How can Kozuka compete with Chan On PCS?

[evangeline]

I'd much rather find out that Voloszar & Trankov are planning to scrap their SP after the GP because they aren't happy with the music or the choreography than a 10 paragraph dissertation on how BOP would improve Lori Nichol's choreography for Caroline Kostner. YMMV.

You're comparing apples and oranges here. Personally, I find Blades of Passion's 10 paragraph dissertations on choreography very interesting and a great starting point for further discussion.

 

[Dragonlady]

Fine then start fantasy choreography threads and let those who are interested participate. And keep it out of the threads where people are discussing real skating not the skating that BOP thinks should win.

 

[Blades of Passion]

The problem them becomes that his ideal is most certainly not my ideal and it's most unhelpful to discussions of competitive figure skating to start declaring that something is "wrong" and shouldn't have won, when it is most certainly not wrong within the context of the current rules.

Oh, but I do speak directly to the rules and give very thorough explanations when I disagree with competition results where my opinion is centered exactly within the current season's judging system. You simply ignore it and lump it together with the times I talk about why a competition result was unfair because of a bad rule that should be fixed.

Fine then start fantasy choreography threads and let those who are interested participate. And keep it out of the threads where people are discussing real skating not the skating that BOP thinks should win.

We ARE discussing real skating. I just tend to do it at a level greater than the superficial. Perhaps this will help explain what I mean - http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Higher_Order_Thinking

Talking about how a skater can improve their program is part of the intellectual analysis involved in JUDGING a program. If a judge gives one skater a 7 for Interpretation and another skater an 8, then they should be able to inform the "7" skater of ways they could improve the program to possibly get to an "8".

 

[prettykeys]

The problem them becomes that his ideal is most certainly not my ideal and it's most unhelpful to discussions of competitive figure skating to start declaring that something is "wrong" and shouldn't have won, when it is most certainly not wrong within the context of the current rules.

Actually, I have found BoP's breakdowns and critiques very helpful over the years, even if his ideals aren't mine, either. To criticize a skater's technical choices or choreography, or to criticize the current judging system, or the application of the rules...helps us to sometimes appreciate performances that may not have won and state where the judging system could be altered. There are a few other posters who do this, but not many.

At the very least, a detailed analysis supporting an opinion makes for good discussion because those responding can specify the points on which they disagree and whether they share the same conclusion or have a different opinion based on the disagreements.

The major lesson: the CoP is faaaaaaaaar from objective. It is still a very comparative, subjective scoring system.

 

[Dragonlady]

Oh, but I do speak directly to the rules and give very thorough explanations when I disagree with competition results where my opinion is centered exactly within the current season's judging system. You simply ignore it and lump it together with the times I talk about why a competition result was unfair because of a bad rule that should be fixed.

It's difficult to know from your comments which situation applies since you use the same wording for both. In all cases the deductions made were wrong. In the case of under-rotations at Skate America you castigated the judges for taking improper GoE deductions until chuckie pointed out your error. How is one to know you meant the rule was wrong?

And implying that posters who are not prepared to take your choreographic discussions seriously are intellectually incapable of such discourse, is very condescending. Before choreography can concentrate on the sublime, it must deal with the practical. We are talking about choreography for competitive skating programs, not the Ice Theatre of New York, or even Stars on Ice. Programs have a defined time limit and required elements. The "superficial" considerations are what win competitions. Added to which I can count on the fingers of one hand, how many skaters there are in the world who are capable of doing anything beyond superficial with their choreography.

 

[Blades of Passion]

It's difficult to know from your comments which situation applies since you use the same wording for both. In the case of under-rotations at Skate America you castigated the judges for taking improper GoE deductions until chuckie pointed out your error. How is one to know you meant the rule was wrong?

I didn't criticize the judges themselves for that, I specifically said I was talking about if the competition result was objectively fair or not. Also, most people realize that I understand CoP like the back of my hand and have heard my detailed breakdowns of why I believe certain CoP rules are bad. I therefore try not to endlessly repeat technical specifics every time the subject of an unfair rule rears its head. I of course know << = automatic -GOE under the current rules, and accidentally doing too many combinations or repeat jumps = 0 points for that entire jumping pass, and that rotating + falling on higher level jumps = tons of points. When I call something out as unfair it's assumed that I'm talking in an objective sense of how the rules should be. If I'm talking about the scores being bad because of poor judging within the scope of the exact rules (which I do actually talk about more frequently, believe it or not), I feel like the context of how I talk generally makes it understood.

And implying that posters who are not prepared to take your choreographic discussions seriously are intellectually incapable of such discourse, is very condescending.

I never said you were intellectually incapable, it's more that you don't try at all, become exasperated at the notion of somebody going beyond the superficial, and become especially exasperated and illogical when somebody challenges your viewpoint.

Before choreography can concentrate on the sublime, it must deal with the practical. We are talking about choreography for competitive skating programs, not the Ice Theatre of New York, or even Stars on Ice. Programs have a defined time limit and required elements.

I'm perfectly well aware of that and my considerations are entirely for a competitive skating mindset, not show programs. You mistakenly seem to think that I don't understand how competitive programs work and that my ideas are all a flight of fancy rather than meticulously well-thought out conclusions borne from vast personal experience and studying many aspects of the sport more than almost anyone else on the entire planet. In your mind, a person must be named Lori Nichol or David Wilson to have any idea of what they are talking about.

That, my dear, is what's condescending. Your entire attitude feels demeaning and haughty towards any kind of differing opinion or creative thought and, apparently, you are used to people backing down or putting up with your reductive banter. Well, guess what, I'm not going to put up with the skater-mom complex, the narrow-minded dismissals, and the endlessly illogical arguments and quibbling over irrelevant semantics in a fervent attempt to make yourself seem infallible after you've been out-debated or clearly proven wrong.

You seem to think forums should be an echo-chamber of gossip and repeating obvious competition results, where your viewpoint is never challenged in the slightest. If that's what you want then go make your own forum with those specific rules. I sure as heck wouldn't post there or ever visit.

 

[Ginask8s]

Your logic is flawed. The purpose of being a judge is not the power of your opinion. In fact, the IJS does everything possible to strip "opinion" out of the process by setting out specific criteria to be considered in various marks. Judges are to score within as narrow as possible criteria, with strict penalties for deviating outside of the norm.

In order to have influence on the sport of figure skating, you must be either on the ISU Council or one of the Technical Committees. Those are the people who determine the direction of the sport and what is to be valued. If Speedy had his way, he would come up with a system that eliminated subjective judging altogether. Since that's impossible, he is doing the next best thing to it, by calling the judges to task when they don't use the system as intended. At one point, David Dore was issuing statements that the judges were not using PCS properly and they would be dealing with that in the off-season.

Judges are people who spent years in cold rinks doing childrens' tests and small club comps, working up to Sectional then National level and ultimately, if they're considered good enough, ISU judges. They spend their weekends volunteering at rinks for their federations, and use precious vacation time to attend and judge at competitions. Appointments are made at the whim of the national federations, so you must also be politically connected to get the appointment, in other words, you can't have p*ssed off anyone at the federation head office. And of course you must continue to remain in the good graces of the head of your federation if you expect to continue to judge.

But to suggest that a judge is a person with the power to influence figure skating - that dog won't hunt.

Good post. I love that expression "that dog wont hunt"

 

[Dragonlady]

I'm perfectly well aware of that and my considerations are entirely for a competitive skating mindset, not show programs. You mistakenly seem to think that I don't understand how competitive programs work and that my ideas are all a flight of fancy rather than meticulously well-thought out conclusions borne from vast personal experience and studying many aspects of the sport more than almost anyone else on the entire planet. In your mind, a person must be named Lori Nichol or David Wilson to have any idea of what they are talking about.

"Vast personal experience and studyiing many aspects of the sport more than anyone else on the entire planet" - there is is. This is why I consider your choreographic flights of fancy to be a joke. How old are you? 22, 23? What training have you had? What have degrees do you hold? What titles have your programs won? What master did you train under? You're a kid who fancies himself an actor, director, writer, producer whoo has taken some skating lessons. You've never competed at even a junior level. You're a dillitente. And an arrogant one at that.

 

[seniorita]

^Isnt there a pm button for that kind of stuff?

Btw I always like Blades of Passion posts because he can support his opinion really well, even if I dont agree always, at least he gives very nice ideas for debates and food for thought. The one thread about the changes to cop was a real treat.

 

[Dragonlady]

Btw I always like Blades of Passion posts because he can support his opinion really well, even if I dont agree always, at least he gives very nice ideas for debates and food for thought. The one thread about the changes to cop was a real treat.

Then by all means enjoy his posts. I find them filled with impractical suggestions that simply will not fly in the real world and are way wide of the mark in what the skater needs to achieve their goals. I also find his assertions that he knows the rule book like the back of his hand to be a gross exaggeration. I come to the boards to discuss real skating, not the flights of fancy of some poster who believes he is a better choreograph than Lori Nichol, even if nobody else does.

 

[wallylutz]

Then by all means enjoy his posts. I find them filled with impractical suggestions that simply will not fly in the real world and are way wide of the mark in what the skater needs to achieve their goals. I also find his assertions that he knows the rule book like the back of his hand to be a gross exaggeration. I come to the boards to discuss real skating, not the flights of fancy of some poster who believes he is a better choreograph than Lori Nichol, even if nobody else does.

Look, it's the same person who suggested Miki Ando's Gold at the 2011 World = judging favortism due to earthquakes in Japan and that Ando should be no better than 5th. The casual fans may find his 10 paragraphs thesis entertaining to watch but anyone in this field know it's loaded with ........... (you know what it is). Oh and, Chan stole another competition apparently. Yes, the word "stole" was used. You don't need 10 pages to explain and justify your thoughts. Writing excessively long explanations will get the referee to simply hand it right back to you. But since he likes to play a judge here, let him. This young person enjoys attention and given that many seem to be well entertained by his show (so that everyone knows he is on twitter as well and god knows where else) and it's not against the rules, just let him be.

 

[let`s talk]

So you agree that you are in that club then? LOL

The idiom "Join the club" doesn't necessary mean that the speaker belongs to the said one. But you made the membership thanks to the point given in my post you replied on. I hope you feel comfortable.

Personally, I find Blades of Passion's 10 paragraph dissertations on choreography very interesting and a great starting point for further discussion.

Me too.

I also enjoy how he's brilliantly bashing his opponent. And the last one, due to the lack of intelligent ontopic arguments, has no choice but to go down the road of the plain vulgar rudeness:

How old are you? 22, 23? What training have you had? What have degrees do you hold? What titles have your programs won? What master did you train under? You're a kid who fancies himself an actor, director, writer, producer whoo has taken some skating lessons. You've never competed at even a junior level. You're a dillitente. And an arrogant one at that.

 

[Bluebonnet]

I've actually missed him because he wasn't active the last a few months. Most of the time he was making uphill battles with the judges and majority posters. Let him defend his points which were, sometimes, absurd, but other times, very reasonable! It's more interesting when you have the opponents, and you could see from both sides, don't you think?

 

[gkelly]

I prefer to debate points of disagreements on the merits of the facts and arguments themselves, and not to address the presumed personalities of the posters (or the officials whose decisions we disagree with).

Of course, when some posters go down the ad hominem route to begin with, it's often hard to resist responding in kind.

 

[Violet Bliss]

I am not going to debate BOP on the highly techical aspects of skating or complicated re-choreographing. But I do value him as a counter indicator of skaters' prospects. He, "being very generous" in his own words, predicted Chan to win a Bronze at last Worlds and Chan blew away the field with record smashing performances. He exalted Amodio's superior performance and presentation and Amodio proceeded to furhter in his artistic bend to the dismay of many. Since I have opposite taste, I appreciate very much an additional tool to guage the skaters' likely future showings, or maybe he blesses and jinxes contradictary to his intentions, which is fine with me.

There was a Wall Street financial analyst who was always, as in 100%, wrong in his forecasts. When he was fired, clients protested vigorously! He had been the most reliable tool in investors' decision making! The best forecasts, which make the followers very wealthy, are at best 70% correct. I can only hope that BOP can be as reliable as that analyst! Let him speak his mind.

 

[Dragonlady]

My only concern is the amount of misinformation contained in his choreography posts. Regardless of what he thinks he knows about choreography or the process by which skating programs are created, there are some gaps in his knowledge big enough to fill the Grand Canyon. When I pointed out to him that Carolina was restricted on what jumps she could do because of her injuries. BOP would have none of it. I didn't know what I was talking about and she most assured had done these jumps in the past and could easily do them now. Well last weekend Lori Nichol was commentating on TV about Carolina's medical condition and when asked why Carolina wasn't doing certain jumps in her program, Lori responded that she had been under doctors orders not to do these jumps for a while and but is nearly fully recovered and will be inserting them in her program as soon as she gets a medical go-ahead.

Another example, is that choreographers do not choose the order or the location of the jumps in the program. The coach does. The choreographer works within the framework of the payout provided by the coach and the skater. Do you think it's an accident that every choreographer Plushenko has ever worked with has used essentially the same jump layout in every single program the man has ever skated? Or that Tarasova and Nichol just happen to put the triple axel in the same spot on the ice in all of Mao's programs. This is done to aid muscle memory. So BOP's insistence that jump layouts can easily be changed to improve points or for asthetic reasons isn't really valid either.

A lot of people read the board to learn about the sport to improve their understand and enjoyment. That's why I read the boards. There are a lot of posters on the boards who really do know what they're talking about. Rach2 on the ISU board constantly dazzles me with his technical knowledge. chuckie, who posts here has forgotten more about figure skating than BOP will ever know. Too many posters to mention on the FSU Board and Skatefans is just full of posters who know far more about skating the BOP could ever hope to know. gkelly here and elsewhere is another.

It is often said that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. BOP has some knowledge but lacks depth or understanding. He presents himself as a master choreographer and "program doctor", well I'd like to see his license to practice and know who he is choreographing for. Posters who are taking him seriously, should be aware that he is not quite what he presents himself to be.

 

[jettasian]

The idiom "Join the club" doesn't necessary mean that the speaker belongs to the said one. But you made the membership thanks to the point given in my post you replied on. I hope you feel comfortable.

I have no idea what club you were in, but stay there. Thanks for the invition though.

I prefer to debate points of disagreements on the merits of the facts and arguments themselves, and not to address the presumed personalities of the posters (or the officials whose decisions we disagree with).

However, how can you take someone seriously if that person has the obvious bias toward certain skater? Did Chan really STEAL the win? Not only Chan did not steal the win, that kind of remark just shows the kind of motive the poster has in mind.

 

[Tonichelle]

please remember that while you can disagree till the cows come home and then disagree with the cows you need to disagree with what is said without name calling and bashing each other. Fights are better taken off board where it does not drag down the discussion. Play nice, folks.

We also allow for threads to drift off topic, and we don't discourage people from expressing opinions that may not "jive with teh majority". In otherwords, don't dictate what can and cannot be said by another poster so long as they are within the guidelines - which really are very reasonable.

 

[wallylutz]

Another example, is that choreographers do not choose the order or the location of the jumps in the program. The coach does. The choreographer works within the framework of the payout provided by the coach and the skater. Do you think it's an accident that every choreographer Plushenko has ever worked with has used essentially the same jump layout in every single program the man has ever skated? Or that Tarasova and Nichol just happen to put the triple axel in the same spot on the ice in all of Mao's programs. This is done to aid muscle memory. So BOP's insistence that jump layouts can easily be changed to improve points or for asthetic reasons isn't really valid either.

Well, there are exceptions especially when the choreographer also happens to be the coach of the said skater, it happens. Also, when a skater significantly alters his/her program content as is often the case towards the end of the season due to a number of reasons such as injury / technical upgrade or downgrade, they often go back to their choreographer to "touch up" their programs. It is not unheard of that some choreographer like Nichol would demand that a skater first demonstrates certain technical ability (usually the proof of being able to include certain jumps) before she would agree to alter or adapt the choreography accordingly. While what you said is true most of the time, when skaters decide to add big jumps that require longer than normal set up times such as Triple Axel for ladies and Quads for men - the alteration of jump layout cannot be done in isolation with respect to the choreography. Since I skip BoP's posts, if he did claim that jumping layouts can be easily changed for the purpose of increasing PCS - that's nonsensical. Changing jumping layout may impact CH if the previous layout presents some noticeable obstacle to maximizing ice coverage (i.e. jumps doing successively near or around same little corner with little to no variation) or if the layout bunches jumps all together with nothing in between (see Ksenia Makarova's 2010 World FS as a prime example of such offense). Changing the order of execution of the jumps themselves is a non-factor on its own.

 

[Violet Bliss]

Kurt Browning, consummate professional in various aspects of figure skating, says he only choreographs show programs as there are so many rules and considerations involved in the choreography of competition programs.