Pre-rotation | Page 5 | Golden Skate

Pre-rotation

oatmella

陈巍
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Feb 23, 2014
Of course Javi wasn’t used as an example, and no reference to videos of men that actually have PR issues ... just Nathan!

The person with the tumblr account that bonita linked - she actually doesn’t appear to like Nathan very much, but that didn’t seem to prevent her from analyzing his jumps fairly.

Kolyada visited California for training with Raf for two weeks over the summer. One reason he said why he made the trip was because Nathan trains there.
 

solani

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Sep 8, 2014
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I think control is a good cue. Chen is very much in control of all his quad jumps, whereas Kolyada isn't. But Kolyada's quads certainly are more impressive when he hits them. So for me it's simple - Kolyada should receive higher GOE when both land a quad clean. But Chen has the best quad technique - no one (not even Hanyu) is able to do that amount of quad jumps successfully without injuring himself. A skater wants to have reliable technique, Chen has that. He does exactly what he needs to do, he doesn't jump higher than necessary, that saves energy. And he needs that extra energy to do all his quad jump passes. And I don't think that Chen prerotates too much. It's rather normal that a quad is more prerotated than a triple, the skater needs to rotate faster and has to create more rotational force on take-off.
 

gkelly

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Jul 26, 2003
ISU needs to make a public announcement officially stating the acceptable pre-rotation on each jump. No more feuding in the skating community.

Is there feuding about prerotation in the skating community?

Or mostly in some skating fan communities?
 

Ic3Rabbit

Former Elite, now Pro. ⛸️
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Is there feuding about prerotation in the skating community?

Or mostly in some skating fan communities?

It's a fan thing. No one in the skating community gives much thought to this. :yawn:
 

annajzdf

Rinkside
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Dec 31, 2018
Is there feuding about prerotation in the skating community?

Or mostly in some skating fan communities?

I imagine this could be somewhat relevant at the lower levels? When children are learning their doubles and are pre- and underrotating their tiny jumps in the beginning and coaches making the necessary corrections, teaching them to push off the ice at the right moment?
Or for instance, there’s this one teenage girl at our club who has a very bad toe axel that gets downgraded all the time, I mean she literally turns around, then picks in once she’s facing forward and pushes off of her toe-pick into an axel.
But this isn’t elite level skating, and with such obviously flawed technique you won’t progress to higher level skating anyway, so yeah.

I do get the sense though, that all that fan talk has at least raised some awareness…? I’m not saying that it’s leading anywhere or that coaches and skaters suddenly worry about this or anything, just that some people have noticed.

Not so long ago I have browsed through some episodes of Skate Talk Online and I didn't listen to the whole show, but I seem to recall an episode where they mentioned Shoma’s PR on the Flip. Granted, that show would be categorised as a fan creation, but Tony Wheeler has skated some himself, no? And PJ Kwong has worked as a coach and is active as a journalist in skating circles?

And then there’s also this recent interview with Javi, where he said the following:

https://olympics.nbcsports.com/2019/01/28/javier-fernandezs-last-bow-to-europe-and-the-world/

"But I’m mad also when I skate well and get penalized. Judges have the slow motion and they can check.
You know what action I would like this to open? Judges consider landing to evaluate a jump, which is fine. But they should also consider the take-off. So many skaters rotate half a turn less just in the take-off. What is fair? And what is not?"

(I do find it ironic though, that this is coming from someone whose toe loops, by some people’s definition, can only be described as ‚spinny‘ and ‚lacking rotation in the air making his quads look like a triple' ;))
 

oatmella

陈巍
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Feb 23, 2014
Interesting that Kolyada was used as an example to compare with Nathan. His most recent FS at Euros - 4T was successful and with good GOE. Otherwise most of the rest fell apart. Another reason Kolyada went to Raf was to get some ideas how to improve the *consistency* of his jumps. But I guess why compromise any feature of a ‘powerful’ jump for actually landing more of them.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
This is what I would do for numbers.

Firstly, remove the negative GOE for mild underrotations (like, nearly 90 degrees) and implement it if it's close to a downgrade or if it's too obvious. I don't think double penalties are necessary for 100 degrees.[

Secondly, treat prerotation and underrotation in the same category. Assign each jump a base amount of prerotation, which, going by aesthetics, seems to be 90 degrees for T, F, Lz, A and 180 degrees for S, Lo. Then, look at how much prerotation the skater does and how underrotated it is. If these two angles add to more than 90 degrees, deem it underrotated with the 30% base value penalty. So, someone prerotating 170 degrees on a lutz had better land it squeaky clean, while someone prerotating 90 degrees or less on a lutz is given a little more leeway on the landing. This way, we ensure skaters have the same amount of revolutions in the air and keep jumping rules consistent with current leniency on UR (> 90 degrees = UR). We don't need exact angle sums; if they're borderline on the prerotation and the underrotation, treat it as underrotated, that sort of thing.

Thirdly, skaters that do not exceed the above thresholds on prerotation at all should be rewarded with a bonus GOE of +1. So, there is a spectrum here:
1. Skaters that blatantly UR and PR, get downgraded (not many)
2. Skaters that UR or PR a little too much, get called UR (a decent proportion of skaters)
3. Skaters that PR more than normal, but land the jumps perfectly clean (a decent proportion of skaters, amongst the better PR jumpers), no penalty
4. Skaters that do not prerotate more than 90 degrees and land the jumps perfectly clean (rare group of skaters :sad4:). +1 GOE

What do you guys think? Reasonable? Or shall we impose a -GOE for prerotating too much anyway?



I hope my proposal solves your query. The 87.5% of skaters would not be penalised if they did not UR at all (no leniency), thereby still rotating as much as skaters with < 90 degrees PR that UR less than 90.



I wouldn't say Liza's 3T is the best. It looks just like every other 3T at normal speed, and indeed if you look at Nathan's 4T+3T vs Yuzuru's 4T+3T, Yuzuru looks like he rotates more in the air, even though they're both quad-triples, and this is because Yuzuru rotates earlier and actually completes more revolutions in the air, so you see more quick rotation, whereas with Nathan, the rotation starts later because of extra prerotation and it really impacts the jump quality. (tbh I only recently noticed that's why Yuzuru seems to spin that much more than others). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_AN_ht9tok&feature=youtu.be&t=6m3s

Yuzuru Hanyu 4T+3T Rostelecom 2018 SP
https://youtu.be/vihR6Nh-v3k?t=120

Nathan Chen 4T+3T Nationals 2019 FS
https://youtu.be/B_AN_ht9tok?t=200

Oh hey, well why even allow any leniency then when it comes to pre-rotation? Everyone should be doing take offs of their lutzes like Kim or toe loops like Tomoe, or getting as much completed rotation on their landings as Gold did. Otherwise they should get hit with a < on the protocol, and a << if they UR after pre-rotating. I guess neither Nathan nor Yuzu should be awarded clean 4Ts because their 4T takeoff isn't as un-prerotated as what would be considered ideal (e.g. the takeoff on Tomoe's toe loop). Regarding Chen's vs. Hanyu's... Hanyu pre-rotates less on the takeoff and Chen seems to have to rotate on the ice a bit less on the landing, so they're kinda even as far as amount of rotation goes (Hanyu overall having slightly more). So I don't get the Nathan having a "high triple" thing.. unless you mean he makes a quad look like a triple. :biggrin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_AN_ht9tok&feature=youtu.be&t=6m3s (there's another angle, and regardless of your allegiances or dislikes, that's a clean 4T).


I mean, why allow skaters to have acceptable technique when we should be encouraging them (via deductings) to get optimal technique. The only solution is to penalize them as much as possible, right? :sarcasm: While we're at it, we should really only award LSp4 to those who grab their Biellmann blade with both hands since that's the optimal technique for doing that, and no leeway should be allowed. Death spirals should only be called as ratified if the woman's back is arched enough that her hair is barely off the ice, otherwise deductions should be applied.

Obviously I'm not advocating for any of this. But the point is, everyone has their own leeway/definition of what "acceptable" pre-rotation is (often based on who their favourite skaters are). And until the rules actually define what an "unacceptable" amount of PR is, then what every skater is doing is fine (save for those who actually do toe-axels and whatnot). It's not ideal, and in some cases, it's ugly... but it's not deduction-worthy under the current rules so people should consider that the next time they inevitably whine that a skater (likely one they dislike) didn't get deducted as much as they had hoped for.

Nobody cares about PR in the current set of rules. People keep conflating what pre-rotation and toe axels are -- even though the mechanics distinguishing both (a pre rotation of a pick turning on the ice and a skater deliberately picking in forwards have been explained ad nauseum. So people will have their own definitions and that's fine. But it's not actually proscribed in the rules (at least the PR that certain people want to see certain skaters deducted for).

Also PR is so subjective (some say it's 180 degrees for some jumps and 45 degrees for others and 90 degrees for others) and judging panels especially do not have the endless time that those of us on the internet invest - such is the dedication of these fans! - into scrutinizing every frame and pulling out their protractors. Until we replace judges with technology that accurately and reliably measures this, it's impossible to ascertain this (just like on landings there is some subjectivity - especially a biased one, if you like/dislike a particular skater).

These pre-rotation threads seem to be multiplying like Gremlins. :laugh:
 

Metis

Shepherdess of the Teal Deer
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Feb 14, 2018
I find it amazing that no one in figure skating but fans cares about PR. I guess I just confused Javier Fernandez and Kurt Browning with Yuri on Ice characters.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

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Joined
Jan 25, 2013
Zero prerotation isn't necessary and is probably unrealistic for a lot of skaters. That's why I proposed that skaters with less than 90 PR get rewarded for it and skaters with between 90 and 180 degrees PR have to land the jump with less UR than normally allowed. To allude to what chopinskate said about PR making jumps not look at quads, check out the links I posted above. Nathan's 4T almost looks like a very high triple, whereas Yuzuru's appears to have more rotation, despite both being 4Ts.

But why 90? Why not 60 degrees, or 120? And is this on every jump? Because salchows and loops for example almost always have 180 of on-ice rotation upon takeoff as part of the jump mechanics.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

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Jan 25, 2013
I find it amazing that no one in figure skating but fans cares about PR. I guess I just confused Javier Fernandez and Kurt Browning with Yuri on Ice characters.

There are literally thousands of posts written complaining about PR. Which is funny because the pre-rotation people are complaining about is different from the "cheated take-off" that is proscribed in the rules, and even if it were the same as proscribed in the rules there's no mentioning of how many degrees of pre-rotation is considered a cheated takeoff, so it doesn't actually have any relevance into scoring in the current system and the results associated with it.
 

Ic3Rabbit

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I find it amazing that no one in figure skating but fans cares about PR. I guess I just confused Javier Fernandez and Kurt Browning with Yuri on Ice characters.

I said "Don't concern themselves very much with it." That's very different than not caring about it at all, the point was the fans are WAYYYYYY more involved in bickering over it, as shows in the many threads here that have happened more often than not.
 

Metis

Shepherdess of the Teal Deer
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I said "Don't concern themselves very much with it." That's very different than not caring about it at all, the point was the fans are WAYYYYYY more involved in bickering over it, as shows in the many threads here that have happened more often than not.

But... they are concerned to a significant extent? Javi flat-out said that PR needs to be evaluated.

I don’t know what point you’re trying to make but in the absence of evidence to support your argument, you can say “Elite skaters aren’t very concerned with PR” as many times as you want and it’s all just your opinion. There’s evidence that refutes you. Also, what concerns the North American skating cognoscenti and the non-NA may not be the same, and given the almost comically poor technique seen in most NA skaters, I’m not really surprised it’s not much of a concern here.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

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Jan 25, 2013
But... they are concerned to a significant extent? Javi flat-out said that PR needs to be evaluated.

I don’t know what point you’re trying to make but in the absence of evidence to support your argument, you can say “Elite skaters aren’t very concerned with PR” as many times as you want and it’s all just your opinion. There’s evidence that refutes you.

LOL... when did he say this? I mean if it was recently then it's easy for him to say when he's at the end of his amateur career. This 4T for example is quite PR on the takeoff, possibly even beyond 180 degrees. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAl8XN99nU8#t=25s
 

Metis

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LOL... easy for him to say when he's at the end of his amateur career. This 4T for example is quite PR on the takeoff, possibly even beyond 180 degrees. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAl8XN99nU8#t=25s

No, it’s not.

Even if Javi were doing toe-axels, his point and his opinion refute IceRabbit’s contention, regardless of whether or not you believe he’s speaking from a place of motivated reasoning, and that was my point. Kurt Browning has discussed PR and he retired, what, two decades ago?
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

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Jan 25, 2013
No, it’s not.

Even if Javi were doing toe-axels, his point and his opinion refute IceRabbit’s contention, regardless of whether or not you believe he’s speaking from a place of motivated reasoning, and that was my point. Kurt Browning has discussed PR and he retired, what, two decades ago?

It is pre-rotated. Look at the slow-motion where his toe pick clearly rotates on the ice surface before he's actually airborne. I don't think it's egregiously pre-rotated, but it's more pre-rotated than other quad toes.

IMO Fernandez would have no motivated reasoning to advocate for more PR calls, given he's now retiring, and if he did I can't speak for him as to why he would be advocating for it, so please don't insinuate that's what I was getting at.

My point was it's easier for a skater to call for greater scrutiny of technical elements/rule enforcements when they will no longer have to worry about them, since he made those remarks as a current skater that was nearing the end of his career. Whereas I doubt you'd get a current skater like Chen or Hanyu or Medvedeva or Vanessa James or whomever advocating for more pre-rotation scrutiny, even if their jumps are fine.

And obviously, someone like Kurt who retired decades ago would find it easier to advocate for stricter technical rules, when he himself had some tech issues (like his flip takeoff) and judges back then didn't have the luxury of the replays current ones have which could have adversely affected his scoring while still active.
 

Ic3Rabbit

Former Elite, now Pro. ⛸️
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No, it’s not.

Even if Javi were doing toe-axels, his point and his opinion refute IceRabbit’s contention, regardless of whether or not you believe he’s speaking from a place of motivated reasoning, and that was my point. Kurt Browning has discussed PR and he retired, what, two decades ago?

So, one person, Javi, who prerotates himself is enough evidence against the rest of the skating world? LOL Thanks for the laugh.

ETA: And no, I'm not going to sit here and write a dissertation on why the skating world doesn't give much thought to it based on the many training centers I've been at. It's just not that important. :shrug:
 

skatenewbie

Medalist
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Mar 16, 2017
i dont get why people saying ISU didnt care about prerotation. They did mention cheated takeoff in the technical handbook. it said that FORWARD takeoff is considered as cheated takeoff and toeloop is the most often cheated jump, that mean 180 degree prerotation IS A CHEATED takeoff. They just didnt mention it as prerotation but a forward takeoff. Why TP rarely called them because they CAN'T replay in SLOW MO. But i think Shoma has had his 4F called because prerotation since he land backward.
 

narcissa

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Apr 1, 2014
I’m not sure if you’ve slowed this down and stopped it at take off but her pre rotation compared to the average is not that much better. Especially on the 3t. She does minimize it on the Lutz and basically keeps her head still. I wouldn’t say it adds to the aesthetic at takeoff but maybe in terms of increasing measurable air rotation it surely offers something.

With all due respect, I highly disagree. I tried to pause it a few times right at takeoff and I couldn't even get it to show me exactly when she takes off into the air; she has THAT little pre-rotation.

https://imgur.com/a/bZygrIi

For two of these images, she's already in the air, and one shows just when her toe pick leaves the ice for the 3T. The 3T has around 1/4 rotation PR, just like Yuna's, and her Lutz has ALMOST NONE! It's crazy! If we score difficulty of a jump by how uncommon it is, a good 3Lz may be more rare than a low-quality 3A, lol.

And maybe you have a different aesthetic than I do -- everyone's different, of course -- but I think this combination looks absolutely gorgeous and blows most of the top junior ladies' jumps out of the water (and most of the senior ladies, too). Like, if more girls jumped like this I'd actually enjoy ladies' skating. We might have different tastes -- which is fine -- but that's why I don't think the aesthetics of the jump as defined by any arbitrary person should be the basis for scoring them.

And if 90 degrees UR is penalized harshly, PR should be the same way, because they are literally two sides of the same coin here. I know you disagree that URs should be penalized as harshly as they are now, but I also respectfully disagree with that (for the same reasons as above, including the aesthetics of the jump).
 

narcissa

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Apr 1, 2014
I find it amazing that no one in figure skating but fans cares about PR. I guess I just confused Javier Fernandez and Kurt Browning with Yuri on Ice characters.

:laugh:

And other non-retired skaters have "hinted" at it as well (not naming names because not trying to start an inevitable fan war here).
 

Sam-Skwantch

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It's a fan thing. No one in the skating community gives much thought to this. :yawn:


I completely agree. I honestly can’t think of a single skater I’ve seen developing jumps that anyone has ever shown concern over PR. Two foot landings and UR’s you can see (and hear) are by and large the most real concern. It’s very common in fact based on my experience. I’ve never heard a coach, parent, or student even discussing PR.

I do think some judges reduce, or maybe a better way to say it is they “award less” GOE if Pre-Rotation affects the look of a jump. I don’t think judges care about degree of rotation much as long as the skater appears to be creating an upward momentum and noticable spring and launch. Even if facing completely or just pretty much forward at takeoff. . We may not even know because lack of rotation (no sign) is -1 GOE with no sign. I think that’s just how it is and I don’t think we’ll see a discussion over degrees of rotation at the next ISU Congress. Although some of the topics we saw brought up last time were pretty silly so....:laugh:
 
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