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- Aug 16, 2018
Should quads per program be limited to balance artistry?
- Thread starter gsk8
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- Aug 16, 2018
And maybe we should for the pursuit of artistry and beauty! While we're at it, give zeroes to step sequences with stumbles, falls, hopped turns and/or ugly postures.
It's not a beauty or art contest.
In a sport, mistakes happen, because it's not possible to be perfect all the time. This would diminish risk taking to an impossible degree. Pursuit of perfection already causes many mistakes in the process.
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- Aug 16, 2018
But that's the thing, the mistakes in the elements aren't punished enough for the skaters to prioritize performing a program that they can do cleanly and therefore have more time and energy to devote to artistry and presentation. It's not just quads, but also jumps in general and the other elements.
If we agree that figure skating is a sport, then like you say, it's normal for mistakes to happen. But objectively, mistakes do impact artistry and presentation, regardless of whether quads are limited or not. Like I have watched programs without quads that's a tough watch because all the elements are scratchy.
Not always.
If someone feels a mistake has impacted the impression, then there's a perfect score in place to be deducted from.
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- Jun 21, 2003
Speaking of being frightened, I once saw a Tv interview with a synchronized swimmer where the interviewer asked the guest, "How long can you hold your breath?" The swimmer rep;red, "Three and a half minutes."
"Oh, wow! Can you show us." "No" "Why not." I don't want to pass out and make you have to call out your medical crew."
I had in mind Odile doing 32 fouettés in Swan Lake. You know she's got to be thinking."Please just let me get through these last five so I can rush offstage and cut off my leg." Yet she has to maintain."Ha, ha, I do a hundred of these every day before my morning coffee -- doesn't everyone?"
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- Aug 16, 2018
"Not always" is the subjective take on it.
And capping PCS exists already, but it's not quite an effective solution.
I'd say a statement like this:
Is inherently incorrect, because I don't at all see it as binary.
Skaters try to choreograph programs that maximize the impact of their jump placements when landed. Often times, they fail to do so well. A mistake in those cases won't necessarily impact choreography, as an example, even if one may say the performance scores should be lowered.
Anyway, it's a sport. If someone thinks a mistake impacts "artistry" then they are free to deduct on PCS. I don't feel the need to prevent risk taking altogether, which is exactly what this move will do. Or people will jump small, because those are easier to land.
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- Aug 16, 2018
To be honest, I agree with this subjectively, because it depends on the skater themselves. Some skaters can still deliver choreography in good quality with mistakes, others execute them less well after the mistake. But in my opinion, leaving that to subjectivity is not the solution to the question in this discussion.
And because it's a sport, there are other sports where imperfection on elements are punished more severely. So this move is in line with that.
Is there a sport where a mistake gets them zero?
Is there a sport where there's a vast chasm of difficulty and risk between one type of element and the other, like there is in skating?
Do those sports justify those penalties as aids for advancing "artistry"?
How do you define "mistake" in steps and spins? Is a three-turned counter a mistake?
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- Dec 9, 2019
This isn't how I saw things! In IJS, inside each Component, each judge gives the weight they want to each criterion. I don't see why they would be deprived of this possibility. Nevertheless, the same weights would necessarily apply to all skaters for this judge's scores, or it wouldn't be fair. So, the judge would input it in the software, either before the competition, or (fairer in my opinion) before the start of the season, and the software would calculate the measurable part of the score with its weighing as planned by the judge, and after every skate, the judge would give their marks on the criteria that are still judged, which would automatically be weighted as wished by the judge and added to the automated part of the score, to get the final one. The judge wouldn't know the automated part of the score before the final score is announced, so that it wouldn't unduly influence their judging for the rest.(...)
So are you saying that instead of relying on what they see with their own (highly trained but personal and not infallible) eyes and deciding how to weight that, they should read some data output from the measurement tools and decide how to weigh those numbers against each other and against the qualities that can't be measured?
If we're going to measure those things and come up with numbers, then just incorporate those numbers into the scoring somehow. Any "weighting" of how they fit in with all the other scores would be determined in advance by the ISU and would be the same for all skaters (until the ISU tweaks the rules 2 years later) but not subject to any human judges' opinions.
Yes, as long as we want to reward this, we need humans to evaluate it.
Ha
Yes.
Well, yes. The gestalt of what it looks like is what skating wants to reward. Breaking it down into differences in speed and acceleration from one moment to the next would miss the forest for the trees, so to speak.
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- Aug 16, 2018
Stumbles, slips, outright falls, struggles between change of positions, spins traveling too far from its original axis, visible loss of balance. Anything that visually looks bad.
Rino Matsuike's step sequence in her FS that she falls during? Zero. Deniss Vasiljevs' spin that he fell on his entry? Also zero. Neither looked good, and both disrupted each program.
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- Dec 9, 2019
Did you mean her?
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Or rather these, with Odile's intention, I mean "being Odile"?
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Yet that was the old school...
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- Dec 9, 2019
But it's now been about a decade that ballerinas use a Figure Skating spinning practice device to train their fouettés... It leaked through Alexei Mishin "of course", here's one of the first students who used it to emulate her great-great-aunt who was known for them, before her graduation:
youtu.be
Now I believe that this Giselle Act I variation may be more what you mean, with the pain in the feet and the back to recline if possible while it's "physically impossible" and the lightness and cheerfulness to keep? (Scenario-wise it might look a bit forced because Giselle has just had a heart alert and wants to show that she's perfectly well, phew.)
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By the way I think that the comparison with Ballet here is quite apt because from the foundation of the first ever Ballet School by Louis XIV of France in 1713, among its written aims is avoiding prouesse, that is, showing the public how difficult it is. Ballet must look effortless and Figure Skating has retained it. I believe that "look at me how easy it is I could have a dozen for breakfast" is an intermediate state, not the objective. And sometimes, I wonder if some judges don't reward the opposite, because when the skater shows that it's difficult, they see it, otherwise they don't?
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Now I believe that this Giselle Act I variation may be more what you mean, with the pain in the feet and the back to recline if possible while it's "physically impossible" and the lightness and cheerfulness to keep? (Scenario-wise it might look a bit forced because Giselle has just had a heart alert and wants to show that she's perfectly well, phew.)
- YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
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By the way I think that the comparison with Ballet here is quite apt because from the foundation of the first ever Ballet School by Louis XIV of France in 1713, among its written aims is avoiding prouesse, that is, showing the public how difficult it is. Ballet must look effortless and Figure Skating has retained it. I believe that "look at me how easy it is I could have a dozen for breakfast" is an intermediate state, not the objective. And sometimes, I wonder if some judges don't reward the opposite, because when the skater shows that it's difficult, they see it, otherwise they don't?
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Is a performance in which a skater takes no physical risks and no artistic risks (e.g., does not attempt full body movement and just holds their torso and arms as still as possible, only changing the arm positions as necessary to execute elements or various turns and steps), and as a result makes no visible mistakes, more "artistic" than a more ambitious, more complex, more musical program with one or two visible mistakes?
From the point of view of a casual fan who can see disruptions in whole body position but doesn't pay much attention to the blades, is an underrotated jump landed with weight on the free foot more artistic than a rotated jump with a hand down?
Is that what we want? Do we prefer surface perfection over difficulty?
In a show, sure. Hence the practice of filming retakes for missed elements in televised shows.
But in a sport? Do we not want athletes to push themselves in attempting difficulty?
But is "performing a program that they can do cleanly" the primary goal of figure skating COMPETITION?
Again, it's not an art contest. Professional competitions whose primary purpose is to entertain audiences may prioritize artistry, including lack of visible mistakes, with technique only appreciated as a support to the artistic purpose.
But for sporting competition, the technical challenges ARE the primary purpose. High quality (which may or may not have anything to do with artistry) makes elements and in-between skating "better" than lower technical quality, but it's quality is a continuum, not an either/or, perfection or no credit, nothing in between.
Artistry is added value. We love it when it's there, we reward it when it's there, but it's not the point of Olympic-style competition.
This is never how judging has worked in the past, and it would unnecessarily complicate the process for the judges without giving them more control over how to weight different aspects of each specific performance as they perceive them in the moment.
Let's take Skating Skills, specifically
Variety of edges, steps, turns, movements and directions
Clarity of edges, steps, turns, movements and body control
Balance and glide
Flow
Power and speed
These are largely related to each other but it's possible for different skaters (or the same skater on different days) to excel more in one of these areas than another.
The variety of edges, steps, turns, movements, and directions could be counted. It would require highly advanced programming, but in theory an AI could do this more accurately than a human who is also trying to evaluate all the other criteria at the same time.
Speed can be measured.
So are you proposing that the beginning of the season that, e.g., for all competitions they judge that year, a judge would decide, e.g., that the Variety criterion, as counted by the AI, should be weighted at 20% of their total Skating Skills score for each skater, and Power and Speed should be weighted at 20%, and then judge the rest of the criteria qualitatively, assigning numbers on the 0.00 to 10.00 scale?
And a different judge might decide that the same computer-generated counts/measurements of Variety should only be worth 10% of their SS scores and Speed could be worth 35%?
Would the latter judge then take this weighting into account, knowing that they assigned a high weight to Speed at the beginning of a season, when they see a skater who achieves a lot of speed by running on the ice rather than stroking, and then gliding with the speed they generated that way? Penalize the running in one of the other criteria?
Would judges be able to decide in advance that they want to weight variety of edges, turns, and directions more highly than variety of steps and body movements? Would the AI be programmed to count each of these separately?
What if a judge then sees a skater who did some really unusual steps and body movements while maintaining flow, that the judge wants to reward? Just do so under the Composition component, and/or GOEs for the elements if they happen during elements? If it's up to the AI to come up with the determination of variety and apply a weighting that this judge came up with before they ever saw this program and the unique skills the skater demonstrates, does the judge have no power to reward it in Skating Skills?
So "looking good" (to casual viewers only?) counts more than technique? Or can judges penalize poor technique that looks bad to them but just fine to the audience? Can judges reward step sequences with excellent technique that happen to catch a rut in the ice at the end? Or does the casual viewer's demand for harshly penalizing those errors they can recognize while ignoring pervasive weaknesses that are harder to appreciate on video, from a distance, and without technical knowledge take precedence?
In the current rules:
In a step sequence with a fall, the majority of the element can be completed before, although steps (and therefore levels) might be lost at the point of the fall and during the recovery afterward. In a step sequence with a fall at the very end, all the level features may already have been achieved and the judge may already be thinking about high positive GOE, only to have to lower the pluses to no higher than +2 once the error occurs, and then deduct a further -5, to end up with either -5, -4, or at best -3 as the final GOE.
For a spin with a fall at the very end, after the element has met the requirements for that spin slot and after it's achieved most or all its level features, the same might apply.
But for a fall at the beginning of a spin, that counts as an attempt and fills the spin slot with a no-value element -- any spinning that the skater does afterward to fill the time until it's time in the music to move on gets no credit either.
Same, for example, if they fall on what's obviously the entry to a jump -- the jump is called by takeoff with no rotation and no value. Then if they get up and call the jump again, either it will get asterisked (no value), or it will fill another jump slot, so whatever jump the skater had planned as their last jumping pass would get no credit because all the jump slots would already have been filled.
This is to prevent skaters to get credit for do-overs.
But if they've already completed all or most of the element, shouldn't they get credit for what they did?
Do you really want falling on the entrance to a jump to earn the exact same score as rotating a quad-triple combination and then falling on the second landing?
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- Mar 7, 2015
This question isn't for me but yes, there are sports where mistakes = 0 and where there are multiple elements to achieve.
I went to AI because it's faster. and they didn't put all the sports I was thinking about...
here are some results (edited by me for what concerns us)
In several judged sports, athletes will receive a
zero score for an individual trick or element if it is completely failed or executed incorrectly.
Here are examples of sports where this rule applies:
- Diving: If a dive is "completely failed," judges will award zero points. This can happen if the athlete fails to execute the intended dive, for example, by not completing the planned rotations or entering the water incorrectly (e.g., feet first instead of head first in a somersault, or vice versa).
- Gymnastics: A score of zero is possible for specific elements or the entire routine if certain critical rules are broken. Common reasons include:
- Failing to land on the feet first in vault.
- In a vault, if the hands do not touch the vaulting table (in specific types of vaults) or the feet touch the springboard after a mid-run stop.
- If an athlete performs no skills at all.
- Artistic Swimming (Synchronized Swimming): In a technical routine, if an athlete (or the team) omits an entire element or performs an incorrect action within an element, the element panel of judges will award a zero score for that specific element.
- Figure Skating: While individual elements are given a base value and then a Grade of Execution (GOE) from -5 to +5, a completely failed element, such as a fall where the jump is not completed, results in the element receiving no points (base value of 0) and potentially deductions from other scores. Also, already with figure skating, there are * elements... for instance with some rules ... SP requirements not met (popped jump) Axel requirement not met. Invalid elements (botched lift or death spirals or spins) Zayak rule. ETC
- Breaking (Breakdancing): In the Paris 2024 Olympics, a judge defended a zero-point routine, indicating that while originality is valued, a performance that fails to meet certain fundamental criteria across categories like technique, execution, and composition can result in zero points for a round.
- Freestyle Skiing/Snowboarding (Slopestyle, Halfpipe, Big Air): Points are given for the success of an entire run. An athlete will score from 1-100. When an element is missed, the overall score will drop so low that that run is practically over. Athletes do get 2 or 3 runs, with the best scoring run counting. So it's all about the risk and reward of each element and the ability to perform a clean program because as soon as there is a mistake, the score drops completely, even if it's just a badly landed element in the Slopestyle portion. So, often, especially in halfpipe, the athletes missing a trick will stop there. There is no point continuing.
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- Jun 21, 2003
To me, this question is nor merely rhetorical. Is there merit in rewarding difficulty just for the sake of difficulty?
There are many ways to make a sport more difficult. A sprinter could be required to run with a 50-pound weight strapped to his shoulders. A fencer could compete blindfolded.
In figure skating, what is more thrilling than a Dorothy Hamill level 1 upright scratch spin, no change of position, no change of edge, no change of foot, no flying entrance, closing out the program with a glorious climax and bringing the house down?
Jumps with arm over the head? When Brian Boitano did it, it was eye-pooping and esthetically satisfying, because Boitano paid attention to the arm position. Nowadays it seems like most skaters just throw up a arm any which way, making the jump harder (by disturbing the center of gravity), but less attractive.
But we don't need to reward things like these - there used to be a GOE bullet associated with it, now there's no explicit one. IMO, those floppy 'tanos should never have been rewarded.
But I do also think this is an apples to oranges comparison. We don't give zeros for Camel spins that are not extended properly and don't have arched backs. We (should) just give it lower GOE, instead of giving the camel spin zero.
