59th ISU Congress: Watch and Discuss

[el henry]

Rohene Ward once said (paraphrasing very liberally, it was a Zoom interview as I recall)

They won't remember how you scored or what you did. They will remember how you made them feel.

If attracting butts to the seats is the goal (that's my assumption for this post, so I don't need to hear "sport sport sport sport sport progress progress progress progress sport sport sport") we need programs that make people remember how they felt. And that the feeling was good.

Maybe some people remember how they felt with powerful jumps. Maybe some people remember with choreo. Maybe some people remember with steps and spins

Personally I think that more people care about steps and spins and choreo than jump revolutions they can't even count. But that's just my opinion. Any of us who say we know what everyone else watching. or everyone else who might possibly watch, thinks, better start buying lottery tickets, because they are the Delphic Oracle. Please share the proceeds with me

 

[Arigato]

just make it possible for best step sequences to get the same TES as best jumps and make the score much more discriminating between best st seqs, choreo etc and those which are just ok. The score which you can get for a jump, depending on the number of rotations, GOE etc may range by 10-15 points between skaters. Why not the same range for other elements?

Absolutely. It was Ted Barton who commented on air that a certain skater had a physically demanding program and especially the step sequence above and beyond all the others. Now, someone could argue, "Well, that skater and choreographer chose to make it that physically demanding while everyone else made theirs less demanding. That's on them." Yes, it is on them, but the point is the skater should get rewarded for all that demanding physicality that others are not doing. However the scoring is not set up that way. The skater in question said as much in an interview. Yes, he does quads, but they are less demanding of him than say a high octane step sequence.

The number of points these elements get now as compared to jumps is just pathetic. And there is basically no way to make spectacular step / choreo / spins etc make a huge difference in the score. While it should, as this is what also makes programs so remarkable as you can easily see in threads on the most memorable programs.

For some reason I just saw Yuzu skate through my head. But to actually bring so many new people to the sport by watching some guy they never heard of skate a Star Wars step sequence, that amazed me more than anything I can remember lately. And yet how is it scored? A pittance compared to a jump.

It is not jumps that programs are remembered by, but it is jumps which are mostly rewarded with points.

The only jump that stays in my head is Yuzu's back counter entry into a 3A. It's not common and he does it better than anyone I have ever seen. To this day, it is still my favorite jump and it isn't even a quad. Quads have become routine. Dare I say, some are actually boring they are so routine. I do enjoy a well-executed 4S, however.

 

[Mathman]

Rohene Ward once said (paraphrasing very liberally, it was a Zoom interview as I recall)

They won't remember how you scored or what you did. They will remember how you made them feel.

But I do not see any poaaibility of taking this into account in the scoring system of an Olympic sport. You cannot award medals on the basis of whose performance made the audience feel the happiest or which program we think will be remembered with greatest fondness and replayed most reverently for years in the future.

This is the cross that figure skating fans must bear. In javelin, who threw it the farthest. That's it. In figure skating, I do not see any realistic way of incorporating "be still my heart" into the equation.

Actually the ISU has put a lot of effort into things like bullet points to determine levels of difficulty for spins, or in specifying the percentage of time that a step sequence must turn in each direction, in an effort to create a somewhat bigger point gap between good spinners/steppers and bad. To me, this has totally backfired. The spins that I "remember how they made me feel" are the program-ending upright blur/scratch spins and the classic arabesque laybacks -- level 1.

My own personal "how did it make you feel" performance" was at a local club charity event headlined by guest star Yuka Sato as a pro. She skated to Amazing Grace. It saved a wretch like me with only a double Axel.

 

[saine]

I've got more time and I like reading rules, so I'll go into the possibility of eliminating the new Technical Rules like they eliminated the Qualifying Rounds. This is all from Article 11 of the ISU Constitution (2022).

The Qualifying Rounds were under Special Regulations, and that meant it could be put up to vote by the members:

The Council, Technical Committees and ISU Members are entitled to submit proposals to Congress for alterations in the Constitution, its Procedural Provisions and in the General and Special Regulations.

For Technical Rules:

The Council and the Technical Committees are entitled to submit proposals to the respective Branch for alterations in the Technical Rules thereby taking duly into account suggestions received from ISU Members.

If any member wanted to submit a proposal to go back to the current rules starting in 2026-27, they couldn't. I'm sure some of them would want to (like Ari Zakarian), but they aren't allowed to. If they did, then the scale of values would look very different and there would be a mess of technical rules.

Changes in the Technical Rules as proposed by the respective Technical Committee(s) and approved by the respective Sports Technical Directors, the respective Vice President and the Council and changes proposed by the Council are accepted unless an ISU Member during the Congress puts forward an objection and this objection obtains a simple majority of votes. Such objection may only be not to accept the proposed change in the Technical Rule(s) and it cannot propose any amendment. A Rule in the Technical Rules may not change or amend a Rule included in the Constitution or in the General Regulations or in the Special Regulations.

Going back to the current rules for 2026-27 will have to be approved by the Sports Technical Director, Vice-President and the Council. After the mess of getting the rules accepted by the members, I doubt they would approve going back before they even had a season under the new rules. It won't go to a vote unless they all approve the Technical Committee putting forth those changes.

My apologies to anyone hoping that it would go the way of the Qualifying Rounds, but it very likely will not happen.

 

[saine]

Also for Ice Dance, extended lifts are gone next season since 251 passed:

A movement in which one of the partners is elevated with active and/or passive assistance of the other partner to any permitted height, sustained there and set down on the ice. Any rotations and positions and changes of such positions during the lift are permitted. Lifts should enhance the music chosen and express its character and should be performed in an elegant manner without obvious feats of strength and awkward and/or undignified actions and poses. The minimum requirement for a Dance Lift is 3 seconds. Types of Dance Lifts are classified as follows:
Short Lifts – the duration of the lift should not exceed seven seconds
Combination Lifts – the duration of the lift should not exceed 12 seconds.
Reason: To allow for the basic definition of a lift to be a minimum of 3 seconds and the duration of a short lift or a combination lift to be able to be changed from one season to the next. This enables more flexibility to the duration of a lift while also evaluating the safety of the lift requirements for the prevention of injury

They may come back after evaluation, so this could be temporary while they decide on a duration for more safety.

 

[Magill]

Also for Ice Dance, extended lifts are gone next season since 251 passed:


They may come back after evaluation, so this could be temporary while they decide on a duration for more safety.

Do you know if European Ch. locations got decided yet or when it is going to happen, if not yet?

 

[saine]

Do you know if European Ch. locations got decided yet or when it is going to happen, if not yet?

If anything was decided, it wasn't announced at Congress.

 

[Minz]

Oh, I don;t know. True, nobody likes authority and everybody thinks, "I could do it better if only I were in charge."

As for the question, "what do figure skating audiences want to see?" I think that there are three constituencies to address. There are the people like us who are intensely interested in the sport and who post long and loud on forums like Golden Skate. We seem to be a mixed bag. If there is any point of view that can claim a majoity is is that we cherish most the skaters who are exceptional at everything.

Then there are the casual fans, including the once-every-four-years brigade. Again, some fans like one thing, some anpother, and quite a few just tune in to see who wins.

Finally there are the other 8 billion people on the planet. What can the ISU do to bring a few hundred million of them into the fold? Dunno.

I said it as half a joke but also not really. Obviously I’ve never run the ISU before. I also love the sport of figure skating and, understand and respect that the ISU (for better or worse, whether I like it or not) is the governing body and I do appreciate that they do organize the events.


However, I (and I’m sure many others) have whole laundry list of things the ISU could do better or fix if change. Also, some of the stuff that they do is admittedly straight up ridiculous.

 

[Alex Fedorov]

spins and step sequences will not improve due to the fact that the number of jumps and combinations will be reduced. What is noteworthy is that no one in their right mind would say that if Sakamoto or Hendrickx eliminated a couple of spins from their program or simplified the sequence of steps, then after such a “reform” they would easily perform quads or at least 3Lz + 3Lo. But in the opposite direction, similar reasoning is made all the time.

After the introduction of an age limit, reducing the number of jumps seems like a strange excess.

 

[lariko]

I can see beautiful, high, giant jumps, and I sure can see revs in slo-mo, but I can't tell C-step from and S-step.

With Ice Dance I have no idea what high scoring but boring to watch teams like R/A get points for in steps, except when Mark tried one time to start listing the key points and I still didn't understnad anything or saw difference between hitting key points or not.

Highly entertaining, memorable all-out steps by Plushenko actually have no steps of interest or any complexity--according to current skaters

I can see lifts. I can see spins. I can see Ina or cantilever or raspberry.

But steps? That’s so out there for professionals only that no regular person would ever be able to catch the difference and count them out even in slo-motion replay.

I once saw a video that listed all different steps Nathan Chen was doing, and he was going all out showing like a huge number of different things in his step sequence. But you know what the so-called conosseurs on the forums said about him? That he was only a jumper or not artistic, despite him having all that and a signature style. I never trusted anything any self-proclaimed artistic/steps connoisseur said after that because I think they don't know either. Plus, most of those conosseurs would tell me that Plushnko was only waving his arms in the air, or that Mozalev didn't deserve PCSs and Kagiyama is better at artistic delivery, when to me one is the genuine artifact and the second is cardboard as far as artistic stuff is concerned.

It is hard to see differnce in speed and glide on TV. I often compared live and TV when I went to competitions, and TV completely screws up with some skaters and makes others look fantastic. For example, TV doesn't like Tennell but loves Broussard and Levito.

So, yeah, middle finger to the ISU and middle finger to the so-called conosseurs. First is too corrupt and the second they cover up their bias with fake sophistication. I want jumping passes to stay.

I am perfectly happy to see what will happen to spins, except with the loss of combo points and levels, I don't care for judging corruption it would lead to.

 

[TontoK]

Assessing artistry is a tricky proposition. I tend to fall into @lariko camp. I like the men to have high soaring jumps (like Ilia), fast and secure spins (like Keegan and Roman), and speed and explosiveness (like Adam - minus the gimmicky backflip). That's what thrills me - a daredevil approach. Of course, that's not the entire story, because I want it all.

Some skaters that are touted as artistic... well, they leave me flat. In one notable instance, I think a particular rising skater that gets a lot of buzz about his artistry looks ridiculous. For me, he's a "refrigerator break." I'm not going to apologize for what I like and what I don't.

And you know what? Sometimes I change my mind about what I like. I loved Jason's Riverdance. Then he went through a few years where I gradually lost interest. Then he went through a rebirth on my fan-meter.

I've said it before. None of these skaters are family. I owe none of them loyalty. They're all disposable. My fandom must be earned every time they hit the ice. And every skater has a chance to earn me as a fan. Entertain me, and you're in my club. Fail to do that, and you're out.

 

[4everchan]

Whole post

I will make an analogy with music. Some of my students don't know how to do formal harmonic analysis. It's normal, it's stuff they will learn later, when they reach an even higher level. At the same time, they are able to identify the basic chords from the special chords. They will not be able to label them or explain their function within the harmonic progression, but they still see and hear these special chords.

I feel exactly like that with steps : I can see/differentiate easily between basic things and great and varied difficult steps. But while I can name jumps and spins and lifts and throws, I cannot indeed label most of the steps. I can see all elements in ice dance but I cannot track down every single step in the patterns...

It is not necessary in my opinion, to be an expert who is able to identify everything to have a sense of what has been done on the ice. BTW, I get better and better each year because I care to watch steps

Regarding TV, I agree very much with you : it really helps some skaters and doesn't do any favours to others... I find that it averages things for many... Faster spinners will appear slower on TV and slower spinners will appear faster... Some skaters have ugly air position or a tilt in the air, which I had never noticed on TV but is there on pretty much all their jumps... So sure, seeing them live is necessary and really much more informative about what is actually happening. However, with experience, this is something that one can get too. I know how some skaters skate live... and when I see them on TV, I can extrapolate.

I actually find that a lot of fans on this forum are very knowledgeable. I am not sure I would label anyone as a fake connoisseur.

 

[Mathman]

I once saw a video that listed all different steps Nathan Chen was doing, and he was going all out showing like a huge number of different things in his step sequence.

I remember that video! It was an eye-opener for sure. The annotator named every blessed footfall, at the rate of about one per second. Very educational to viewers who know a little bit of something about figure skating moves, and very impressive to those who don’t.

I've said it before. None of these skaters are family. I owe none of them loyalty.

But then, too, the skaters don’t owe us anything, either. They are out there to win a sports competition, not to jolly up or seduce the audience. If we get jollied or seduced, that's an extra benefit (for both sides).

I will make an analogy with music. Some of my students don't know how to do formal harmonic analysis. It's normal, it's stuff they will learn later, when they reach an even higher level.

I assume you refer tham to The Well-tempered Clavier?
(Excellent post. )

 

[4everchan]

I assume you refer tham to The Well-tempered Clavier?

Preludes are good for that.. Fugues, not so much. Too tricky for them. The easiest is to look at Classical Sonatas.

(Excellent post. )

Thanks

 

[Jammers]

Rule change #292: Starting in 2018-2019, reduce the number of both junior and senior men’s jumping passes in the free skate from 8 to 7.

So now the ISU wants to reduce the number to 6? I'm sorry but this is not progression cutting jumping passes down by 2 from just a few years ago.

 

[Arigato]

So now the ISU wants to reduce the number to 6? I'm sorry but this is not progression cutting jumping passes down by 2 from just a few years ago.

8 jumping passes and program length of 4:30 in the long program:



This is how I would have kept it, all these years. The 30 seconds the ISU cut off the program time also mattered. 30 seconds might not sound like a lot, but it is on the ice. It's not just about the number of jumping passes. Not to me, anyway. The program in the video feels more complete with 8 passes and 4:30. Time matters. To the ISU I say - put the 30 seconds back and quit screwing around. Even if they left it at 7 jumping passes and added back the 30 seconds, it could be win-win. More artistry could be added without sacrificing the jump that some people are keen to keep.

 

[4everchan]

8 jumping passes and program length of 4:30 in the long program:



This is how I would have kept it, all these years. The 30 seconds the ISU cut off the program time also mattered. 30 seconds might not sound like a lot, but it is on the ice. It's not just about the number of jumping passes. Not to me, anyway. The program in the video feels more complete with 8 passes and 4:30. Time matters. To the ISU I say - put the 30 seconds back and quit screwing around. Even if they left it at 7 jumping passes and added back the 30 seconds, it could be win-win. More artistry could be added without sacrificing the jump that some people are keen to keep.

but back then, skaters did a couple quads.. not 4-5... the set up for the quads is what is taking away choreo in many cases.

The one rule change that the ISU did that was against good programs was nixing the second step sequence.

 

[Arigato]

Some skaters have ugly air position or a tilt in the air, which I had never noticed on TV

I misread this as, "Some skaters have ugly hair position." I laughed out loud wondering what your obsession with hair was. As for a terrible tilt in the air, the leaning tower of Pisa, a.k.a. Evgeni Plushenko, could easily be seen on TV as well as the gasp of the audience that accompanied the tilt.

 

[lariko]

I will make an analogy with music. Some of my students don't know how to do formal harmonic analysis. It's normal, it's stuff they will learn later, when they reach an even higher level. At the same time, they are able to identify the basic chords from the special chords. They will not be able to label them or explain their function within the harmonic progression, but they still see and hear these special chords.

I feel exactly like that with steps : I can see/differentiate easily between basic things and great and varied difficult steps. But while I can name jumps and spins and lifts and throws, I cannot indeed label most of the steps. I can see all elements in ice dance but I cannot track down every single step in the patterns...

It is not necessary in my opinion, to be an expert who is able to identify everything to have a sense of what has been done on the ice. BTW, I get better and better each year because I care to watch steps

Regarding TV, I agree very much with you : it really helps some skaters and doesn't do any favours to others... I find that it averages things for many... Faster spinners will appear slower on TV and slower spinners will appear faster... Some skaters have ugly air position or a tilt in the air, which I had never noticed on TV but is there on pretty much all their jumps... So sure, seeing them live is necessary and really much more informative about what is actually happening. However, with experience, this is something that one can get too. I know how some skaters skate live... and when I see them on TV, I can extrapolate.

I actually find that a lot of fans on this forum are very knowledgeable. I am not sure I would label anyone as a fake connoisseur.

I know only one or two people who can call correctly, but they are not vocal detractors of the jumpers. The people who loud and proud bash jumpers and use PCS to thinly veil their misogyny rarely know anything and therefore can judge fairness of the evaluation no better than me. So when they put up airs of defenders of high art and the storied past, that's time for the middle finger, because they have no clue what that are talking about.

 

[TontoK]

But then, too, the skaters don’t owe us anything, either. They are out there to win a sports competition, not to jolly up or seduce the audience. If we get jollied or seduced, that's an extra benefit (for both sides).

I agree with this, but we are talking about skaters who have made the cut for my "fandom" for the time being, acknowleding that I can turn them lose at a moment's notice.

And if they've made the cut, then they've done something to seduce me.