Should ISU bring back CD/OD?

[CaroLiza_fan]

If you've ever watched the CD's as they are done today in Novice competitions, allowing the couples to use their own music rather than the horrible ISU CD music, they are watchable, and it's certainly easier to compare the skills of the dancers than in any other way. I wish the ISU had made this change before they got rid of the CD's altogether.

I hated the Compulsory Dances. The only good thing about them was that it meant you could do a direct comparison between couples.

It was so boring sitting watching the same routines with the same music over and over and over again. And most of the time the music was awful! And it was stuck in your head for days afterwards, whether you liked the music or not!

To be honest, I have never been a fan of “normal” dancing (i.e. not on ice). This, and the fact that the compulsory dances were so boring, led me to start to deliberately avoid watching the CD. Soon, this would extend to ice dancing as a whole. It was only in what turned out to be the final couple of years of the CD and OD that I started watching ice dancing again.

The other thing I didn’t like about the CD was that I thought it wasn't fair that the Dancers had to do 3 routines when the Pairs and Singles skaters only had to do 2.

So, when I heard the Compulsory Dances were being scrapped, I was delighted.

Now, though, I am not so sure. Especially after hearing Doris' description of how they do CD's in Novice Competitions. I've never seen it in action, but being able to use different music sounds like it would make the CD a lot more interesting, and much more enjoyable to watch.

And, with all the strange judging decisions we have been seeing the past few seasons, perhaps it would be a good thing to have something where we can compare apples-with-apples, as Ravensque so eloquently put it.

That way, there would be less arguing about whether the result was the right result, and debating about how the judges reached that result. We would know immediately how a particular score was reached.

So, perhaps there is a case for bringing in (for want of a better phrase) a “Novice-style” Compulsory Dance.

I loved the OD's a lot. I miss them. Very few of the SD's have amused me in any way whatever, however this year's polkas are definitely more fun than last year's rhumbas for me.

Hey, while we’re at it, we could even revive the Original Dance, which I too enjoyed. True, it would mean that the Dancers were again doing more routines than the Pairs and Singles skaters, but they coped with it before…

CaroLiza_fan