.rockerskating.com/news/2017/12/27/opining-on-the-isu-judging-system-5-calls-to-action

 

I am personally interested in what you guys think about lowering the BV for all elements and not just the jumps to keep the balance with PC

Before we start going into details, the entire analysis of what we should do in regards to judging is based on a premise: Figure skating is half sport, half art, therefore the sport component scores (TES) and artistic components of the scores (PCS) must be balanced at precisely or nearly 50/50.

-  This is why under the 6.0 system, both Tech scores and artistry scores were capped at 6.0.

-  This would also argue for lowering TES to a degree, and argue for rising the PCS co-efficients

-  This could also be the rationale partially, behind the PCS inflation in the quad-happy era in the men's, the urge to balance the scores for skaters because they should be balanced

 

If we find this premise to be true, then before we even go happy with PCS coefficients and lowering BVs, why not consider some other things? For this, I'd like to kindly mention the-a-factor (recent ep translation up here) where there are very specific mentions of pre-rotation calls, steps preceeding a jump, SS and TR scores (which are more technical). So before we go happy with the lowering BV, it would be good for the ISU to consider several things:

 

1) Increasing the ability of the tech panal to do its job. This ties in with the cameras that Rocker Skating article mentions-why give tech panel a blind spot? But as Max and Angelo mention in their podcast, there needs to also be clear rules and stipulations about pre-rotations. When a flip or a lutz takes off on a severe enough edge to make it a loop essentially, it should not have the same BV as a lutz or flip. If you pre-rotate past the half way mark, you should be dinged. All of this will lower the TES significantly across the board, especially the men's field will see less legit 4F and 4Lz scores pop up.  And if you call the steps requirement correctly in the SP,  you'll see less guys attempting the hard quads as a solo jump- sure the BV is still higher than the triples version, but as Max and Angelo said, some guys will ponder and think, and it would limit options in the SP.  The end result of both the above might be-le gasp-less quads!  Again, if the goal is to lower TES scores-the above might actually be sufficient (when implemented well) to do the job.

 

2) GOEs and training as mentioned by Wong is legitimately a huge problem. It puzzles me to this day that ISU wants to decrease the BV on jumps, but hey, let's just go with +5 GOEs. Hello, did they miss their own memo of what makes up the TES score?  @Aotoshiro mentioned this, and I know it was joked about earlier, but seriously, train judges with a scoring board panel that asks them to check which bullet points are met. Then let the computer do the computation. There are only a couple guys and gals now a days whom I think should legitimately get the +2 and +3 GOEs for jumps. Most skaters are at the +0 and +1 range on GOEs for jumps. If we speak of only of jumps, consider that there's about 10 jumps distributed across SP and LP (after men's LP time change), we're looking at about 5-15 points shaved off of TES alone on this. Would this possibly bring some balance? Oh maybe, maybe....

 

3) Don't necessarily agree with him about punishing backloading. Backloading does work for some programs and as a strategy,  it is a risky strategy. Most skaters don't have the stamina to really backload like Zagi or Kostornaia, and as a strategy it could be used by a person who doesn't have that many quads (with good GOEs, a backloaded triple A might catch up). Before complaining about backloading strategy as "bad on principle" try to watch some of the programs that do backload (Kostornaia is good, and Zagi's recent RUS nationals LP was better executed).  Usually only a very narrow corridor of music options exist, the music and program has to follow a very specific pattern, and it might be more true that many skaters won't do this since the options are too narrow to fit their skating style.  Furthermore, the backloading drain to stamina will cause issues elsewhere-CO/PE/IN probably won't be perfect if the program is not executed well. So until we see a not well executed fully backloaded program get perfect scores, I'm not getting the pitchforks out yet. As far as I'm concerned, I want to give skaters and their teams the full freedom to execute whatever potential strategy/program they see fit.

 

4) I don't get spin levels from point 4 of Wong's article, but generally, just um No. If you can rippon like Rippon all the time and make it fit and look good in a program, then why kill it? You can factor in the boring/ad nauseum factor elsewhere, like PE/CO/IN perhaps? Movements just for the sake of bullet points which make no meaningful contribution to the piece as a whole, nor fit with the music should be considered distractions in the PE/CO/IN of the program. Also...isn't there a bullet for the jump fitting the music? Why not just withold that bullet if the tano/rippon is meangingless to the music?  I also get the rippon variations in Zagi's program (it's more fitting for a ballet inspired piece than normal jump arms), but won't get into it in details now.

 

5) Tunnel/corridor judging: @liv mentioned this already, but again, this is a bigger problem. Part of the inflation, I wonder if it goes back to the premise that figure skating scores need PCS and TES to be balanced at 50/50, that somehow judges cannot just live with the idea that a skater might legitmately be a jumper and less an artist- so they will just "manually" balance it. And while I personally can see some leeway given for quads programs versus an all triples programs, that does not mean a quads program can get away with significantly less transitions-maybe a 35 transitions program that is all triples could get say 8.75 TR, and the same score could be given to a quads program with 32 transitions. But that number should not be such a huge difference that is currently occuring in the scores. And if you do have "empty" boring programs that are just jump after jump with very little expressive transitions, but stil okay SteqSequence, you could still give 9's for SS, but feel free to Ding on the TR, PE, Co and IN- give 8's because that program deserved an 8 on those scores. Similarily, you could have skaters who don't have as many TR, or deep edges, but are so musical and expressive (Sasha anyone?), then give the darn 8's on SS and TR, and give the 9.5's on PE/CO/IN. There are skaters who lean one-way or the other in their styles, why not just recognize it as such that not everyone is a perfectly balanced TES-PCS entity (yes Yuzu, you are a space entity). Skaters themselves recognize it anyways.

 

All the above, if implemented could actually potentially stablize the scores before we get into PCS co-efficients and BV changes. Many skaters will likely see their TES drop by quite a margin, and the scores for many skaters will not have artistry scores and technical scores perfectly balanced. But that's FINE-because to a degree, that premise was based on a) that technical development can be easily contained scoring wise; b) that all skaters can obtain that ideal balance. In so far as that premise is wrong, we may never see balance in the scores, which is a realistic assement of what happens in skating. And really...how many skaters score high on both scores? Not that many, and probably even less once we actually apply the rules.

 

 

 

 

 

[kaeryth]

Hmmmmm.....

 

[yuzuangel]

18 minutes ago, kaeryth said:

Hmmmmm.....

 

Hmm...

 

Well, is it possible to get rid of all possible conflicts of interest (in addition to the obvious, of course, of current coaches/choreographers/etc.)? I suppose, there could be a database somewhere, that if an ex-student of yours is competing, you're disqualified from being a judge of any sort. But some skating freelancers work with hundreds of competing skaters, sometimes from tiny things like fixing a jump or a spin, so it becomes very  This is why I support the fantasy motion to replace as many judges' responsibilities with machines, ASAP!  No matter how much it "kills the sport," nothing kills the sport more than working your butt off on something and never seeing any reward for it for no reason other than the country you come from or how marketable you are. Unless the "sport" you're going into is modeling or something, lol.