I advocate doing away with levels entirely as programs have lost their connection to the music because step sequences and spins no longer match the musical phrasing due to their requirements.
So technical content should not matter at all? Should double jumps have the same base marks as triple jumps? Should step sequences (or whole programs) with no clockwise turns at all and no turns other than threes and mohawks start with the same base marks as sequences full of deep edges and varied, difficult turns? The only thing that should matter is musical phrasing, technical content be damned?
If we want skating to be a sport in which difficulty counts, then difficulty needs to be rewarded. We can debate what would be the best way to reward it -- whether either/or features as determined by a separate technical panel are the right way to go, or whether it would be more appropriate to leave it up to individual judges in some way (and what that way might be). But if you don't reward it at all, then you lose
We also want quality to count. How can that be balanced with difficulty? Can the scoring system build in bigger rewards for adding quality than it does for adding difficulty? Can it make sure that
very difficult elements performed
very well will earn the highest technical scores? Or do we want a sport in which the best skaters in the world execute the exact same elements as the intermediates, just with higher quality?
And we also want artistry to count, to sum up various aspects of performance that make skating special among sports and friendly to audiences who don't know or care much about technical details. But I think in the sporting context that should be the icing on the cake -- not the cake itself. In a show-skating context, the priorities would be reversed.
Also, much of what is rewarded with higher levels is for people with extreme flexibility, which not all skaters have and GOEs aren't used properly by most judges anyway.
I'd rather rewrite the rules for features to give more credit for blade-based skills and less for flexibility skills than to give up entirely and refuse to reward difficulty at all.
As it is, the top skaters get rewarded in the current system with higher GOEs than lesser known skaters for the same (or in some cases LOWER) quality (either this is true or many of today's highest level of skater have the greatest spins, which I don't really believe),
I do not see that this is true. I see high GOEs for good spinners at all levels.
Yes, there may be some psychological halo effect that the skaters with the best skating and the best jumps and the strongest federations behind them also get benefit of doubt when it comes to scoring their spins.
I'm sure you can find examples of spins by elite medalists that you believe are overscored, or spins by skaters who are much better at spinning than anything else that you believe are underscored. But in my experience these are more the exception than the rule.
Claiming that GOEs "aren't used properly" implies that judges almost always get it wrong. I disagree -- I see most GOEs as defensible, with occasional exceptions. It's just that the exceptions are so much more interesting to talk about.
If we assume that there is a "proper" way to judge (GOEs, or PCS, or 6.0 scores) but that judges almost never do it right, then why bother to hold competitions at all?
so I don't understand the argument that levels should be kept to "help" the lower ranking skaters because if your name isn't Yuna Kim or Patrick Chan or (fill in the blank with well known top 10 Senior or Junior phenom), then you are probably going to get 0s or +1s no matter how great your spins are.
1) Define "great." Maybe your definition and the current rules are not operating on the same understanding. In that case, of course the judges will get it wrong according to your mental definition, because those aren't the rules they're working with. So first we need to come up with a working definition of what should be rewarded.
2) Show some examples of IJS spins that have been improperly marked on GOE in your opinion.
3) If we believe the existing GOE guidelines are appropriate but there a large percentage of spins have not been scored according to those guidelines, then the judges need to be better instructed.
Or if most spins have been marked appropriately according to the existing rules, but the results are still unsatisfying to a significant number of skaters, coaches, judges, and other stakeholders in the sport, then the rules should be changed. But to what? What do we want to reward? How can we write rules that will encourage all the things we want to reward, without putting undue importance on flexibility positions, changes of position, etc., without undervaluing skills that are harder to quantify, but without overacting by refusing to reward the quantifiable skills either?
but I'd rather see a spin that flows with the music as opposed to against it. Same goes for step sequences. I see a lot of skaters who get level 3s and 4s on their step sequences but they CLEARLY are struggling to get the turns and steps chosen for that step sequence to be clean (think rockers that look like 3 turns with a change of edge or twizzles that look like double 3s or Choctaws on a flat) that seem to be interminable in terms of the time they take up in the program. These step sequences also don't match the phrasing of the music in many cases
Again, I think the goal here is to reward technical content, to reward technical quality, and also to reward phrasing to the music and other artistic qualities. But in skating-as-sport, the artistic qualities can't take precedence over the technical the way they would in shows.
From a sporting point of view, I would want to make sure to reward variety and difficulty of turns and to reward clean edges and turns. These are the fundamental skills of figure skating -- more important than jumps and spins. There needs to be some method built into the sport to make sure that skaters develop these skills and demonstrate them in competition.
Originally, there was a whole separate phase of competition for skaters to demonstrate precise edge work on circles, with no music or artistry. That phase is not going to come back.
So how can rewards for those skills be built into the context of competition programs in such a way that using those skills for artistic purpose is worth even more than just doing them because they're required, and that doing fewer turns well is worth more than doing more of them barely adequately?
How do we make it worthwhile for all skaters to develop good basic skating skills with appropriate difficulty for their skill level? To demonstrate the ability to execute those skills to music? And -- incidentally from a sporting point of view, but valuable from a marketing point of view -- entertain audiences while doing so?
Right now, for senior long programs, we have two sequences, one focused on technical content and the other focused on choreography to the music. It's relatively new -- should that approach be pushed further, with bigger rewards for skaters to use their Choreo sequences to artistic effect, and bigger rewards for greater quality of edges and turns without too much business in the leveled sequences? How can that approach work at lower levels that only have one step sequence for points?
Would different rules for short and long program allow one program to focus more on difficult content and the other more on aesthetic effect?
Should there be different ways to define extra points for difficulty in the leveled step sequences to make sure that all skaters demonstrate a minimum level of steps and turns? And then give options for whether to add more steps and turns, more full-body movement, deeper more sustained edges, extended positions and glides on edges, quick footwork, and/or detailed rhythmic connection to the music and thematic choreography to earn additional points?
Should there be more explicit ways built in to reward variety of steps and turns in the program components (Skating Skills and Transitions) so that skaters can be appropriately rewarded for demonstrating those fundamental skills throughout the whole program rather than cramming them all into a single step sequence?
