Repeating Programs - Pros and Cons | Page 19 | Golden Skate

Repeating Programs - Pros and Cons

moriel

Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 18, 2015
Also, once more, some fans are extremely unfair about skaters and their comfort zones.
Just please keep in mind everybody, that when you meet a great landscape painter, you should appreciate the landscapes, and not bash him for not painting portraits.
Same for skaters, nobody can perform everything - some are more lyrical, other more dramatic and so on. Going out of this comfort zone is not equal to improving artistry.
 

Barb

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 13, 2009
We can accept the fact that repeat programs is simply boring, or at least it is not so exciting like new programs?, Yuzu fans can defend him all they want but there is no one more dissapointed about him repeating programs than his fans. They understand that is the best strategy but, Who don´t love to see a new program of their favorite skater?. I know it. When Mao repeated programs or music I tried to justify her and convince myself that it was a great idea, but deep down I was disappointed not to see a new program or new music. She got better? Yes, I enjoyed her programs? Absolutely, but I still wanted to see more programs, especially because I watched all her performances countless times, I had already memorized all her programs and music. And even to this day, I've always wanted Mao to try different choreographers, although I know that Lori and Tatiana have always done an excellent job.
(She only repeated Liebestraum like a program, and she repeat only music with Masquerade and Nocturne)
Honestly, if all the skaters repeated programs, I would totally stop of to follow figure skating.
 

Violet Bliss

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 19, 2010
Should Sui/Han's new programs for the Olympic season receive bonus points? Of all skaters, they would be the most justified to keep their two programs from last season. After all, they only performed each program twice in their very short season after her surgery and both programs were very highly acclaimed, innovative, and well loved, not to mention winning. Yet they are starting anew taking risks with unfamiliar untested new choreography.

I would award them with medal of courage for always moving ahead, as much as I really wish to see their last season's SP again, especially since I didn't like the overhead shots of some of my favorite parts of the program.
 

karne

in Emergency Backup Mode
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 1, 2013
Country
Australia
Also, once more, some fans are extremely unfair about skaters and their comfort zones.
Just please keep in mind everybody, that when you meet a great landscape painter, you should appreciate the landscapes, and not bash him for not painting portraits.
Same for skaters, nobody can perform everything - some are more lyrical, other more dramatic and so on. Going out of this comfort zone is not equal to improving artistry.

That is true. However, when it was plenty of Hanyu fans who were bashing the heck out of Fernandez for his program choices this year (because they were "the same type of thing he always does") and who are now backpedaling frantically to try and make up some excuse for why it's acceptable for Hanyu to do a third repeat of a record-breaking SP and a second repeat of an FS, well...
 

Neenah16

On the Ice
Joined
Dec 4, 2016
That is true. However, when it was plenty of Hanyu fans who were bashing the heck out of Fernandez for his program choices this year (because they were "the same type of thing he always does") and who are now backpedaling frantically to try and make up some excuse for why it's acceptable for Hanyu to do a third repeat of a record-breaking SP and a second repeat of an FS, well...

And there are plenty of people who pointed out that being disappointed with a choice is very normal and should not be taken as bashing, or does that only apply when you are disappointed with Hanyu and it is still is bashing when it is another skater?

The truth is,everyone is okay with negative comments and are willing to justify it as just disappointment or "no one is above criticism" because it is fine as long as it is not their favourite skater. When someone says anything they perceive as negative about their favourites they jump to their defence regardless of criticism being justified or not. We should not pretend that it is only one single skater's fans that are doing it, because everyone is guilty no matter how objective we try to be. We have our preferences and our biases and it is human nature to be more sensitive to negative comments about what we like, and dismissive of the same comments if they were about something we don't care about or dislike.

Back to the topic of the thread.. I think that the discussion about Hanyu's choices was a very good answer to the pro's and con's of repeating a program (when people were actually discussing it and not fighting). Maybe we should discuss other specific cases where repeats worked or did not work, or even try to look at other skaters repeating this season and discuss whether that repeat has the same advantages and disadvantage that Hanyu's case does.
 

emipeters

Rinkside
Joined
Mar 1, 2015
I think it's clear that we've reached the point in the men's discipline where multiple quads are required to even be within sniffing distance of the podium; and that multiple-quad programs are always going to be slightly compromised artistically. Yuzuru has appeared to have come to the conclusion that in order to perform a 5-quad program with sufficient detail to be balanced and interesting artistically, it needs to be a program that he knows inside out. Although I'm disappointed as a Yuzu uber not to see something new, I still think I'd rather see him perform a clean, complicated repeat program than one that may be new but only consists of crossovers between quads.

Exciting as quads are, I think it's very clear now that scoring needs to be revised - 3 quads in a long program are enough for excitement and still leaves room for the very best skaters to bring artistry and performance to the table.
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
It seems there are two main reasons to oppose repeat programs. Some people may believe both at the same time, but the implications are different:

1. Fans enjoy seeing different programs from the skaters they enjoy. More programs = more enjoyment, especially from skaters who bring fresh artistic ideas to every new piece of music they skate to, who are capable of interpreting many different kinds of music. Hence the disappointment at not getting to see new work from a favored performer. (And for skaters who have bored us in the past, maybe if they get a better program this year they'll finally catch our interest.) This is especially an issue for skaters who compete in many televised competitions so we get to see 5 or 10 or more different performances of the same program in a year, not to mention rewatching videos of the same performance many times.

2. Using an old familiar program gives skaters an advantage over learning new choreography and new ways of moving. It's not a fair competition if some skaters challenge themselves by learning new material and others take the easy way out by repeating programs that already have a year or more of mileage on them. In order to level the playing field, there should be some kind of scoring penalty for a skater using old material. (Alternatively, there could be a bonus for using new programs; the net effect on the score totals would be pretty much the same, but the implications of what's expected/required vs. what's going above and beyond would be different.)

If we accept #2 and believe there needs to be an official way to penalize repeats (or reward new work) in competition, then there would need to be official definitions of what constitutes repeating a program, how to keep track, and how to apply a penalty or bonus.

*What is the standard amount of time a skater is expected to keep the same program? One season, July 1 to July 1 (public performances of next year's programs in the spring at shows or local competitions would not count)? One calendar year, so that if a skater changes programs mid-season because the original one was not working, the new program wouldn't be considered repeated until 365 days after the first competition where it was used?

-What if a skater announces a new program, maybe performs it in public including in competition once or twice early in the season, and then withdraws from or doesn't qualify for all later-season events? We may not know whether they were able to keep practicing this program everyday all year while out of the public eye or were too injured or ill -- or even just too busy with other life choices -- even to set foot in an ice rink for most of that year. Does it make a difference in whether they should be allowed to use the barely-competed program with impunity the following season?

*What consititutes "the same program"? Does it have to be the same music or the same choreography or both?
-What if a skater chooses different selections of music from the same larger source, with different choreography and concept for each (the most obvious example that comes to mind is Philippe Candeloro's multiple young-mature-aged Godfather programs from 1994 and 95 seasons)?
-What about different orchestrations, edits, or variations of the same tune performed in different musical genres?
-What if the music remains identical but the jump content, spin content, details of the step sequence, order of elements, transitional moves and highlights, etc., have all been reworked so that the only thing the same is the music?
-What if the jump content, spin content, details of the step sequence, order of elements, transitional moves and highlights, etc. remain almost identical but only the music has changed, to a different piece in the same general style, so that only a few nuances of timing or upper body movements differ between programs?
-How much of the program duration must have the same music and/or choreography to count as "the same"? 50%? more? less?

*What if a skater revives music that she had used much earlier in her career, in junior or novice or lower level programs and is now reviving as a senior?

*What if a skater chooses music from the same source, with many of the same melodies maybe even some of the same exact cuts, for both short and long program in the same year? Does that count as repeating music?

*What if the skater had previously used this music for a short program and now expands it to a long program, or vice versa, or adapts an exhibition program into a competitive one?

*Who is responsible for keeping track and how?
-Should judges just each separately rely on their memories?
-Should there be a database of music choices that skaters must submit their choices to each season and an official at each competition is responsible for comparing what the skater skates to today to what they said they were skating to this year and what they actually skated to in previous years? (Going back how far?)
-Do only international competitions count, or also domestic events before the skater earned any international assignments? Who keeps track of those?

If you believe penalizing repeated programs is appropriate, let us know how it would really work.
 

MaiKatze

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 4, 2012
If you believe penalizing repeated programs is appropriate, let us know how it would really work.

I don't think it would. It makes no sense and opens a new can of worms, as you've described in your post. I think the only real con is the disappointment of the fans, and that is arguably a factor that most top skater don't give a *insertswearword* about. The slight risk is, that the judges, and that is often forgotten, are also fans. So it might consciously or unconsciously play into the score, but that is so minimal that it won't matter much.

I think for some skaters it's also a bit of a 'legacy' thing. Savchenko/Massot were so praised for their programs last season, but I also think they want something new and fresh and exciting for their Gold. As a skater to have to skate to the same music several years must be kind of tiring. Some obviously don't care, others do and work hard at presenting a new program. While that shouldn't exactly play into the score either, it probably also does. Who knows, skating to something new - it could be THE program of your career, better than everything you did before. With old programs they are no boundaries to be crossed, artistically at least.
 

OS

Sedated by Modonium
Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 23, 2010
6000th post!!

Sorry for the delayed reply GKelly, what a crazy week!!! (work/play/trumpverse).

I wouldn’t trust any old artist of the street with judging Skating Skills or probably Transitions.
With some kind of standardized rubric, adapted from the existing component criteria or built from scratch, I could see letting artists with no skating background evaluate what’s currently covered under Performance, Composition, and Interpretation.

Absolutely! Art should not be for art's sake, this is still a sport. In-depth skating knowledge, figure skating/figure skater history, as well as basic skating skills should be required to ensure these experts are true experts of their specialization; all encompassing, best of the best, creme of the crop etc. No different than elite judges of any art field with appropriate knowledge and awareness of the history/movements/political/social/cultural factor/technique of their times etc.

The 5 components experts can come from their respective field in Performance, Composition, and Interpretation etc.. but it should not be necessary. Their ability to judge should prioritize over their background as long as they can prove they are best in the field in a series of advanced exams. Reason being, there are professional musicians/dancers that do not have the best musicality/interpretation just as there are composers out there can't play as well to convey interpretations etc..

Composition exams can look something like this: 1 skater skate 5 pieces of individual choreography per the same music edit. The expert should able to rank these 1-5 and gives good reasons why. The highest scoring judges get to be the expert of that component score. The best judge should able to distinct on quality of choreography, construct, difficulty/complexity of choreography movements, intricacy, originality, creativity, music+choreography cohesion, realisation of concept, art direction, how it fit the skater (complementary/confining/limiting/expanding/advancing, or just optimised for the sake of technical delivery etc..) How it compares to what the skaters/choreographers previously did, how it compares to the field, how it compares with figure skating history etc..

PE exam can look something like this: 1 skater skate to the same music edit with 5 version of the same choreography with subtle differences/variation (simplified choreography, out of synch with the music, highlight the music, don't respond to the music, missed cue, perfect, deliberate technical delivery mistakes and see if it impact on the overall impression of the performance as intended).

Judges then have to able to rank them 1 - 5 according to the quality of realization, able to note instances by the seconds, choreograph movements for each version of the performance, where noticeably wrong, of great highlight, or where can be improved. This is designed to ensure the judges can spot various nuances in terms of quality, musicality, and depth of realization etc...

I would prefer best judges mark in their specialized component(s) field only, certainly not specialized more than 2 components at the same time. Ideally judge 1 component only per competition. This should then give a more balanced break down of the components score, rather than have them aligned with each other, usually similar order to reputation/skating skills.

How do you define “easiest” and “hardest choreographed”?
Easiest could mean recycled from last year, or finally for the first time adopting a movement style that works best with this skater’s natural movement qualities instead of trying to force them into a more traditionally accepted mode, or including the most demanding contrasts and variety within the same program, or including easier technical elements or easier transitions and basic skating between the elements, etc.

As with everything in art, it is never either/or, black/white etc..

The Same piece of choreography with improved detailed improvements or a more refined performance/interpretation can be more difficult than the same piece of choreography done technically well for example.

However, repeated program (or similar type/structured/styled program just to different music track) which one has already mastered/accredited would be easier 'overall' to replicate than a brand new program that is outside the skater's comfort zone that they need to learn from scratch. These are the differences between art vs design vs craft.

The reinvention of the same theme for example can also be a worthy artistic challenge with added difficulty if they are striving for something new and never seen before with advanced choreography styles. e.g Tessa/Scott's Carmen. That is why creativity, originality, authenticity are such important values in art vs something manufactured or more or less the same, and stagnation is often seen as the death of art.


So you do think that skaters should be judged on their body of work every time they compete, and not just what they perform that day?

In art, the highest form of realization, refinement/polish can be less is more but for it to be true, there must be more in the first place. Processes takes time, otherwise it is just immitation/copies.

Diversity, versatility, experimentation, reinvention are all necessary processes to 'develop and improve' artistry... since they are the necessery steps to develop creativity, originality, authenticity, a journey to discover oneself and developing own unique style/voice. That is what I mean by a body of work and why historically they have proven to have weighed heavily along with what they did on the day (among other political component reasons) . For any art to be credible, they need to have processes to develop awareness of the self. Always in the works, alive, ever changing, not stagnant, not just an end result, not tracing the steps. Artists need to develop meaning and purpose behind the aesthetics, otherwise, it is just paint by numbers.

These aspects should all count towards weighing artistic 'difficulty' (not just repeated vs new programs). New programs can be artistically easier too, afterall!! Especially if you have previously delivered a risky, challenging, complex and experimental program. The current judging system makes no distinction which music/choreography edit are harder and require more effort to realize, and certain pieces of choreography are indeed more advanced and risky, or that skaters who strive to develope different styles are doing more advanced choreography vs one that is simplified for technical delivery. That is why music (along with other skilled based arts) exams are graded according to different advance levels.

Imagine if TES guideline is created by someone who has limited knowledge on technical elements and decides all triples and quads are worth the same as long as they are rotated, it is like how judges are marking the PCS now. That usually falls under the judging pattern of

Reputable skaters/Strong federation:
No fall, good, inflate, especially if you skate at home/friendly competitions.
Fall a little bit, no good, but we will inflate a bit than you deserve to keep you in.
Falls alot, terrible, but we won't deflate you too much to keep you in, especially if you are country no.1

Contenders/weak federation:
No fall, no penulty, no advance until you get consistent 2 or 3 times consecutively.
Fall a little bit, no good, we will deduct you from podium contending even if you are your federation no.1
Fall alot, terrible, we will penalise you today AND for the next 2 or 3 competions until you get consistently good again.

General pattern: Reputation/= Skating skills = all other components aligned up to SS with little differences.
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Sorry for the delayed reply GKelly, what a crazy week!!! (work/play/trumpverse).

Thanks for replying. It's an interesting discussion.

Composition exams can look something like this: 1 skater skate 5 pieces of individual choreography per the same music edit. The expert should able to rank these 1-5 and gives good reasons why. The highest scoring judges get to be the expert of that component score. The best judge should able to distinct on quality of choreography, construct, difficulty/complexity of choreography movements, intricacy, originality, creativity, music+choreography cohesion, realisation of concept, art direction, how it fit the skater (complementary/confining/limiting/expanding/advancing, or just optimised for the sake of technical delivery etc..) How it compares to what the skaters/choreographers previously did, how it compares to the field, how it compares with figure skating history etc..

This could be done. It wouldn't cover all possible artistic approaches, but it would give a good sense of how well potential judges of Composition understand the medium and the judging criteria.

PE exam can look something like this: 1 skater skate to the same music edit with 5 version of the same choreography with subtle differences/variation (simplified choreography, out of synch with the music, highlight the music, don't respond to the music, missed cue, perfect, deliberate technical delivery mistakes and see if it impact on the overall impression of the performance as intended).

This would be more difficult to implement and less useful.

If you have the same skater perform the same program 5 different times with only subtle differences, appropriate scores would probably be pretty close to each other and not show a huge differences from best to worst.


Were you thinking of choosing videos of 5 different real performances by an inconsistent skater? Or of having an expert skater perform a program s/he can perform near flawlessly and also intentionally perform slightly to significantly below standard with intentional mistakes and also intentional efforts at weaker posture and body line, lower energy and connection to the music and spectators, fully projecting vs. holding back to varying degrees in personality, intentionally blunted variety and contrast of movements?

How will judges learn to distinguish between a peak performance by a weaker skater vs. an off day by stronger skater?

At what point does it become clear that this is not a bad skater having a bad day?


I would prefer best judges mark in their specialized component(s) field only, certainly not specialized more than 2 components at the same time. Ideally judge 1 component only per competition. This should then give a more balanced break down of the components score, rather than have them aligned with each other, usually similar order to reputation/skating skills.

Yes, each judge could do a better job of applying their standards to one or two components at a time than to five.

But how do you account for honest differences of opinion? How many judges would still be judging each component? If you have only 2 judges assigned to judge Composition, what happens if both of them just don't "get" what the skater/choreographer is trying to achieve with the program? Especially if it draws on cultural knowledge that some judges will have and others won't? E.g., if a skater is using a movie soundtrack and referencing characters or themes from the movie in their performance, judges may understand the program differently depending whether 1) they have seen the movie and recognize the music, including associating specific musical themes with specific parts of the movie; 2) they have heard of the movie and what it's about in general, and are told the name of the music; or 3) they have no knowledge of where the music came from and even if they did would have no knowledge of the movie to relate it to?

Wouldn't it be better in such cases to balance out the judges that don't know the source with others who may?

And if you start bringing in 3, 5, 9 judges per component, that becomes cost-prohibitive, even if you only do that for the bigger important events. And that still leaves you with the fact that judges at lesser international events (senior B, JGP, etc.), and most national-level events, would need to be competent to judge all components at once.
However, repeated program (or similar type/structured/styled program just to different music track) which one has already mastered/accredited would be easier 'overall' to replicate than a brand new program that is outside the skater's comfort zone that they need to learn from scratch.

But how do you know what's outside the skater's comfort zone? As an outside observer, you can only tell by how well they perform it, not how they actually feel about it.

And it's entirely possible that a new program will suddenly "click" into that zone for a skater in ways that the old program just never did. So in that case the age of the program and the comfort level might not be directly proportional at all.

The reinvention of the same theme for example can also be a worthy artistic challenge with added difficulty if they are striving for something new and never seen before with advanced choreography styles. e.g Tessa/Scott's Carmen. That is why creativity, originality, authenticity are such important values in art

Yes, but they are not important values in sport. And Olympic style skating is about sport. With most of the "artistic" criteria designed to reflect technical mastery necessary to achieve them.

In the competitive context, they are not ends in themselves.

To me, making "artistic difficulty" a criterion would be appropriate for an artistically focused skating contest but irrelevant to a sporting contest.
vs something manufactured or more or less the same, and stagnation is often seen as the death of art.

It is not the responsibility of the sport of figure skating to keep art alive. Save that for Ice Theatre or for an artistic skating competition circuit if scores and winners are even appropriate concepts in the context of sustaining Art.

Diversity, versatility, experimentation, reinvention are all necessary processes to 'develop and improve' artistry... since they are the necessery steps to develop creativity, originality, authenticity, a journey to discover oneself and developing own unique style/voice.

That is what I mean by a body of work and why historically they have proven to have weighed heavily along with what they did on the day

Totally impractical for most skating competitions, in which all or many of the skaters are pretty well unknown to all or most of the judges. It should not be the responsibility of skating judges to research the past career of every skater they see in competition.

For any art to be credible, they need to have processes to develop awareness of the self. Always in the works, alive, ever changing, not stagnant, not just an end result, not tracing the steps. Artists need to develop meaning and purpose behind the aesthetics, otherwise, it is just paint by numbers.

And how is this relevant to a sporting contest?

These aspects should all count towards weighing artistic 'difficulty' (not just repeated vs new programs). New programs can be artistically easier too, afterall!! Especially if you have previously delivered a risky, challenging, complex and experimental program. The current judging system makes no distinction which music/choreography edit are harder and require more effort to realize, and certain pieces of choreography are indeed more advanced and risky, or that skaters who strive to develope different styles are doing more advanced choreography vs one that is simplified for technical delivery.

To me, I think the criteria that are in fact relevant to judging performance, composition, and music interpretation as reflections of skating skill could be better defined, with the recognition that some skaters will show higher skill in some or all of these areas on any given occasion.

That is why music (along with other skilled based arts) exams are graded according to different advance levels.

But do music exams take into account what pieces each musician performed last year?

Do competitive(??) or exam-taking musicians always progress through a certain repertoire in order from less to more advanced so the increased difficulty is built in to the exams?

But remember that competitive skating is not an exam. Skating tests such as Moves in the Field in the US or similar testing tracks in other countries, or Pattern Dance tests, do form a set curriculum within each federation that holds tests (and internationally with the use of specific pattern dances at each competition level novice-junior-senior). The level of technical demands as well as timing and expression demands increase with each level.

But between different dance teams at the same competition level, who are competing against each other, for free dances they each get to choose whichever music they think will best showcase their own skills at interpretation, for example. Styles that are comfortable for one team may be challenging for a different team and vice versa (and the same is true of singles skaters or pairs). There are already criteria that speak to greater mastery of the skating medium to demonstrate these performance skills: e.g., Carriage & Clarity of movement, Variety and contrast of movements and energy; Multidimensional use of space and design of movements; Use of finesse to reflect the details and nuances of the music.

Skaters who choose music that allows them to showcase those skills should score higher than those who choose music that demands less clarity or variety/contrast or full-body movement or nuance.

It's also possible, of course, for skaters to choose strong music that allows for demonstration of high-level skills in these areas and then completely fail to live up to it. Or to live up to it only partially. And so they can be scored on the relevant components in relation to how well they demonstrate those skills.

If they have a high skill level but choose music that doesn't give them the opportunity to demonstrate it, then they will/should suffer for that unwise choice.

like how judges are marking the PCS now. That usually falls under the judging pattern of...

General pattern: Reputation/= Skating skills = all other components aligned up to SS with little differences.

To the extent that reputation affects scores irrespective of actual demonstrated skill, I would consider that unfortunate noise interfering with the signal of evaluating the actual skill. I do think that effect does exist, but I don't think it has as much effect as the actual skill level.

Technical skating skill does affect the other components more clearly, because mastery of the technical skills allows skaters to demonstrate the artistic criteria to a higher level than if they're struggling with technique, even if they have great energy and confidence and great connection to the music while executing well-constructed programs.

For example, it's a lot easier to control the rhythm of every step in a step sequence to reflect each note individually, to show variety and contrast moving seamlessly between long and short beats, legato and staccato movements, etc., if you are fully in control of the edges and turns to be able to vary the timing significantly or subtly as the music demands. It's easier to interpret a march than a waltz, easier to interpret a waltz than a syncopated quickstep. But that doesn't mean that an expert skater won't show higher skill skating to a march or waltz than a less-skilled skater missing most of the nuances of a swing tune.

So with the same program, the stronger skater will usually deserve to score higher on the Composition component. And sometimes a weaker skater with a better choreographed program will deserve to score lower than a stronger skater with a less well constructed or less challenging program.

But it's a matter of degrees, balancing all the criteria in any given component.

This year some of the component criteria have been streamlined from what they were in the past, so you may feel that the current rules have already lost some aspects you might have felt were important, let alone aspects that were never written into the rules before.

If there were to be separation of duties so that each judge were responsible for fewer components, then it might make sense to add back and add new criteria for each component. But I do think it would be important to write in only criteria that measure control of the skating technique and not theoretical ideas about what Art should be divorced from actual execution on the day.
 

OS

Sedated by Modonium
Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 23, 2010
Thanks for replying. It's an interesting discussion.

If you have the same skater perform the same program 5 different times with only subtle differences, appropriate scores would probably be pretty close to each other and not show a huge differences from best to worst.

My previous suggestion was to encourage the judges to use to the whole breadth of marks from 1-10 just for the elite level, rather than covering the whole sport as a whole due to the complex learning curve. A 5 out of 10 at Graduate Level should be worth more than a 10 out of 10 at a junior school level for example. This, therefore, make greater distinctions that separate PCS marks more.

The whole purpose the judge's exam is to see ensure judges are capable of telling the differences however subtle with greater clarity and accuracy. Ensure judges are capable to rank them in order with justifiable reasons and what is behind the gap that separates them. ie/What is important, what is less important informed opinion basically. Anything at the highest level, the differences are subtle anyway, but it is nevertheless important to able to distinguish themto ensure the scores are meaningful.

Were you thinking of choosing videos of 5 different real performances by an inconsistent skater? Or of having an expert skater perform a programs/he can perform near flawlessly and also intentionally perform slightly to significantly below standard with intentional mistakes and also intentional efforts at weaker posture and body line, lower energy and connection to the music and spectators, fully projecting vs. holding back to varying degrees in personality, intentionally blunted variety and contrast of movements?

Yes to the bolded. Ideally, a retired elite skater artificially creates these exam scenarios.


How will judges learn to distinguish between a peak performance by a weaker skater vs. an off day by stronger skater?
At what point does it become clear that this is not a bad skater having a bad day?


I have previously suggested there should be specialized PCS judges in the elite level only, ideally professional paid judges without national affiliations to any of the federations, who should be professionally familiar with world top 20 of their specialized event well enough (Men, Ladies, Ice Dancing, Pair). They should able to distinguish what the skaters are trying to do this season vs previous seasons, and able to judge how successful they are able to perform to their potential and to the new scope of the new program. Ability to appraise choreographic content should be most important, to able to read skaters are just having a bad day can be one of the readings of a performance.

But how do you account for honest differences of opinion? How many judges would still be judging each component? If you have only 2 judges assigned to judge Composition, what happens if both of them just don't "get" what the skater/choreographer is trying to achieve with the program? Especially if it draws on cultural knowledge that some judges will have and others won't? E.g., if a skater is using a movie soundtrack and referencing characters or themes from the movie in their performance, judges may understand the program differently depending whether 1) they have seen the movie and recognize the music, including associating specific musical themes with specific parts of the movie; 2) they have heard of the movie and what it's about in general, and are told the name of the music, or 3) they have no knowledge of where the music came from and even if they did would have no knowledge of the movie to relate it to?

Honesty, cultural sensitivity, personal preference, knowledge are inherent problems all expert judges must overcome in any elite arts contests, so it is not something that can be solved except to select the best and most qualified judges who have shown to be self-aware of these limitations, but still able demonstrated the greatest ability to distinguish the quality in all facets according to their experience, professionalism and knowledge on what is good for the sport. Peer review, post-competition review all helps this, as well do research and on going monitoring.

Wouldn't it be better in such cases to balance out the judges that don't know the source of others who may?

Part of the judges training should include train oneself to judge open minded, with a fresh perspective, but it is also applying a consistent judging standard while fully conscious of human limitations such as prejudice, self-interests and human error.

And if you start bringing in 3, 5, 9 judges per component, that becomes cost-prohibitive, even if you only do that for the bigger important events. And that still leaves you with the fact that judges at lesser international events (senior B, JGP, etc.), and most national-level events, would need to be competent to judge all components at once.

Just an idea, given there are normally 10 judges per each elite event (Olympics, Worlds, GP series)

Part of the judging panel selection could be made out of qualified expert judges from these 5 components specialization, where they each are expert in 1 or 2 components, but only get to judge in 1 out of 5 components per competition, so that provide each of the 5 components 2 specialised judges.

Ideally (again) ALL judges at elite levels should all be paid professionals without pressures of national federation affiliation.

But how do you know what's outside the skater's comfort zone? As an outside observer, you can only tell by how well they perform it, not how they actually feel about it.

Part of the paid professional's should include familiarize themselves with the top skaters. No different than any expert analysts who need to be read the stock market performance to give an informed opinion.

And it's entirely possible that a new program will suddenly "click" into that zone for a skater in ways that the old program just never did. So in that case the age of the program and the comfort level might not be directly proportional at all.

Of course it can. Although in general choreography are designed to suit the skater already, so they have been 'customised' and 'simplified' already.

The ability to read choreographic intentions vs actual interpretations are among many valuable skills judges should have become an expert in breaking down to weigh in their scoring.

To me, making "artistic difficulty" a criterion would be appropriate for an artistically focused skating contest but irrelevant to a sporting contest.

I disagree on irrelevancy. I should perhaps clarify a bit better. When I mean artistic difficulty, it DOES include some technical proficiency that are not covered by TES (musicality, form, interpretation), like how different dance, music exams are graded according to their levels. All judges should at least be conscious of certain pieces of music/choreography can be easier/more demanding to showcase/perform, beyond oh lot of transitions and no clear mistakes, crazy high TES must be the best etc.

... Figure skating incorporate performance arts: theatre, dance, music, choreography, hair, makeup, costumes, overall presentation, cultural awareness etc... if it is pure sport, then get rid of the music, makeup, costumes, hairstyle, choice of music, choice of choreography, choice of interpretation, choice of emotions on display etc. The quality of art absolutely has to do with the decision making and the journey/process/reasons why the artist undertook to achieve intended creative direction/vision. These should all counts towards difficulty as well as quality.

It is not the responsibility of the sport of figure skating to keep art alive. Save that for Ice Theatre or for an artistic skating competition circuit if scores and winners are even appropriate concepts in the context of sustaining Art.

It is, however, the responsibility of the sports management to ensure a sport deserve the most accurate and consistent scoring system to ensure ALL skaters can compete fairly in whatever way they choose within the rules. This has not been the case past few seasons with the judging tendency using numbers as ranking skating orders.

Totally impractical for most skating competitions, in which all or many of the skaters are pretty well unknown to all or most of the judges. It should not be the responsibility of skating judges to research the past career of every skater they see in competition.

It is their responsibility if they want to be an elite judge. It should be their responsibility if they are to appraise PCS successfully with credibility. Otherwise, what is the point of judges, they are as useless as some uninformed Bank analyst reading the stock market without ever bothering to follow newspapers, read boring 100+ page research reports and do some investigative analysis/discovery exercise themselves on what makes certain stocks well valued, over valued, undervalued. It is not just ranking number, it is what goes into them, behind them and how things came to be.

And how is this relevant to a sporting contest?

Ahem... ice dancing?! Rhythmic gymnastics? Anything with music, performance. You tell me.

Should we remake the sport a jump drill then, with a bell, a whistle, and star trek uniforms?

To me, I think the criteria that are in fact relevant to judging performance, composition, and music interpretation as reflections of skating skill could be better defined, with the recognition that some skaters will show higher skill in some or all of these areas on any given occasion.

They are deliberately kept vague and open to interpretation for good reasons. But it is also true, judges are taking advantages of the vagueness for whatever reason that suit them. It is more important to see they are followed through and able to distinguish the 5 categories where quality between different program differences should be self-evident in the scoring. The system currently turns a blind eye on everything, as long as the differences are minuscule, averaged out, minimised to the point components became meaningless.


But do music exams take into account what pieces each musician performed last year?

Music exams set the levels of the music piece depends on their difficulty. Figure skating let you pick your own piece of music and choreography regardless of difficulty. More importantly, they make no distinction if you decide to go back to an easier program while others wish to compete with a harder program in the hope to boost their PCS. Since when did we see that affect the scores with any meaning competitively?

...
This year some of the component criteria have been streamlined from what they were in the past, so you may feel that the current rules have already lost some aspects you might have felt were important, let alone aspects that were never written into the rules before.
...
If there were to be the separation of duties so that each judge was responsible for fewer components, then it might make sense to add back and add new criteria for each component. But I do think it would be important to write in only criteria that measure control of the skating technique and not theoretical ideas about what Art should be divorced from actual execution on the day.

Theoretical ideas do not exist in a vacuum in my head, these are the same fundamentals of art/design education/history/theory/framework that are taught in any art schools everywhere. I would hope any expert judges that wish to specialize in figure skating should be at least be aware of the basics to able to account for difficulty, quality beyond a box ticking system or mark numbers without any real meaning.

Thank you for the thoughtful discussion and insights with real practical reasons to consider. It is the artistic side of the sport that makes it unique and special that creates everlasting impressions. PCS therefore deserve to be valued with care, attention, AND accuracy, with clearer breakdowns as any technical elements.
 

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
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Joined
Sep 14, 2008
Country
France
While I don't believe any kind of point deduction should be given for repeated programs, it should inherently factor into PCS if the program feels stale. That's something good judges can figure out for themselves. There is a certain amount of crucial tension, spontaneity, and crispness that can be lost when a skater feels overly "safe" with a program or is just using the program as a crutch to focus on technical content.

But there's something more important to realize here:

And how is this relevant to a sporting contest?

Figure skating is not just a sport. As always, if we lose sight of that, then the whole of figure skating will suffer. We've seen this happening for a decade now.

Also, gkelly, I think you need to realize that some things are as easy to recognize as breathing. When you type a mountain of words about "how can we recognize if a program should be considered as repeated", it's kind of like listening to someone explain how to drink a glass of water, as if such a thing is almost as difficult as surgery. Nobody needs to be told how to drink a glass of water. Humans are instinctively able to do it, whether they sip the water, gulp it, or consume it at a normal rate.

The examples you provided speak for themselves really. The choreography should have notable differences to be considered "not a repeat program" (and of course if a skater is only able to skate a program a couple times in a season because of injury, then using it again the next season isn't really a "repeat"). Now you'll come in and start worrying about "how many notable differences are needed for it not to be a repeat program??" You don't need some precise metric like that. People were able to see with Medvedeva last season that her Long Program was obviously almost identical to her previous year's program, with the biggest difference being just in the music. Nobody needed a checklist to recognize it as being choreography that was too heavily reused (although it was perhaps an even bigger problem for many people that the new music was hideously awful, misjudged, and desperately trying to be "important" during the footwork sequence of the program).

Using the same music with different choreography can be considered okay, although there aren't many cases of a skater entirely revamping a program to the same music. If a program was already excellent, then it's going to be difficult to improve upon the same music with new choreography. Usually a program being repeated makes the most sense to "fans" if the program is considered excellent, but wasn't able to be skated to full potential. In this instance, many of the fans do welcome a repeat, because they want to see the program skated ideally.

----

This overall artistic stagnation is because the artistry is obviously not being valued enough. It's interesting that in Ice Dancing, repeating programs is still considered to be "wrong" and nobody does it. The biggest reason here is because of how nebulous the judging of Ice Dancing is. People can't just add harder elements in Ice Dance, since everything is already capped at a maximum level technically in the scoring. Therefore, in Ice Dance it's perception that becomes even more important, and the perception of a repeat program is that the skater is being lazy or is unable to show a new style. Of course, Ice Dance in its current form is still not that great a display of artistry, since competitors are forced to do boring step sequences and such, as per rules.

But here is the biggest point of all - Since the audience for figure skating has shrunk, specifically because of how it has failed to be interesting enough (a decline in artistry), there isn't much outside pressure or reason for the skaters to push themselves artistically. What remains is just the success of winning. This is the only thing that provides material "gains" for a skater anymore, since there aren't many big opportunities that will be given to you for being a captivating skater who doesn't win. There isn't a market out there that is demanding to see interesting, artistic competitive skating. Instead, the biggest thing you can hope for in your career is to win the Olympics, thus giving you media exposure and other such opportunities via the aura of being "a champion". As compared to something like the film industry, it's as if figure skaters are now all fighting to be cast as the lead in a crappy action movie, and no other roles exist.

If figure skating evolved to have a better reward of artistry in competitions, and was able to produce more interest/revenue again (which will ONLY ever happen after a successful evolution in the first place), then of course skaters would be pushing themselves more artistically. There would be many millions of people out there wanting to watch ice skating competitions (and pay to watch), as they would watch a movie. Skaters would realize they have an actual audience and future career by focusing on being as interesting and appealing as possible in a performance. There would be a desire for professional skating competitions again and way more shows. This all being in addition to the importance of artistry for competitive results themselves.

It's a constant circular issue here. You need skating to be as interesting to watch as possible, which means changing the rules such that competitors have more freedom and are significantly rewarded for doing beautiful movement and truly great programs, for being artistic and exciting. You need competition results to make sense, so no more big point rewards for bad jump attempts (among other issues to fix), a serious reform of the inflated/skewed GOE and PCS we've seen, and you need to display technical merit and presentation scores that are relatively easy to follow and create suspense, like we got in the 6.0 system. If these things don't happen, then skating programs and competitions will continue to be far less involving than they should be, and thus figure skating will continue to have a small audience and poor marketability. If figure skating continues to have a dilapidated audience, then skaters will not have that further incentive for the overall programs to be as creative/emotional as possible, instead focusing their training around doing paint-by-the-numbers things to gain points.
 

chillgil

Match Penalty
Joined
Apr 12, 2017
all this talk of art . . . something i have learned is that art cannot be repeated. even in a repeat performance, the art is not the same, it is the essence of art that anything with a perspective will be different each time it is shown. sometimes it will be subtle, sometimes it will be very noticeable. but just by existing, a repeat performance is it's own entity, it's own form of art because it may make a different impression on a new person.

so why do i mention this?

because it's all about perspective. art is all about perspective and it is nearly impossible to judge by quantitative measures. some posters mention that level of originality should be factored into scores, but how do we judge originality? it's impossible because the fun thing about fine arts and art is that it all depends on the perspective of the one viewing it. it's subjective
 

OS

Sedated by Modonium
Record Breaker
Joined
Mar 23, 2010
all this talk of art . . .

because it's all about perspective. art is all about perspective and it is nearly impossible to judge by quantitative measures. some posters mention that level of originality should be factored into scores, but how do we judge originality? it's impossible because the fun thing about fine arts and art is that it all depends on the perspective of the one viewing it. it's subjective

Except in the context of competitions, judges need to think beyond themselves and they are supposed to make objective analysis, based on objective criteria to make relative comparisons, thus art in figure skating as a competitive sport is also objective.
 

gkelly

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Joined
Jul 26, 2003
My previous suggestion was to encourage the judges to use to the whole breadth of marks from 1-10 just for the elite level, rather than covering the whole sport as a whole due to the complex learning curve. A 5 out of 10 at Graduate Level should be worth more than a 10 out of 10 at a junior school level for example. This, therefore, make greater distinctions that separate PCS marks more.

This would not be a simple tweak to the existing system, but a completely different way of using numbers. It would be at least as significant a change in the scoring system between today's IJS and tomorrow's OS system as there was between 6.0 and IJS.

Wondering how this would work, I put together some collections of pseudo-randomly selected short programs from the same elite events, to show close to the full range of skill levels in the same competition in pseudo-random order.

Men
Dodds
Jin
Ip
Martinez
Chan
Miner

Ladies
Wagner
Halvin
Osmond
Lecavelier
Hendrickx
Hanzlikova
McKay
Hongo

How would you score -- or expect a professional elite judge to score -- either of these groups of skaters on a scale of 1 to 10? What might be your highest and lowest scores for the group?

How many of these skaters were you already familiar with? Do you have a sense of how these programs fit into their previous body of work?

Now imagine that the field of skaters you're assigned to judge is 3-4 times larger than the selections I showed here. What kind of research should you do before showing up at the competition venue?

You might know some of these skaters very well:
At least one is they're from your home country -- even if you don't currently "represent" the federation, you have to live somewhere and have learned to judge somewhere. Maybe you still judge local or national competitions there, unless being a professional elite judge forbids you from judging non-elite competitions that use mostly volunteer officials.
Some have often won medals and been televised, so even if you've never judged them before, you've seen them on TV if you follow the elite-level sport at all.
Some have been compete often and everywhere for years, so if you've been judging at the international level you've probably judged them at some point, and if you've watched videos for pleasure or official research over the years, you've probably seen many of their past programs.

Others you've never seen before, in some cases never heard the names before.

A skater at their first senior championships -- even moreso a skater at their first Junior Worlds -- may not have a single video available online. Do the federations need to make videos of their Euros/4Cs/Worlds-bound skaters available to all the judges assigned to those events?

Whose responsibility is it to make sure you can do the research -- your own? The ISU's? The individual federations?

Do you need to research all 30-40 skaters on the roster, or only those you think might be in contention for medals or top-10 placements? How do you determine which skaters to spend the effort on and which not to bother with?

I have previously suggested there should be specialized PCS judges in the elite level only, ideally professional paid judges without national affiliations to any of the federations, who should be professionally familiar with world top 20 of their specialized event well enough (Men, Ladies, Ice Dancing, Pair).

So if a judge comes to the championships and is confronted by a skater who was not in the world top 20 prior to the event, it's OK that to know next to nothing about them when they show up to compete against the skaters you have researched thoroughly?

How is that fair or anything like an even playing field. Far from solving the problem of reputation judging, that approach would only exacerbate it.

They should able to distinguish what the skaters are trying to do this season vs previous seasons, and able to judge how successful they are able to perform to their potential and to the new scope of the new program. Ability to appraise choreographic content should be most important, to able to read skaters are just having a bad day can be one of the readings of a performance.

I disagree. I believe that skaters should be judged on what they do that day.

It's impossible to get rid of all prior knowledge of established skaters, but it's also impossible to get equal knowledge of all skaters in the field who are competing against each other head to head. Given the fact that perfectly equal knowledge of all skaters is impossible, the questions should then be 1) What is more fair to all skaters, and 2) What is most relevant to the values that the sport is trying to measure?

Growth as an artist is never and has never been found anywhere in the figure skating rulebook. Yes, judges will notice it in skaters that they see over the years, but that's not what they're being asked to evaluate.

You are asking them to, but the ISU never has and I'm pretty sure never will.


The ability to read choreographic intentions vs actual interpretations are among many valuable skills judges should have become an expert in breaking down to weigh in their scoring.

This I agree with. Perfect knowledge will never be possible, but the more ability judges have to recognize the various Composition criteria, as currently written or as they could be revised, the better.

I disagree on irrelevancy. I should perhaps clarify a bit better. When I mean artistic difficulty, it DOES include some technical proficiency that are not covered by TES (musicality, form, interpretation), like how different dance, music exams are graded according to their levels. All judges should at least be conscious of certain pieces of music/choreography can be easier/more demanding to showcase/perform, beyond oh lot of transitions and no clear mistakes, crazy high TES must be the best etc. []

... Figure skating incorporate performance arts: theatre, dance, music, choreography, hair, makeup, costumes, overall presentation, cultural awareness etc...

But for many of those aspects, they are only relevant insofar as they support the relevant skills being judged.
There are no scores, no criteria for hair, makeup, costumes, or cultural awareness. It's perfectly legal to compete in a plain unadorned practice outfit with no makeup, no hair styling beyond keeping the hair out of the skater's eyes. No requirement for skaters to incorporate knowledge of the source of their music into their skating performance or even to know where it came from or what the lyrics (if any) are about. If the movement fits the sound of the music, if the rhythm and mood of the movement match the rhythm and mood of the music, that's all that figure skating asks for.

If a skater chooses to do more, they're welcome to do so. But they can't count on international audiences and judging pools to have the same associations. If a female Korean skater chooses to skate to theme music of a Korean TV show, should she expect all judges to be familiar with the characters and storylines? What if the music is beautiful enough that a male Swedish skater wants to choose the same music the following season? Does he need to go research the TV show and make sure to use music cuts and movement styles associated with male characters in the story? Or can he just use a piece of music that he loves and make up his own storyline or abstract concept reflecting the music as an isolated piece of music?

Would it make a difference if the music had been a classical composition (Korean or otherwise) that existed in its own right with no associated storyline before the Korean TV show chose it as their theme vs. having been composed specifically for the TV show?

It is, however, the responsibility of the sports management to ensure a sport deserve the most accurate and consistent scoring system to ensure ALL skaters can compete fairly in whatever way they choose within the rules.

If they're going to ensure that all skaters can compete against each other fairly within the rules, then it would be HIGHLY unfair to ask judges to research the competitive history of top skaters and not of other skaters who will be entered in the same events.

You said:
For any art to be credible, they need to have processes to develop awareness of the self. Always in the works, alive, ever changing, not stagnant, not just an end result, not tracing the steps. Artists need to develop meaning and purpose behind the aesthetics, otherwise, it is just paint by numbers.

I asked how this (processes to develop awareness of the self, meaning and purpose behind the aesthetics) are relevant to sport.

Ahem... ice dancing?! Rhythmic gymnastics? Anything with music, performance. You tell me.

You tell me. Do ice dancing (a branch of figure skating, originated as ballroom dancing on ice) or rhythmic gymnastics require processes to develop awareness of the self. Always in the works, alive, ever changing, not stagnant, not just an end result, not tracing the steps? Certainly there have been times when ice dancers have chosen to prioritize artistic meaning. And the rules have often tightened up in response to decrease the subjectiveness of the scoring that led to inconsistent results and sometimes allowed weaker skaters to win on the strength of better choreography. And then at other times the rules have loosened up to encourage creativity. And even then the best skaters have not always taken full advantage of the artistic options open to them.

I'm not very familiar with rhythmic gymnastics, but but from what I've seen it certainly seems to me to be more about demonstrating acrobatic skills and apparatus-handling skills to music than about artistic statements. When I've seen rhythmic-gymnastics-trained performers in a non-competitive show (circus) context, artistic considerations took greater priority. But demonstrations of technical virtuosity were still paramount.

Should we remake the sport a jump drill then, with a bell, a whistle, and star trek uniforms?
Not at all (unless a skater chooses to skate a skill drill-themed program or a Star Trek-themed program). But we can reward ability to use skating skills to interpret music and to combine those skills in meaningful ways without either

Music exams set the levels of the music piece depends on their difficulty. Figure skating let you pick your own piece of music and choreography regardless of difficulty. More importantly, they make no distinction if you decide to go back to an easier program while others wish to compete with a harder program in the hope to boost their PCS. Since when did we see that affect the scores with any meaning competitively?

Again, if we're talking about skating programs, there are different dimensions of being easier or harder. So a skater can choose a program that's hard in some ways and easy in other ways, and another season they could make an opposite choice.

And the execution counts more than the actual choice.

If they choose monotonous music, it's a lot harder to demonstrate variety and contrast. Does that mean that a skater who can find enough subtleties in such music to show contrast should be rewarded more for taking on a harder task? Or penalized for not showing as wide a range? Should skaters who choose music with very obvious contrasts, with very obvious phrasing, be rewarded for making those qualities exceptionally clear? Or penalized for choosing music that made it easier for them to do a good job?
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
While I don't believe any kind of point deduction should be given for repeated programs, it should inherently factor into PCS if the program feels stale.

Which would be a subjective response by each individual judge and each individual audience member. A judge who feels that a performance is stale can penalize, but it would be pretty hard to legislate in advance what's going to "feel" stale to everyone.

Especially since this discussion started with discussing skaters reviving old programs for the Olympics. Most Olympic viewers will not have been following the skaters closely for the past 4 years. So performance that seem old hat to diehard fans, or to some judges, may look fresh and new to those audiences.

If an American casual viewer sees a Japanese or Russian skater skate to Puccini in a blue dress, she might remember a different Japanese or Russian skater skating to music from a different Puccini opera in a different blue dress 4 years ago and think "Haven't I seen this before?" It may feel stale to such viewers, but that's hardly the skater's fault.

If a skater performs to Carmen in a red dress for the very first time in her life, it's probably going to look stale to anyone who's watched a lot of skating. But it's not a repeat!

That's something good judges can figure out for themselves. There is a certain amount of crucial tension, spontaneity, and crispness that can be lost when a skater feels overly "safe" with a program or is just using the program as a crutch to focus on technical content.

Fair enough. So let the judges evaluate the actual tension, spontaneity and crispness. A skater who can maintain or revive those qualities on the 20th performance of the same program can score higher than a skater who loses them by the 2nd competitive outing.

The examples you provided speak for themselves really. The choreography should have notable differences to be considered "not a repeat program" (and of course if a skater is only able to skate a program a couple times in a season because of injury, then using it again the next season isn't really a "repeat"). Now you'll come in and start worrying about "how many notable differences are needed for it not to be a repeat program??" You don't need some precise metric like that.

If someone wants to impose a rule that there's an automatic deduction for repeating a program, there needs to be a clear definition of what does or doesn't count as repeating.

If you want to leave it to the judges' discretion, then there's no need for precise metrics.

Which of these programs are repeats, vs. completely new uses of the same (or not really the same) music?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkrfexVFctI&t=1m47s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4zFIashnc8&t=2m04s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgw5T185mQo&t=26s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXB0GKUUIzk&t=12s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYwAZb14Ags&t=36s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuHu9rwqdrw&t=8s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcZMFu2R92s&t=26s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lphEXZ0mqNo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2qMvGUkp-s&t=30s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04WMNbYigNw&t=25s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf_iPiM5Wr8&t=30s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spgDk9vFnkQ&t=1m36s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdnwzv_tuJs&t=1m20s
 

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 14, 2008
Country
France
art is all about perspective and it is nearly impossible to judge by quantitative measures. it's subjective

Highly disagree about it being nearly impossible to judge by quantitative measures. Yes, it's subjective and may not ever be 100% precise, but individually a person can think and decide for themselves what the approximate value of a given work is to them. Like, if you consider Citizen Kane to be one of the very best films ever and a 10/10, then the grade you would assign to other films becomes relative to it. A movie you love, but don't love to such a degree that you consider it the very best ever, can thus be labelled as a 9/10, etc.

As you watch more and more movies and think critically about what makes them effective or not, and hear other peoples' opinions and expertise, you thus begin to gain more and more of a complex viewpoint with which to assess things. Huge differences of opinion will still exist, and maybe it doesn't matter at all if one person is more knowledgeable than another (at least in terms of film being a medium that any person in the world can gain enjoyment and/or education from in some form), but each individual person can still grade films on their own terms if they want to take the time to do so.

Competitive figure skating is much less subjective to judge on this front, as it's far more defined. There are only so many things a person can do in skating boots over the course of 4 minutes and there will always be a baseline of required elements. Certainly there are basic differences of opinion people will still have, along with other differences of opinion based upon personal skating experience and what they've watched and learned, but it's generally not going to be as drastic overall. Especially not among a group of people who are all extremely well educated about skating, which is what the judges at competitions should be.
 

chillgil

Match Penalty
Joined
Apr 12, 2017
Highly disagree about it being nearly impossible to judge by quantitative measures. Yes, it's subjective and may not ever be 100% precise, but individually a person can think and decide for themselves what the approximate value of a given work is to them. Like, if you consider Citizen Kane to be one of the very best films ever and a 10/10, then the grade you would assign to other films becomes relative to it. A movie you love, but don't love to such a degree that you consider it the very best ever, can thus be labelled as a 9/10, etc.
\

hmmm yeah you're right . . . . i think i was getting a little bit too into the philosophy of art and subjectivity there

however, as a film student, what i've learned is that originality can be sacrificed for grade of quality. as long as something as a strong voice it can pass as a very good piece of work; so translating that to figure skating i do think that a program that lets a skater show his/her abilities and personality in the strongest light possible is more important in making 'good art' than originality, which is something OS keeps mentioning if i'm not mistaken, there have been many long posts and to tell the truth i havent read all of them lol
 

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 14, 2008
Country
France
If someone wants to impose a rule that there's an automatic deduction for repeating a program, there needs to be a clear definition of what does or doesn't count as repeating.

If you want to leave it to the judges' discretion, then there's no need for precise metrics.

Leaving it up to the judges' discretion is exactly what I would say, if it was felt that such a rule would get more creativity back into the sport. However, that's exactly the kind of ineffective "band-aid" rule which needs to be avoided. It doesn't fix the root of the problem; it wouldn't change enough of the lackluster choreography and lack of attention to performance that results from the rules and judging we have right now. It could possibly make the sport slightly better than the current state we have, perhaps on average we would see creative brilliance happening a little more frequently if skaters at least had to do new programs every season, but it wouldn't change the status quo of where figure skating is at right now. It's like throwing some sprinkles on a pile of mud.
 
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