Transitions/Linking Footwork & Movement
Definition: The varied and/or intricate footwork, positions, movements, and holds that link all elements. In
singles, pairs, and synchronize skating this also includes the entrances and exits of technical elements.
Criteria:
Variety
Difficulty
Intricacy
Quality (including unison in Pair Skating and Ice Dancing)
What does technical panel evaluate? Complexity. What does judging panel evaluate? Quality.
Please help...stupid question here!! In Yulia's SP her second jump is a 2a. Please ignore the height or wonkiness of the 2a and please explain to me the two positions she does out of it. I think one is a butterfly but am not sure if I'm right. The other stupid question is does her two transitions out of the 2a count as flow out and constitute being directly into choreography which applies to the jumps GOE. I've included a video of what I believe to be the best representation of her SP and the time in question is from 1:10-1:18 leading into a flying spin.
http://youtu.be/cMvU0sOYJKI
gkelly
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From the landing edge of the axel she does a back three turn into a choreographed body position, mohawk to a brief catch-foot spiral, some toe-assisted turns, and then the butterfly entrance into the flying spin.
Yes, she has good flow on the landing edge of the axel. The moves afterward would be considered transitions -- adds some intricacy, judges would consider the quality and difficulty, and whether those moves add more variety to the other transition moves in the program. It would be up to each judge whether they think that turn and body position are connected enough to the axel itself to add to its GOE.
Ditto with the toe turns, which are not themselves very difficult. The butterfly into the spin is part of the actual element, the fly to the flying spin, and would be considered by the tech panel as a feature.
To answer your first question the differences between :
1) unexpected / creative / difficult entry
2) clear recognizable steps/free skating movements immediately preceding element
1) addresses flow in and level of attack and
2) is the flow out and how smooth or quickly the skater returns to the program.
1) unexpected / creative / difficult entry
2) clear recognizable steps/free skating movements immediately preceding element
3) varied position in the air / delay in rotation
4) good height and distance
5) good extension on landing / creative exit
6) good flow from entry to exit including jump combinations / sequences
7) effortless throughout
8) element matched to the musical structure
I'm not sure it is fair to lump them into one bullet point as you have.
and depending on how you define this, you could include:
creative/difficult/unexpected entries and exits
and I'd probably drop this one, if there's no real difference compared to the previous one:
clear recognizable steps/free skating movements immediately preceding element
Ill drive you crazy with Yulia talk sorry but she is my passion here and I know her programs best.
She can get both of these on her wonky little 2a. Compared to the rest of the field she attacks the 2a quite fearlessly.
Probably the quickest set up among all the girls...zero hesitation. In the SP she lands it and and immediately executes elements/transitions that can be perceived as flow and added difficulty.
I♥Yuna;891580 said:1) unexpected / creative / difficult entry
2) clear recognizable steps/free skating movements immediately preceding element
What are some examples of the differences between these two??
Also, I officially have no idea what purpose the "T/L/F/M" component serves, AT ALL:
^ Quality of steps, turns, etc (ie, footwork) is already addressed in SS.
Difficulty is supposed to be determined by the technical panel. And Variety and Intricacy may be a matter of Choreography, or then again, maybe it's the duty of the technical panel??
5) good extension on landing / creative exit
Extension yes. They should elaborate a little more (posture, too?)
and can someone give me an example of creative exit? is it something to do with the blade, or just a decorative flourish of the arms/upper body??
If that's true, then I think the same needs to apply to "creative exits" -- they should only count as part of the jump if they are done w/in the time frame that isolates the jump from the rest of the choreo
otherwise, it's just a matter of choreography. It would be the tech panel's job to identify jumps that have "creative exit" and communicate that to the judges.
8) element matched to the musical structure
No :no: If the element matches the musical structure, it's because it was purposely placed there (a matter of Composition). As-worded, this should really be scored in the Choreography/Composition component of pcs, not in GoE.
Even if what they're talking about is the skater's ability to execute the choreographed jump in perfect timing with the music, this is a matter of Performance/Execution, not the degree of technical perfection of the jump/element.
I agree that they are often the same thing and probably could be combined with different wording. But it is certainly possible to have an unexpected/creative/difficult entry that doesn't really have any clear recognizable steps, or free skating movements unless you consider a sustained edge as a clear freeskating movement.
[On Sasha's Charlotte] It's not on an edge, so it wouldn't be worth very much in skating skills, but the position is high quality, so it should add value as a transition. Same for split jumps, for example. What happens in the air is not a skating skill, but there's a big difference in quality between a full split and a barely 90-degree split.
The Transitions score is the place for judges to reward the difficulty of everything that happens between the elements.
The technical panel only addresses the difficulty of the actual elements. They do not pay any attention to anything that does not fit into one of the element boxes [....] Intricacy also addresses elements being directly connected together [....] The tech panel has no means to reward the fact that the exit of one element was the entrance to the next, there was not even one extra step in between -- that's up to the judges to reward as part of the intricacy criterion under Transitions.
Why not both? It's a matter of composition to decide where the element should be placed in relation to the music. It's up to the skater to actually execute the element at exactly the right time. That demonstrates technical command that the choreographer has no control over
If it's off by half a second, it won't match the music.
That's not really what Performance/Execution is about.
And it certainly does require a great deal of technical perfection to be able to time a jump precisely with the music.
Interpretation
Definition: The personal and creative translation of the music to movement on ice.
To reward the skater who through movement creates a personal and creative translation of the music.
As the tempo binds all notes in time, the ability to use the tempos and rhythms of the music in a variety
of ways, along with the subtle use of finesse to reflect the nuances of all the fundamentals of music:
melody, rhythm, harmony, color, texture, and form creates a mastery of interpretation.
Criteria:
Effortless Movements in Time to the Music (Timing) Note: Timing is a separate component
in Compulsory Dances.
The ability to translate music through sureness of rhythm, tempo, effective movement,
and effortless flow over the ice surface by: rhythmic continuity, awareness of all
tempo/rhythm changes in a variety of ways.
Agreed! I did make a mistake on comparing the two bullet points
It's just my opinion but I'd sum up "attack" as fearless approach with little to no hesitation.
There are several things I'd change to improve the sport. The one thing that keeps me going is the level of skating and the character all the skaters bring. No matter the medals or judging woes no one can take that away. Not from me at least.
I♥Yuna;892293 said:However, this kind of goes back to what really bothers me about the scoring/judging system in general, which is being able to give points for the same thing twice. Just to be clear, it's not really a problem if a movement/skill/element adds value to a program in more than one way (ie, Sasha's Charlotte is a difficult transitional move, and is also effective choreographically, ergo it garners points in two different components), it's when a movement/skill/element garners points in two different places on the protocol for exactly the same reason that I feel it's a problem.
As far as the GoE and the +'s that are handed out for difficulty of the required elements. The way I feel about it, is that if difficulty is going to be awarded for a required element in the GoE portion of TES, it should be part and parcel to the element itself. For example, the unexpectedness of a jump's entry, is a quality of the jump's entry,
"Unexpected" would probably happen if the setup for the jump (or spin) was something very different from a usual jump or spin setup -- e.g., the movement seemed to be leading in one direction and then all of a sudden the skater turned in a different direction and did an element that wasn't expected from that setup.
Or the skater was doing something else leading in the correct direction and then quickly changed the weight distribution on the blade to be able to take off into the jump or start rotating a spin.
The fact of doing something different from a standard setup adds some difficulty and should get some reward in Transitions for the difficulty. Then you also have the question of quality -- the skater might do the preceding move and then the jump or spin, but the quality of the preceding move and/or the element itself might be weak or average or good.
And there might be no break at all between the preceding move and the element, or there might be an extra step in between or a clear break in momentum while the skater readjusts his/her weight to get into the element. The former would deserve good credit for intricacy, the latter not so much.
What if the preceding move and the entry into a jump is great, but then the skater falls on the jump. -3 GOE for the element, but still the skater deserves credit for trying a difficult entry, compared to a different skater who telegraphed the jump and fell on it anyway.
So the GOE would reflect the quality of the actual element, whereas any bump to the Transitions score would be for all the positive things about the preceding move and the connection between the preceding move and the element. The skater who does well with difficulty, quality, and intricacy should get more of a bump than the skater who just does something before the element but it's not especially impressive on any of those criteria.
(The Variety criterion would not apply to any single transition, but to the program as a whole.)
I am even okay with "difficult entry" as a bullet, so long as it's defined (something like "shift in weight/or change of edge connecting quickly/immediately/directly to the jump entry" -- that's an awful description but hopefully you can see what I mean lol).
There are a lot of different ways an entry could be difficult. There could be more specific wording in the GOE bullets to define some of those ways, maybe give specific examples. But we hope that if a creative skater comes up with a new way to enter an element unexpectedly from different preceding moves than anyone has ever used before to get into that kind of element, at least some of the judges will recognize the difficulty and reward it.
Right. Maybe a good example of what I was thinking, is say a skater comes to me for choreography. His signature move is a stylized triple axel (arm variation w/creative exit), and I put it in his program to match the clash of a cymbal in the music. I also give it an unexpected entry, and place it right in front of the judges, for maximum effect. When it's finally time to perform it in competition, he realizes he is a tad behind the music, but he is afraid to rush the jump for fear of messing it up or falling, so he decides to momentarily disregard the fact that his musical timing is off, go for perfect execution, and then try to catch up with the music afterwards.
He executes the triple axel with brilliant speed, height, delayed rotation, flow, etc -- basically all of the things that would make the jump utterly flawless in terms of pure skating technique (pure technical skill), not to mention all of the bells and whistles that satisfy the other bullets (variation, entry, exit). My feeling is that in the GoE, it should recieve the highest mark, because that portion of the overall score is supposed to grade the execution of individual elements -- elements that, in theory, can be executed perfectly to no music at all.
If the skater can earn 6 bullet points (or maybe only 5, but most of them really strongly), he can get +3 GOE without the unexpected entry, difficult exit, and matching the music. Since +3 is the maximum GOE possible, there's no added value in planning 7 or 8 bullet points if you can consistently achieve the other 6.
But what if you don't always -- or ever -- execute the element with the very highest quality. What if you have a very consistent triple axel, but you can't jump very high so you can never earn the "good height and distance" bullet point, and maybe you don't skate with great speed either. You're just lucky you have good technique and quick rotation to be able to do triple axels at all, and you can do them consistently. Why shouldn't you try to show extra difficulty and quality in your triple axel in the best ways you personally are capable of? Maybe you can't ever earn +3, but why not aim for +2 instead of settling for +1 by default?
Maybe not in the rules, but in principle, I beg to differ LoL (especically since this is the improvement thread! =).
My feeling is that the Performance/Execution component is kind of a catch-all for two or three different kinds of criteria:
Those that relate to the skater's commitment to the program and connection to the audience
Those related to the overall quality of the skater's body line
(Not specified, but success/overall quality or failure/messiness of the elements could also affect this score)
E.g., a skater with a lot of ballet training might have great carriage and clear body line, graceful movement qualities, but they might look bored and indifferent the whole time.
Another skater might have bad posture, little flexibility, and bowed legs, but great enthusiasm, personality, and connection with the audience.
Each of these skaters would deserve to score high in some aspects of P/E as currently defined and low in other aspects. They might average out to a similar final score. A skater who is good in all those areas should score significantly higher, and one who is bad in all those areas should score significantly lower.
Maybe those two different areas of this component should be separated into different scores.
But most of the relation to the music would go under Interpretation.
Of course, but the kind of technical precision needed to stay on time with music is (in my view) not exactly the same as the kind of technical precision needed to execute a skill. If the goal is to level the playing field so that skaters with different qualities (good artist vs. good technician) have equal footing, then I think it would make a lot of sense to drop the "music timing" bullet from the GoE score, and move it over to pcs..
When that bullet point is used for elements, it only applies if that particular element is very clearly used to enhance the musical structure. It's not just about being on time. It applies to step sequences much more often than to jumps and spins.
The Interpretation component would be the place to reward the skater who is clearly in synch with the music throughout the program. Just hitting a few jumps on the booms and showing no awareness of the music otherwise would not score well for Interpretation.
Let me give an example from personal experience.
The hardest compulsory dance test I have passed is the Willow Waltz, which is on the bronze dance test in the US.
There is one three turn in this dance, in my bad direction.
I have no trouble executing that three turn on its own -- it's a move than beginners learn.
But I always had trouble getting my weight into the proper position to execute it from the previous step.
The previous edge is supposed to be held for 3 counts (this is a waltz, after all). If I wasn't ready to start the entry to the turn on count 4, I would often wait another whole measure to start it on count 1.
That would be penalized because it showed that I did not have enough technical control of those two steps to stay in time with the music.
But waiting to make the step on count 1 of the next measure, instead of count 5 or 6, shows that I was aware of the musical structure, of the difference between the downbeats and the upbeats. So I would be penalized for that one step for adding an extra measure, but not for the whole dance for ignoring the waltz rhythm.
TW: Can you quickly summarize your own definitions of the five program components in singles and pairs skating? If you know the actual definitions by heart, feel free to use them, but try to put them in your own words rather than cheating! [Note: these answers were given immediately and haven't been edited from the original quote. I thought it would be more interesting to get immediate definitions rather than giving Ibens time to think about the answers.]
PI: Skating Skills:
1. Flow and effortless glide with deep edges of steps and turns
2. Variety of speed and acceleration
3. Multi directional skating
Transitions:
That there are transitional moves and that there is variety in them. Not always the same movement. A good example is the long program of Stephane Lambiel. He is always doing the same upper body movements as his transitions, even if he has many.
Performance/Execution:
1. The skater gives you the “I am and I am going to be…” feeling.
2. Personality (if you can’t remember a skater’s performance after 5 minutes… he/she doesn’t have any personality).
3. Projection
a) gives you the feeling that he/she jumps into the judges stand/audience.
b) takes you with him/her into his/her own little world.
4. Quality of each movement. Each movement should be done to the end instead of cutting the movement short halfway.
Choreography:
1. Nice programs with beautiful choreography and good lay-out of the entire program.
2. Good use of the music.
Interpretation:
1. If most of the notes are used by the skater.
2. If the music goes up the moves should also lift upward and if the music goes down… the moves should be done downward.
3. When a skater becomes the character.
4. That the skater is interpreting the music instead of putting on a show program.
Well, it would garner points in the Transitions component if it's difficult and good quality -- it would garner points in the Choreography component if it's effective choreographically. Those aren't the exact same reason.
Just to be clear, it's not really a problem if a movement/skill/element adds value to a program in more than one way (ie, Sasha's Charlotte is a difficult transitional move, and is also effective choreographically, ergo it garners points in two different components)....
The fact of doing something different from a standard setup adds some difficulty and should get some reward in Transitions for the difficulty. Then you also have the question of quality -- the skater might do the preceding move and then the jump or spin, but the quality of the preceding move and/or the element itself might be weak or average or good.
What if the preceding move and the entry into a jump is great, but then the skater falls on the jump. -3 GOE for the element, but still the skater deserves credit for trying a difficult entry, compared to a different skater who telegraphed the jump and fell on it anyway.
If the skater can earn 6 bullet points (or maybe only 5, but most of them really strongly), he can get +3 GOE without the unexpected entry, difficult exit, and matching the music. Since +3 is the maximum GOE possible, there's no added value in planning 7 or 8 bullet points if you can consistently achieve the other 6. But what if you don't always -- or ever -- execute the element with the very highest quality.
If I wasn't ready to start the entry to the turn on count 4, I would often wait another whole measure to start it on count 1.
That would be penalized because it showed that I did not have enough technical control of those two steps to stay in time with the music.
But waiting to make the step on count 1 of the next measure, instead of count 5 or 6, shows that I was aware of the musical structure, of the difference between the downbeats and the upbeats. So I would be penalized for that one step for adding an extra measure, but not for the whole dance for ignoring the waltz rhythm.
@I♥Yuna and gkelly: I enjoyed reading both of your theorycrafts. There are so many good points in your point of views and arguments and I would like to respond to them with equal diligence but I can't help but feel that they are overly idealistic. Especially when it comes to PCS. I can understand the difference between Choreography and Interpretation, but the IJS' bullet points are almost metaphysical or even philosophical, which is impossible to quantify in real time.
Here, we have an interview from an honest judge a while back. Many here may remember it. He was asked to give impromptu answers about how he would rate each PCS mark.
PI: Right after the completion of the short program I could see that the top three skaters were less than a point apart. I knew that the panel had done a great job! During that segment, those three were equally good and all for different reasons. However, in my opinion, I thought Takahashi would have won the short program but anything is possible now since we as judges don’t know what the technical panel has decided on as far as levels and downgrades. We also do not know our previous marks so it is possible that you accidently gave the higher mark to the other skater although as a good judge you have your ways to get around that!
TW: Please explain the last part in more detail.
PI: If i gave, say, a 7.25 to skater A, then skater B is ten skaters later and in my opinion he is better, but gave him a 7.00, then I accidently gave “first place” to the wrong skater for that component.
I♥Yuna;899219 said:Oh, also ,Patrick Ibens mentioned in that interview that one of the downsides is that the step sequences all look the same.
General Question: If you could change the step sequences in any way (requirements, levels) what would you change about them? Also, any thoughts on choreo sequences?
I♥Yuna;899155 said:Okay so basically, in GoE, even though one of the bullets might say "clear steps leading into jump", it doesn't mean that the GoE reflects the difficulty or quality of those steps, right? (If skaterA and skaterB both have clear steps leading into the same jump, then they each get an equal benefit in terms of GoE, but if skater A's steps are clearly more difficult & better quality than skater B's, then skater A will score higher in Transitions and P/E, yes?)
Yeah, but what if someone else can? LoL (What do you think about adding a +4 GoE to reward jumps that satisfy all 8 bullets? We'd probably never see it for the super difficult jumps like 3A's and quads, but if you could do a 2A, or 3T of exceptional beauty (quality+creativity+difficulty) as a highlight of the program, maybe it should be able to score just as well as an average 3F or 3Lz that does not go the extra mile?
ITA about the metaphysical/philosophical thing LoL And I don't understand why they don't just go ahead and assign a weight to each criteria (out of the total 10.00), so that everyone can understand how the judges are coming up with the numbers, and what they can do to maximize their scores. That's something I'm aiming for w/my revisions - not just more concrete criteria, but quantifying them, too. Maybe I'm being too idealistic, but I'm gonna try it anyway lol.
I♥Yuna;899219 said:General Question: If you could change the step sequences in any way (requirements, levels) what would you change about them? Also, any thoughts on choreo sequences?
I would invent those sensors in boots in the first order :yes:
Then, I would leave it to the imagination of the skater. Simple
So what would the sensors be measuring?
Whatever they're programmed to give credit for, the skaters and coaches/choreographers will be sure to aim for achieving. Even at the expense of the other qualities that judges reward, if getting points for objective qualities that the sensors reward would be worth more points and/or be a surer bet to achieve than the more subjective points from the judges.
We talk about step sequences so understandably what should be measured are steps. For that, we have to define what a step is. I’d say a step is one move that a skate does until it stops or changes the edge/direction. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Further, doing steps have to have an aim for achieving. I took my time thinking about what could be an aim for doing steps and that’s what I got: it should be doing steps in sync with the music or, in other words, dancing. If you see any other aim, please, tell me.
If I was asked to develop this “technoskate step” format, I’d spend the first few seasons simply gathering data about what skaters can do and what they prefer to do. Like I said: no requirements except interpretation of the music – an unknown piece of music for more fun; like, they listen to it for 10 secs, then have a minute or two to prepare and then they go and do their sequences – 6-8 invited skaters per competition. Then I would invite several well know skating specialists to decide who did the best job. They would see only the data and marks on the ice reconstructed by a computer, not the performance itself.
Figure out a common sense way to apply GOE. I've made the comparison to diving before... I don't know how, on a 10 point scale, a TV commentator can analyze a dive, and say "That should score 7 to 7.5" and BEHOLD, the judges score it exactly in that range. And yet, we all see instances in skating where GOE in skating, with a much lower range, is all over the map.
I think the main aims for step sequences are
1) Demonstrating a variety of technical skating skills that are the fundamental of what makes figure skating figure skating, including more difficult turns and steps and the easy-to-medium ones in the difficult direction, that skaters wouldn't bother to show or develop mastery of unless they're required or explicitly rewarded
2) Demonstrating good technical quality (speed, security, depth of edge) in the execution of those skills
3) Demonstrating technical command of the chosen steps and turns by executing them in time to the music
4) Expressing the emotional quality of the music, highlighting subtle musical nuances, telling a story, or otherwise communicating with the audience on an artistic level
1), 2), and 3) are about what makes skating a sport. In theory they could each be measured by sensors and computers, with complex programming for each of those three aspects, triply complex if you try to include all three. I don't expect it to become practical any time soon, but if you have the engineering and programming skills to volunteer to build a prototype, and can learn what the sport wants to measure so you can design for that purpose, please do.
This might be interesting as a novelty event, but it has nothing to do with either demonstrating technical skating skill or with connecting emotionally with audiences.