Michael Weiss just made me mad on the NBC coverage of the Grand Prix final. When Hanyu popped his 4S into a 2S Weiss said, he will only get about a point for that instead of about 10 points. Is the audience so dumb that they would not understand if he said that Hanyu will get only 1.3 points instead of 10.5?
Probably not. Maybe they were also figuring in that the GOE would be affected as well so the actual amount lost was only approximate.
Why not show us some of those things that count for so much in the IJS. Why not say, "This turn with change of direction leading into this jump is called a Mohawk. This ups the difficulty of the jump and will be reflected by an extra point in the grade of execution."
I agree in principle, but that's a bad example.
(See below)
In the instructional tape for Transitions, in the program of the skater who didn't have many, at one point the narrator says, "crossunder, followed by crossover, followed by cross-cut." I always thought that "cross-cut" was just the Canadian way of saying crossover. (It's cool when the British commentators call a triple Rittberger/triple cherry flip combo.)
I've usually heard "cross cut" as an alternate term for back crossover. The "crossunder" term would mean that it was the back foot doing all the work, and by "crossover" he may have meant that only the front foot was working on that specific stroke. Usually there are at least two parts of the whole crossover/cross cut where the skater is pushing to gain power.
Rough relative difficulty of turns and other transitions:
According to when various turns are introduced in the US Moves in the Field tests, and before that on the figure tests, and my own experience, I would roughly classify the difficulty of the turns as follows:
Easy: forward three turns, forward inside mohawks, back outside mohawks (usually just called "step forward")
Advanced beginner: backward three turns, forward outside and back inside mohawks, backward choctaws in isolation, edge changes, cross rolls
Medium: double threes/traveling threes; single twizzles, brackets, loops, forward choctaws
Difficult: counters, rockers, multi-revolution twizzles
Advanced: combinations of turns and/or steps with quick changes of rotational direction, changes of rhythm, multiple turns on the same foot; especially any sequence of moves that incorporates all of the above
Along the way, the average skater, or actual individual skaters, will find some turns significantly easier clockwise vs. counterclockwise, or forward vs. backward, or inside vs. outside edges. So a lower-level skater might be able to one or more of a certain kind of turn, but not from all 8 different starting edges. Also they might be able to do the turn recognizably but not hold the exit edge. At an advanced level, you would expect the edges to be clear even when the skater quickly moves on to the next step.
Difficulty of the types of steps and turns aside, I would say that the factors that make an entry into a jump difficult would be quick rhythm of steps without a break, multiple one-foot turns, quick change of rotational direction right before takeoff, quick change from a body position in which the center of balance was in a very different position from where it needs to be for the actual takeoff
)
