Does Anyone Miss Compulsory Figures And Want Them Back? | Page 3 | Golden Skate

Does Anyone Miss Compulsory Figures And Want Them Back?

rain

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 29, 2003
I miss the skating skills that came from compulsory figures, not so much the figures competitions themselves.

People think judging now is bad? Figures were rife with favouritism and holding some skaters up and others down, and since almost nobody in the general public understood or even watched them, results sometimes seemed (and were) arbitrary and bizarre.

Do I think skaters should still do them from a young age? Yes. Emphatically.
 

kolyadafan2002

Fan of Kolyada
Final Flight
Joined
Jun 6, 2019
Well that's simply wrong. Any time you spend on something in life, takes away from time you can be spending doing something else. There are ways to train more efficiently and such, and it's possible we sometimes overtrain in a certain area and aren't getting gains out of the time spent, but it's impossible to do everything.

Were you doing every Triple jump in the book with maximum consistency and quality, much less Quads, and a plethora of high quality Level 4 spins and footwork and spirals, and were you able to perform the most stunningly complex and artistic programs ever seen? No, you were not, and any time you spent on something else (such as figures), is likely time that you've lost towards improving everything else I just listed.

I believe Ic3Rabbit was a triple-triple jumper, which would indicate good quality triples (or at least good consistency within the triples).

The thing is, many of the top guys dedicate upwards of 3-5hours of training to on ice training per day. I find after training jumps and spins and even running programs, there is still plenty of time within that. Of course Nathan chen has less practice, so probably isnt practical to dedicate time every day to figures.

I feel a serious improvement before from doing just 1 hour of figures in a dedicated figure session every week, then doing 10 minutes per day at the end of training. If anything, I feel it has improved my body control in jumps and actually boosted jump consistency.
 

Blades of Passion

Skating is Art, if you let it be
Record Breaker
Joined
Sep 14, 2008
Country
France
figures need balance, body awareness, consistent flow, blade control, focus... all of these are necessary to become a great jumper, spinner and overall skater, I have thus a hard time imagining that working on figures is a waste of time.

Nobody said doing figures is a complete waste of time in the development of a skater, but it's likely you will reach a point where you're losing more from the time spent than what you gain. It's open to discussion what the ideal amount might be, but the general opinion is that the amount of figures training asked of competitors in the 80's and earlier eras was "too much figures".

There's only so far figures go towards helping the many other aspects of skating, and figures are not the only way to achieve skating skills training. If they were some all-powerful thing, then every Olympic-aspiring skater who worked hard at figures would have inherently become excellent jumpers and spinners and performers and artists. That is far from the reality of how things were. Some of the people who were judged as best in figures didn't even show excellent blade usage in their actual programs.

how do you know what ic3rabbit has achieved in her life?

There is no skater in competitive history who has achieved all the things I wrote, particularly during the figures era they were lamenting. Their claim of "figures never took away from other training, we could do everything" is absolutely ridiculous, seeing as how it's an impossibility. Of course it takes away from other training, especially for people who have less ice time. It's nice if they want to talk about what they found beneficial from figures, but they shouldn't be making factually incorrect and potentially harmful statements, to justify their personal nostalgia goggles.
 

Jeanie19

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 20, 2017
Country
United-States
I would not want figures in competition. But maybe at a junior level as a preliminary competition, to decide skate order. That would be an incentive to train them.
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
I would not want figures in competition. But maybe at a junior level as a preliminary competition, to decide skate order. That would be an incentive to train them.

It would also add a lot of expense to the costs of hosting a junior competition.
 

Bookseller

Final Flight
Joined
May 28, 2018
Country
United-States
Short answer: NO Skating skills can be judged during the skates. That's what matters most anyway.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
To me, there is an aspect of irony in this discussion.

Back in the day, school figures for the most part comprised the "technical" aspect of skating, as opposed to the "performance" aspect. The "powers that were" decided in the 1970s that audiences (especially television audiences) were not much interested in technique. They were more into costumes. music, choreography, dancing, putting on a show. Figures were given less prominence and were eventually eliminated altogether from skating competitions.

Now in the IJS era we have come back around full circle. "Artistry" is more and more put on the back burner (and even ridiculed) and "tech" has returned to the place of 800 pound gorilla.

It is only a matter of time that people will start saying, "All that jumping -- who cares about that?" :)
 

Flying Feijoa

On the Ice
Joined
Sep 22, 2019
Country
New-Zealand
To me, there is an aspect of irony in this discussion.

Back in the day, school figures for the most part comprised the "technical" aspect of skating, as opposed to the "performance" aspect. The "powers that were" decided in the 1970s that audiences (especially television audiences) were not much interested in technique. They were more into costumes. music, choreography, dancing, putting on a show. Figures were given less prominence and were eventually eliminated altogether from skating competitions.

Now in the IJS era we have come back around full circle. "Artistry" is more and more put on the back burner (and even ridiculed) and "tech" has returned to the place of 800 pound gorilla.

It is only a matter of time that people will start saying, "All that jumping -- who cares about that?" :)

I'm all for tech, by which I mean all aspects of tech. Not sure why the term 'technical' has become synonymous with jumps only (or grudgingly also sometimes emcompassing spins) - great edges, cleanly executed difficult turns, speed etc. all require a lot of technical ability. Jason Brown is not called a technical skater, even though he has brilliant skating technique - just look at his spins and step sequences ;)

One positive thing about IJS is that the average complexity of non-jump elements has increased. It's amazing how primitive some of the step sequences were in the 70s and 80s, especially in the men's event. I think Jeff Buttle's win over Brian Joubert at 2008 Worlds may not have happened under the old judging system - he won by TES despite having no quads (but top notch spins/step sequences). Admittedly Joubert flubbed some of his jumps (though he actually had higher PCS than Buttle, inexplicably!)

On a related note, it's weird how people often refer to TES and PCS as the technical and artistic marks respectively, when (to me) 2 out of 5 categories in PCS are technical.
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
I think the difference is that explosive jumps are viscerally exciting to watch, relatively easy to recognize (at least the fact that the skater has done a jump, although more knowledge is needed to recognize which one), and in most cases the success or failure and even some aspects of quality are fairly obvious to the uneducated eye.

Casual fans will usually be interested in jumps. Some more sports-oriented viewers may be more interested in the size and speed, the number of revolutions, and with a little more knowledge the difference between different takeoffs. More arts-oriented fans will be more interested in the aesthetic effect of the performance as a whole, including the effect of the jumps in highlighting the music and demonstrating aesthetically pleasing positions especially when well performed. And everyone can agree that falling or stumbling out of a landing is a serious flaw deserving significant penalty.

So I don't think casual fans would want to get rid of jumps as part of the sport. They might, however, not care much about subtleties of jump technique that require actually developing knowledge of skating technique.

Devoted fans who are much more than casual may take pride in recognizing which edge a skater takes off from (i.e., be able to name jumps) and beyond that in recognizing negative and positive qualities such as edge changes/wrong edge takeoffs, skidded or otherwise less ideal takeoffs, underrotated landings, brief free foot touchdowns on landings, insecure vs. sustained flowing landings, difficult entries or exits, etc.

Not all aficionados of the sport for athletic or aesthetic reasons will also care about technical details. But for those who do, broadcast commentary offers somewhat more detail about what's being rewarded in evaluating jumps than during the figures or post-figures/pre-IJS era, and there is lots more detail available online for those who seek knowledge beyond what's offered in the broadcasts.

(I do wonder how many fans who educate themselves in detail about subtleties of jump technique online but who haven't skated themselves also put the same amount of effort into learning about subtleties of blade-to-ice technique unrelated to jumps.)

Figures, on the other hand, were purely technical exercises with little to appeal to those interested either in explosive athleticism or expressive artistry. Casual fans would have little interest in watching skaters going around in circles and occasionally changing direction, with no music or extreme changes in body position or tempo, etc. I think it's hard enough to get even diehard fans of freeskating to learn and care about recognizing different types of turns or how cleanly they're executed.

Skaters and coaches and officials do care about those kinds of technique. And devoted fans can learn to appreciate them, especially if they have the opportunity to watch live skating up close. But most likely technical subtleties are not what attracted them to skating in the first place. It takes a lot more effort for a fan of skating on video to learn those subtleties. And most broadcasters make little effort to educate on those points, in comparison to the amount of time they spend on analyzing jumps.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
I'm all for tech, by which I mean all aspects of tech. Not sure why the term 'technical' has become synonymous with jumps only...

I think that this view of what "tech" mens is encoded into the Scale of Values. The ISU values a quad Lutz at 11.50 points (last years scale). The greatest base value that you can get for a spin is 3.50 and the best you can get for a step sequence is 3.90. Skaters and their teams do the math, and here we are.

(By the way, I just noticed from the Scale of Values that there are 24 different kinds of spins listed, each with 5 levels, and each with 11 possible GOE scores. This makes a total of 1320 different possibilities. :eeking: )

I think Jeff Buttle's win over Brian Joubert at 2008 Worlds may not have happened under the old judging system - he won by TES despite having no quads (but top notch spins/step sequences). Admittedly Joubert flubbed some of his jumps (though he actually had higher PCS than Buttle, inexplicably!)

I would say that under 6.0 judging Joubert would have had 0 chance to win, and if any of the other competitors had stepped up in the LP, he might not have made the podium. Joubert placed 6th in the Short Program behind not only Buttle but also Weir, Takahashi, Verner, and Lambiel. Joubert fell on a triple Lutz and also had a music deduction. Under factored placements he couldn't have won overall no matter what he did in the LP.

Even in the LP, I don't think he would have won under 6.0. He did a quad and an OK triple Axel, but that was about it. He eked out a not very good 3F+3T, but his only other combination was 2A+1T.

Buttle did two triple Axels, one in combination, and two triple Lutzes (one in combination), plus a better 3F+3T.

All of the other short program leaders blew the LP big time, so there wasn't really any competition for Buttle under either scoring system (or for Joubert's silver). In fact, to me it was somewhat strange that a lot of fans were in the "but he didn't do a quad" chorus. After this win and Lysacek's Olympic victory, the ISU took matters in hand and increased the value of quads.

On a related note, it's weird how people often refer to TES and PCS as the technical and artistic marks respectively, when (to me) 2 out of 5 categories in PCS are technical.

I think that the ISU wants to encourage that point of view, that the PCSs are "artistry" and the TES are "tech." This is good PR if they want to say that figure skating honors both aspects of the discipline. I am pretty sure that when the initials "TES" were first introduced, they stood for "Total Element Scores." Little by little, even in official ISU publications this has segued into "Technical Element Scores." This gives the impression that the split is 50-50, but as you point out, it is more like 70% tech and 30% performance. (Actually, I have no quarrel with that emphasis. I would be OK with 50% elements, 25% SS&TR combined, and 25% Ch, INT and Performance combined into one score.
 
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katymay

Medalist
Joined
Mar 7, 2006
As a separate discipline I would love to see them back. Not included with over all singles.
 

kolyadafan2002

Fan of Kolyada
Final Flight
Joined
Jun 6, 2019
I think that this view of what "tech" mens is encoded into the Scale of Values. The ISU values a quad Lutz at 11.50 points (last years scale). The greatest base value that you can get for a spin is 3.50 and the best you can get for a step sequence is 3.90. Skaters and their teams do the math, and here we are.

(By the way, I just noticed from the Scale of Values that there are 24 different kinds of spins listed, each with 5 levels, and each with 11 possible GOE scores. This makes a total of 1320 different possibilities. :eeking: )



I would say that under 6.0 judging Joubert would have had 0 chance to win, and if any of the other competitors had stepped up in the LP, he might not have made the podium. Joubert placed 6th in the Short Program behind not only Buttle but also Weir, Takahashi, Verner, and Lambiel. Joubert fell on a triple Lutz and also had a music deduction. Under factored placements he couldn't have won overall no matter what he did in the LP.

Even in the LP, I don't think he would have won under 6.0. He did a quad and an OK triple Axel, but that was about it. He eked out a not very good 3F+3T, but his only other combination was 2A+1T.

Buttle did two triple Axels, one in combination, and two triple Lutzes (one in combination), plus a better 3F+3T.

All of the other short program leaders blew the LP big time, so there wasn't really any competition for Buttle under either scoring system (or for Joubert's silver). In fact, to me it was somewhat strange that a lot of fans were in the "but he didn't do a quad" chorus. After this win and Lysacek's Olympic victory, the ISU took matters in hand and increased the value of quads.



I think that the ISU wants to encourage that point of view, that the PCSs are "artistry" and the TES are "tech." This is good PR if they want to say that figure skating honors both aspects of the discipline. I am pretty sure that when the initials "TES" were first introduced, they stood for "Total Element Scores." Little by little, even in official ISU publications this has segued into "Technical Element Scores." This gives the impression that the split is 50-50, but as you point out, it is more like 70% tech and 30% performance. (Actually, I have no quarrel with that emphasis. I would be OK with 50% elements, 25% SS&TR combined, and 25% Ch, INT and Performance combined into one score.

Agree that part of PCS is technical. Also agree step sequence BV should increase- or they should add another choreographic element which is up to the skater do decide.

I think people view technical as "tricks" and artistry as everything else, and spins are seen as much less difficult than big jumps (true and false at the same time, read my explination).

Spins are something which are two-fold: repetition and flexibility. With repetition and flexibility, it is possible for anybody to achieve very good spins (not the best spins, but good spins).

With jumps, it's where talent meets technique meets strength. For some people no matter how much they repeat jumps they may never be successful with them.
Once you are good with spins, they are fairly natural to perform, but even simple jumps like 3S take concentration (especially in second half of program).

However, if you dont work and practice spins, they are even harder than jumps. Look at junior boys for the solid evidence.
 

shine

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
I don't know about compulsory figures, but I sure want the compulsory dance to be brought back...
 

LiamForeman

William/Uilyam
Medalist
Joined
Nov 24, 2006
No, I don't ever want to see figures return. The judging was nearly always suspect, and it was strange that the 'winners' of figures were pretty unremarkable SKATERS. I'd rather have seen Ito in the final group in Calgary than Kira Ivanova. Being able to do excellent figures is barely any indication of what kind of skating performer you are. I mean, Janet Lynn had bad figures, but I'd be hard pressed to find anyone saying that she was such an inferior skater to Trixie Schuba.

Besides, you can take edge classes to sharpen up your skating edges and blade control skills. Skaters toiling away for hours on a patch session has not shown to me that they are better skaters. I played basketball in school, and I was by far not the best player, but put me on the free throw line and I could hit ten out of ten in a row. But it didn't make me the best player. That's how I feel about figures. Adios, goodbye to them!
 

cohen-esque

Final Flight
Joined
Jan 27, 2014
Correct! I remember Jill Trenary saying she'd like to see free programs limited to 3 triples and more weight added back into figures. Here it is............https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li8oaM8lOF0
So she said would like to see a 4 triple limit, after being asked about returning to competition... seems like a conveniently self-serving opinion from a skater who won her World title with a 4 triple free skate, honestly.
 

LiamForeman

William/Uilyam
Medalist
Joined
Nov 24, 2006
So she said would like to see a 4 triple limit, after being asked about returning to competition... seems like a conveniently self-serving opinion from a skater who won her World title with a 4 triple free skate, honestly.

I was laughing when she said that because she was NEVER EVER able to do a clean 5 triple free skate!!! How funny and convenient that she would limit it to four triples!!! That was her world champion best! But she's gorgeous to look at, seemed on point with everything else, and I think could have made a great commentator.
 
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