Spiral Sequence VS Choreographic Sequence

Since the ISU decided to leave the spiral sequence out of the requirements, we are no longer witness some of the amazing routines in figure skating. I'm a big fan of spiral sequences so I felt like I was cheating out some times. Choreographic sequence is nice to watch but in some cases it seems like watching a never-ending footwork. Spiral becomes shorter and shorter these days with the time limit.

Why is that not possible to fit in the nice spiral into the choreographic sequence? Any idea?

Here is a nice video to Sasha's spirals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6So8OuehfI
My favourite of her sequence was from 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdP_djfEaGY

Some more from various skaters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw3DHyQsOTo

Spiral sq of course

I think the spiral sequence showed more of a skater's grace, flexibility, balance, and skill. To me, unless it's something choreographically amazing like Jason Brown's Riverdance footwork, the footwork sequences are boring and somewhat gratuitous to the music. If a skater has both athletic ability and "dance" ability it shows in the spiral. For example - a Tonya Harding versus a Michelle Kwan or Sasha Cohen. IMO, Tonya looked like a truck when she did her spiral. Not to get into a war between skaters, but using that example to make my point.

To me, "dance" ability means the ability to move rhythmically to music. Since spirals are usually about holding a still position (while gliding on the ice), I don't really think of it as dancing.

Beautiful body line is a great asset to a spiral. It may come from ballet training, but I wouldn't call it dance ability.

I love some of the very good spirals, But i do appreciate the Choreo sequence because it's one of the moments in a Free skate that allows
the skater to show a specific expertise, Wether it be flexibility or footwork, Speed or whatever special trait they might have,
The system in a way is hurting some of the individual capacities and originalities in the steps and spins due to the specificity to reach a level.

I actually don't get why there has to be a choreographed seq aside from the step seq.

Why can't skaters have a choice. There's nothing that amazing about a CH Seq. so it would be better if they could do one or the other, especially depending on what their music and the rest of the program looks like.

I like the ChSq because it gives skaters the chance to do footwork that's not the ridiculous "everyone does the exact same boring COP turns." Granted, so many skaters aren't taking that chance. But making spirals required creates the same problem. Some skaters just look awkward forcing position changes in spirals to get levels, ect. (I remember some of this from the early COP days?).

Maybe have a "required field move" section, where skaters can do a spiral, spread eagle, ina bauer, whatever they prefer. Scored on GOE, not levels.

The way the choreo sequence is defined now, the skaters can pretty much do whatever they want in the sequence -- spirals, steps, half jumps, double jumps, etc., etc., in any combination they want.

So the idea is to have an additional element, scored primarily on GOE, that includes skating content and contributes to the choreography of the program.

If it didn't exist, skaters would have more time for choreography wherever they wanted in the program, but it would only be scored under PCS and there wouldn't be as much ability to reward skaters who enhance their choreography with a sequence of skating content over, say, skaters who rely on a lot of posing and don't fill the ice throughout the program.

i like Spiral Sequence a lot more. I feel i can connect to the skaters more when they're doing spirals than step sequence. idk lol

There's no reason a Choreo Sequence can't be a sequence of spirals, But it can't be the other way around

I prefer the spiral sequence more, Sasha was magical, I find that with the choreographic sequence a lot of it is just fitting in a bunch of spirals for women and it just seems a bit frenzied and uncreative to me, off the top of my head I can think of Adelina's from her LP last season, unimaginative and boring. Now that they're allowing jumps in the choreographic sequence it could change but these are just my observations so far.

I would support the return of the spiral sequence, but only as an OPTION (ie, either a spiral or choreo seq) and ONLY if that option is offered to BOTH ladies and men.

Personally, I'm bloody thrilled that the rules are for choreo sequences at the moment. A choreo sequence I could possibly do. A spiral sequence I could not in a million years.

I will give my vote to the choreo sequence. Yes, the spiral sequence is lovely but it is severely biased towards those with nicer body lines, meaning the slimmer, long legged skaters. The choreo sequence thus equalises things for the powerful, the graceful, the contortionist and the dancers. There is no reason why the classical spirals cannot be worked into the choreo sequence. I certainly do not want to see a return to the 6.0 days where our idea of a lovely skater is so classically vanilla ice princess. This is a sport and the athletic skills should be favoured over beautiful lines.

Globetrotter said:

I will give my vote to the choreo sequence. Yes, the spiral sequence is lovely but it is severely biased towards those with nicer body lines, meaning the slimmer, long legged skaters. The choreo sequence thus equalises things for the powerful, the graceful, the contortionist and the dancers. There is no reason why the classical spirals cannot be worked into the choreo sequence. I certainly do not want to see a return to the 6.0 days where our idea of a lovely skater is so classically vanilla ice princess. This is a sport and the athletic skills should be favoured over beautiful lines.

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I don't think it's that simple. Of course, with equal extension a spiral will look more aesthetically pleasing on a slimmer skater with longer legs than a stockier, shorter-limbed one, but it's hardly the case that the slimmer, long-legged skaters end up having the best spirals. Dick Button described Yuna Kim as having the ideal Balanchine-type body but was never fond of her positions, calling her "mallet foot." Mao Asada has a very similar body but her spirals have way better positions. A slim body and natural flexibility will only get you so far, but truly impressive spirals come from hard work, time dedicated to stretching every day, which IMO should be encouraged and rewarded. Spirals also take a lot of strength to hold the free leg up, particularly when you're tired at the end of a program where they tend to to be placed; that doesn't come from being thin, but from practice every day.

Sasha Cohen was very thin, yes, but her body proportion is actually long torso+short legs, which her spirals actually helped disguise on the ice, rather than the other way around. Her spirals weren't any less impressive when she gained weight, either. Michelle Kwan's body type was very average among skaters, but her spiral was far more impressive than many who were slimmer or longer-legged. Ashley Wagner is pretty much the opposite of your described body type, and is often described as too slow and clunky moving around the ice, but with Phillip Mills coaching her within an inch of her life on her port de bras and extension, the staccato-arms spiral in her Black Swan program had a huge WOW factor and is probably one of the most memorable spirals under COP.

Maybe Nancy Kerrigan's hand-on-knee spiral was "classically vanilla ice princess," but some of the most definitive spiral sequences under 6.0 belonged to Nicole "Brass Knuckles" Bobek, who was hardly a dainty little princess skater. http://youtu.be/MQSawwSIJRg?t=45s
I actually think Nicole's ease and speed getting into her 180-degree split position was as much a display of power and strength as it was flexibility and line. http://youtu.be/Kds0VR7VONk?t=3m36s

ChSeq >>>>> SpSeq because it allows for creativity and a skater to choose what they are best at to show off in the sequence. Leveled spiral sequences were all the same, changing each year with the rule changes to get the levels (one year, there were a bucket load of back inside spirals when those were gaining a level; one year there were a bucket load of hand-grabbing spirals and so on). I am happier with the new rule that the leveled steps do not need to be before the ChSeq as it allows flexibility and creativity in layout as well. For the ChSeq, it can be a mix of spirals, other gliding maneuvers (bauers, spread eagles, etc), steps/turns, half up to double jumps, and so on which makes the possibilities really limitless for a great choreographer with a muse.

I'll expect we'll see a few great ChSq and plenty of ordinary ones.

Which is true of pretty much any element.

But they certainly have the potential to be great in more varied ways than any other single type of element.

Agree with mskater93 and gkelly. I hated the SpSq when most skaters did it. The only exceptions were Sasha Cohen and Mao Asada (and few other skaters too). Other than that, it made all programs pretty much look the same or forced. It was horrible.

At least with ChSq, there is more room for variety.