what to do with consistent wrong edged jump? | Page 3 | Golden Skate

what to do with consistent wrong edged jump?

hurrah

Medalist
Joined
Aug 8, 2009
I am not opposed to counting lips/flutzs as lutzs/flips, but in fact, this would make very little difference to the total score of a skater like Mao who can now do all other jumps including 3-axel well. In her case, she would replace the one lutz she does in the long program with a double-axel. Her flutz if she got -2 GOE would be 6.0 (base point) -1.4 which is 4.6. Her double-axel with +2 GOE would be 3.3 + 1.0 which is 4.3. The double-axel would additionally probably go into the second-half which would make it 4.73.

Counting lips/flutzs as flips/lutzs would therefore only affect skaters with a lesser jump repertoire.
 

mskater93

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 22, 2005
I've seen coaches who say "good enough" at the single/double flip/Lutz point and don't enforce jumping off a correct edge. Some of these coaches will tell their students that they "have" a given jump and move on to the next because that helps the perception that the student is "improving" - ie, working on harder elements rather than beating on the easier one to make it right. This makes me very sad for those skaters because they COULD be good, but haven't been taught rigorously enough to be that good. It's the same as teaching the skater to rotate and allow things to go to any old method to get it done (wrapped jumps, spinny, icky jumps that are barely/under rotated, etc)

I've also seen technique issues become magnified when the skater starts seriously working on the triple version of their jump nemesis.

It goes both ways
 

miki88

Medalist
Joined
Dec 28, 2009
Considering the sheer amount of skaters at the top level who have edge issues, singling out certain skaters to take the blame is :roll eye: I feel the real problem is that edge issues were virtually ignored for years. It's very hard to correct something that had been ingrained in your muscle memory for years. And just because a skater hasn't corrected the problem does not mean they have not tried/ or do not care to. Elite skaters are competitive enough to to not want any deductions if they could help it. Skaters who don't have edge deductions will have the advantage over those who do if other elements are equal.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
Considering the sheer amount of skaters at the top level who have edge issues, singling out certain skaters to take the blame is :roll eye: I feel the real problem is that edge issues were virtually ignored for years. It's very hard to correct something that had been ingrained in your muscle memory for years. And just because a skater hasn't corrected the problem does not mean they have not tried/ or do not care to. Elite skaters are competitive enough to to not want any deductions if they could help it. Skaters who don't have edge deductions will have the advantage over those who do if other elements are equal.

There have always been skaters at the elite level who have had edge issues, and only the next generation of skaters will be taught to jump off the correct edge. Before a coach would always be like "Oh, that's a typical lutz entry, that's a typical flip entry, so it will be regarded as such." But now that edge calls are actually being called skaters legitimately have to adapt. It's kind of like how skaters got away with 5-rotation spins... but now that the system has changed, they are forced to focus on making their spins better and more difficult. The difference is, it's easy to add more rotations to a spin and learn new positions... but getting a revised jump technique is particularly hard.
 

Nadia01

Final Flight
Joined
Nov 10, 2009
It certainly seems as if school figures imparted an edge control that many skaters of today lack. When the world's top skaters have such flaws in their jumps, something seems to be institutionally wrong. I suspect it isn't just skaters who lost out when school figures disappeared. Coaches also lost some command of technique. Presumably all these kids with flutzes and lips had coaches. Did those people not notice, through years of 6 A.M. skating lessons, that their students had such a fundamental error? Or did they just not know how to teach a pure, correct jump?

My guess is that since learning correct jumps can be very difficult, they decided that the effort required to master them was too great compared to penalty.
 

hurrah

Medalist
Joined
Aug 8, 2009
I have been thinking about the suggestion to count lips/flutzs as lutzs/flips, and I am now opposed to it because it occurs to me that it would really discourage skaters from including both jumps into a program and thus discourage them from trying to master both. If such a rule were in place, rather than risk zayaking themselves, skaters would probably just choose to include two flips or two lutzs, whichever then are good at, and then try and fill their jump passes with other types of jumps. Indeed, even if a skater is usually good at doing both lutz and flip in practice, it would still make attempting both jumps in a program risky, because the skater could not know with certainty that they have lipped or flutzed their third and fourth flip+lutz jump attempts.

Of course, in the case of ladies, the flip side would be that such a rule may encourage more female skaters to try and master a triple-axel, as an under-rotated triple-axel would be worth more than a zayak jump worth zero.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
I have been thinking about the suggestion to count lips/flutzs as lutzs/flips, and I am now opposed to it because it occurs to me that it would really discourage skaters from including both jumps into a program and thus discourage them from trying to master both. If such a rule were in place, rather than risk zayaking themselves, skaters would probably just choose to include two flips or two lutzs, whichever then are good at, and then try and fill their jump passes with other types of jumps. Indeed, even if a skater is usually good at doing both lutz and flip in practice, it would still make attempting both jumps in a program risky, because the skater could not know with certainty that they have lipped or flutzed their third and fourth flip+lutz jump attempts.

Of course, in the case of ladies, the flip side would be that such a rule may encourage more female skaters to try and master a triple-axel, as an under-rotated triple-axel would be worth more than a zayak jump worth zero.

The issue with this is that it gives the technical specialist a HUGE amount of power. If they decide that a jump was lipped/flutzed and it ends up being called as a lutz/flip, and thus Zayaks other jumping passes, that essentially gives them control over the standings, by denying skaters 5-6 points that they would otherwise get, even if they had an edge call but execute the jump otherwise perfectly. It also doesn't incentivize skaters to go for a flip and a lutz in their program.

To me, even a triple flutz is much harder to execute than a triple salchow, and while we should obviously push for skaters developing good technique, we should also push for higher difficulty.
 

mskater93

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 22, 2005
Then also, there is the skater who does it correctly in practice 90%+ of the time after fixing a problem, but who has competition nerves on the iffy element and flips an edge because they are trying too hard/quicken up timing/tighten up.
 

tulosai

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 21, 2011
The issue with this is that it gives the technical specialist a HUGE amount of power. If they decide that a jump was lipped/flutzed and it ends up being called as a lutz/flip, and thus Zayaks other jumping passes, that essentially gives them control over the standings, by denying skaters 5-6 points that they would otherwise get, even if they had an edge call but execute the jump otherwise perfectly. It also doesn't incentivize skaters to go for a flip and a lutz in their program.

To me, even a triple flutz is much harder to execute than a triple salchow, and while we should obviously push for skaters developing good technique, we should also push for higher difficulty.

The thing is, though, the edge is a HUGE part of the jump. The jump simply ISN'T that jump if the takeoff edge is wrong, no matter how perfectly the jump is otherwise executed. I also don't buy that the tech specialists could basically play god then- it is actually relatively easy to determine takeoff edge on a jump. Despite this I am NOT in favor of extreme sanctions like making a jump have zero credit as violating the Zayak rule- I think that would kill any desire people might have to try to fix a jump and would be too harsh on those who can usually do a jump correctly but occasionally botch it. However, as I've said before in the thread, the penalty as it stands is practically nonexistent and also gives skaters no incentive to fix flutz/lip problems. It should be penalized more heavily to provide that incentive and to properly reward skaters who either can do both OR who admit they can't do one or the other and therefore are honest enough not to fake it into their program.
 

hurrah

Medalist
Joined
Aug 8, 2009
However, as I've said before in the thread, the penalty as it stands is practically nonexistent and also gives skaters no incentive to fix flutz/lip problems. It should be penalized more heavily to provide that incentive and to properly reward skaters who either can do both OR who admit they can't do one or the other and therefore are honest enough not to fake it into their program.

But the penalty for a bad flutz can't be so severe that it scores far less than a well-executed double-axel. If a bad triple-flutz is worth significantly less than a good double-axel, then skaters would choose to abandon mastering the lutz and opt for a double-axel instead (if, that is, they are able to execute all other triples, of course). I think that in the scheme of things, wrong-edge take-off is penalized as much as they can be, relative to how other elements are scored.

Now, if the rule changes so that only one double-axel is allowed in the long program, then that would make for a different game plan.
 

Nadia01

Final Flight
Joined
Nov 10, 2009
I'm thinking that maybe reducing the BV of wrong-edged flip/lutz by 25% plus neg GOE might do the trick.
 

hurrah

Medalist
Joined
Aug 8, 2009
I'm thinking that maybe reducing the BV of wrong-edged flip/lutz by 25% plus neg GOE might do the trick.

As I wrote above, such a severe penalty would mean that skaters would abandon their flip/lutz and put in a double-axel instead.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
As I wrote above, such a severe penalty would mean that skaters would abandon their flip/lutz and put in a double-axel instead.

Exactly. Lutz attempts for a while were dying off as it is, because skaters were worried about the flutz deduction. I don't want to go back to jump layouts that are 3L, 3L-2T, 3S-2T, 3S, 3T, 3T-2T-2T, 2A, because skaters are worried about a potential 25% plus -GOE deduction on their lutz or flip attempt.

There certainly have been questionable edge calls (e.g. Kim's 3F in her Worlds SP), and a tech specialist with a bit of bias can in that split second choose to make an edge call (or not call an incorrect edge). The edge call GOE deduction is suitable in itself, because it prevents (usually) positive GOE and says "Okay, you landed the jump perfectly, but your takeoff was slightly incorrect... so you get most of the points, but not the BV and certainly not any bonus GOE."

Also, on the suggestion of counting flutzes as flips and counting lips as lutzes, does that mean that a skater that's attempting a flip should be rewarded with a higher BV if their bad lipping technique causes them to turn the intended flip into a lutz? :confused:
 

hurrah

Medalist
Joined
Aug 8, 2009
Also, on the suggestion of counting flutzes as flips and counting lips as lutzes, does that mean that a skater that's attempting a flip should be rewarded with a higher BV if their bad lipping causes them to turn the intended flip into a lutz? :confused:

It was not I who originally made the suggestion to count flutz as flip and lip as lutz. Some other poster had, and on first reading, I thought, 'Sure, why not?', but if you read my post carefully, I say that I oppose the suggestion, because it would discourage skaters from trying to master both jumps.

I think the wrong-edge take-off penalty can't be any more severe than what it is now, unless the rule is changed so that only one double-axel is allowed in the lp, or they make the base value of the double-axel less than what it is now.
 

CanadianSkaterGuy

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 25, 2013
It was not I who originally made the suggestion to count flutz as flip and lip as lutz. Some other poster had, and on first reading, I thought, 'Sure, why not?', but if you read my post carefully, I say that I oppose the suggestion, because it would discourage skaters from trying to master both jumps.

Sorry, I wasn't questioning you, it was a general question aimed at the suggestion that flutzes be counted as lutzes and lips be counted as flips. I accidentally hit Reply with Quote on the most recent post, so it might have looked like I was, even though I agree with your post. :)
 

FlattFan

Match Penalty
Joined
Jan 4, 2010
The best solution is to reward people with all different correct triples.
edge call on lutzes and flips are already being accounted for. The differences are a few points.

Look at Kostner's lutz, 7.3 total. Mao's lutz, 5.6 total.
The difference would be enough to change the result between Mao and Kostner. If they do make a difference, I have no problem with it. Just reward the girls with all triples more.
 
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