- Joined
- Mar 23, 2010
Okay, apologies for the long response to GKelly. Please skip if you dislike art theory/ideologists like me to rant about COP again!! ( Haven't done one of those for a while... here goes...)
The elite standard of anything demands elite quality of judging like anything to do with the optimum peaks of human possibilities. It is the degree of details that separate them. Such was the purpose of COP to identify varying degrees of qualities for proportional rewards. As such, every detail should matter, and be accurately rewarded in relative terms. Otherwise, laziness and ineptitude can be passed as the gold standard (and I'd argue, often does, as the judges are not held to accountability, especially under the NEW ISU rule where their opinion can not be challenged however wrong or human error prone it maybe.)
PCS being capped is the reason to scrutinise over the penalties, as it is necessary to appropriate scoring gaps to separate artistic endeavours to the technical ones to reward different things for different skaters between different programs/performances. To answer your question, I believe PCS should be rewarded based on what the skaters did on the day vs what others did on the day - however, judges have historically proven to be heavily influenced by the previous scoring, hence the adaptation of narrow corridor of judging to minimise discrepancies. It is nevertheless the primary reasons for inflation and why PCS rarely comes down unless there are massive discrepancies in the technical delivery.... or/and in some cases, it doesn't come down at all even when tech visibly fails, and in fact, goes up to save the skater placements. I have always wondered how dysfunctional the uncapped TES can balance with the capped PCS, when they are supposed to make up to 2 halves of COP, especially when the skater is used to establish higher PCS in a relatively weak field early in the season, do they still deserve them in a much stronger field towards the later season under a capped system?
The bottom line is: I don't think I am asking a lot. If technical difficulty is greatly rewarded under TES, then why can't artistic difficulty be properly rewarded under PCS?
A lot of your perspective seems to stem from the fact, high level judging is impractical to apply at all levels due to a, b, c, d, but that should not negate the argument on how things ought to be and 'should be'. Also, I have always believed at the Olympic level, it simply requires more strict and studied approach to score from the norm that is not applicable to unknown skaters at local/regional competitions. Figure skating is a complex multi-faceted sport with huge learning curves. You wouldn't apply the same Junior high school test criterias to someone who is studying for their post doctorate, would you? A quad these days is worth well over 10+ point (actually even a good 3A is worth more than 10 points). Do you not think the effort to do something risky, original, creative, which all adds to artistic difficulty should not be worth at least an 8 or a 3A difference? I would actually argue it should be worth more; when it is essentially the foundation of all program components are built upon. The effort and ambition alone is hugely important in the artistic difficulty of anything.
Just because Robert De Niro excelled at acting intense and crazy and got an OSCAR for it, does that mean he deserves an Oscar every time he acts intense and crazy doing the same critically acclaimed performance? Why not? Because it is the nature of artistic value to not reward repeated performances/successes, even commercially viable, and 'yes' entertaining' ones. Otherwise, Javier should just stick with Black Betty forever, and Patrick on Elegie in E Flat Minor forever. It will make their life so much easier.
By the way, I fundamentally disagree figure skating programs requires to be 'entertaining'. Instead, they should be judged on the quality of delivery of key concepts, artistic ambitions, and the processes of getting there: how visible and well thought out they are, acknowledging and understanding of source material, decisions on why and how to they make it uniquely true to the performer and success on deliverying the intention of the program.
To me, the general audience's inability to understand should not be as important as an EDUCATED audience's ability to be informed, challenged, and to appreciate any difficult/unfamiliar theme. It is the difference between a professional judge in an art competition vs. a general audience's view: an informed opinion and an educated estimate. Popularity has little place in the artistic value of anything. For the same reason why blockbuster movies generally don't receive art awards, but smaller films that tackle difficult unfamiliar subjects, take risks, push boundaries, attempt transcendence and braving experimentation usually does. Those who dare breaking perceptions, venture out to gain new insights and develop their own opinions are highly prized in the field of the arts. Otherwise, everyone should just stick with happy and obvious Chaplin/love/sad tragic miming programs forever. And the best Oscar should never have gone to the likes of Moonlight, but the popular Iron man or the Fast and Furious series.
Finally, the physical, emotional and intellectual challenges of the new programs are infinitely harder to realise, which are recognisable qualities stated under the PCS criteria, which requires greater difficulty and sensitivity to undertake therefore deserving to be valued as much as a difficult technical element. Otherwise, under a capped system, it would handicap those who bothered to develop new programs, learn new routines, take risks for the purpose of a competition, when everyone is supposed to be equal terms and start from 'ground zero'. New choreography, newly designed movements with unfamiliar rhythmic changes, challenging music vs a steady, slow and familiar rhythmic ones should also worth more also, but does not seem to be reflected in the current scoring system.
I do have to add... it is possible to have newly improved choreography to the same music edit, and if it does, it should be recognised in the marking, but if the opposite of dilute choreography for the sake of jumping /scoring like some of Nathen's early efforts, then the lesser artistic merit should be reflected in the scoring. In other words, everyone is welcome to skate to Carmen - as long as they can truly own an original, innovative and highly personalised unique version of Carmen like Tessa/Scott has done, then there should always be room for Carmen.
(okay i outdid myself... carry on.)
The elite standard of anything demands elite quality of judging like anything to do with the optimum peaks of human possibilities. It is the degree of details that separate them. Such was the purpose of COP to identify varying degrees of qualities for proportional rewards. As such, every detail should matter, and be accurately rewarded in relative terms. Otherwise, laziness and ineptitude can be passed as the gold standard (and I'd argue, often does, as the judges are not held to accountability, especially under the NEW ISU rule where their opinion can not be challenged however wrong or human error prone it maybe.)
PCS being capped is the reason to scrutinise over the penalties, as it is necessary to appropriate scoring gaps to separate artistic endeavours to the technical ones to reward different things for different skaters between different programs/performances. To answer your question, I believe PCS should be rewarded based on what the skaters did on the day vs what others did on the day - however, judges have historically proven to be heavily influenced by the previous scoring, hence the adaptation of narrow corridor of judging to minimise discrepancies. It is nevertheless the primary reasons for inflation and why PCS rarely comes down unless there are massive discrepancies in the technical delivery.... or/and in some cases, it doesn't come down at all even when tech visibly fails, and in fact, goes up to save the skater placements. I have always wondered how dysfunctional the uncapped TES can balance with the capped PCS, when they are supposed to make up to 2 halves of COP, especially when the skater is used to establish higher PCS in a relatively weak field early in the season, do they still deserve them in a much stronger field towards the later season under a capped system?
The bottom line is: I don't think I am asking a lot. If technical difficulty is greatly rewarded under TES, then why can't artistic difficulty be properly rewarded under PCS?
A lot of your perspective seems to stem from the fact, high level judging is impractical to apply at all levels due to a, b, c, d, but that should not negate the argument on how things ought to be and 'should be'. Also, I have always believed at the Olympic level, it simply requires more strict and studied approach to score from the norm that is not applicable to unknown skaters at local/regional competitions. Figure skating is a complex multi-faceted sport with huge learning curves. You wouldn't apply the same Junior high school test criterias to someone who is studying for their post doctorate, would you? A quad these days is worth well over 10+ point (actually even a good 3A is worth more than 10 points). Do you not think the effort to do something risky, original, creative, which all adds to artistic difficulty should not be worth at least an 8 or a 3A difference? I would actually argue it should be worth more; when it is essentially the foundation of all program components are built upon. The effort and ambition alone is hugely important in the artistic difficulty of anything.
Just because Robert De Niro excelled at acting intense and crazy and got an OSCAR for it, does that mean he deserves an Oscar every time he acts intense and crazy doing the same critically acclaimed performance? Why not? Because it is the nature of artistic value to not reward repeated performances/successes, even commercially viable, and 'yes' entertaining' ones. Otherwise, Javier should just stick with Black Betty forever, and Patrick on Elegie in E Flat Minor forever. It will make their life so much easier.
By the way, I fundamentally disagree figure skating programs requires to be 'entertaining'. Instead, they should be judged on the quality of delivery of key concepts, artistic ambitions, and the processes of getting there: how visible and well thought out they are, acknowledging and understanding of source material, decisions on why and how to they make it uniquely true to the performer and success on deliverying the intention of the program.
To me, the general audience's inability to understand should not be as important as an EDUCATED audience's ability to be informed, challenged, and to appreciate any difficult/unfamiliar theme. It is the difference between a professional judge in an art competition vs. a general audience's view: an informed opinion and an educated estimate. Popularity has little place in the artistic value of anything. For the same reason why blockbuster movies generally don't receive art awards, but smaller films that tackle difficult unfamiliar subjects, take risks, push boundaries, attempt transcendence and braving experimentation usually does. Those who dare breaking perceptions, venture out to gain new insights and develop their own opinions are highly prized in the field of the arts. Otherwise, everyone should just stick with happy and obvious Chaplin/love/sad tragic miming programs forever. And the best Oscar should never have gone to the likes of Moonlight, but the popular Iron man or the Fast and Furious series.
Finally, the physical, emotional and intellectual challenges of the new programs are infinitely harder to realise, which are recognisable qualities stated under the PCS criteria, which requires greater difficulty and sensitivity to undertake therefore deserving to be valued as much as a difficult technical element. Otherwise, under a capped system, it would handicap those who bothered to develop new programs, learn new routines, take risks for the purpose of a competition, when everyone is supposed to be equal terms and start from 'ground zero'. New choreography, newly designed movements with unfamiliar rhythmic changes, challenging music vs a steady, slow and familiar rhythmic ones should also worth more also, but does not seem to be reflected in the current scoring system.
I do have to add... it is possible to have newly improved choreography to the same music edit, and if it does, it should be recognised in the marking, but if the opposite of dilute choreography for the sake of jumping /scoring like some of Nathen's early efforts, then the lesser artistic merit should be reflected in the scoring. In other words, everyone is welcome to skate to Carmen - as long as they can truly own an original, innovative and highly personalised unique version of Carmen like Tessa/Scott has done, then there should always be room for Carmen.
(okay i outdid myself... carry on.)
i mean i made this comment as a response to the whole thread not the hanyu decision, and then you came in and declared that no one has called him lazy so i just wanted to point out that you were wrong bud. if you dont like it there's a handy little feature called 'ignore user' and you can go on living in delusion 
