Mathman said:
Go Irina, Daisuke, Shen & Zhou and Navka & Kostomorov!
I thought this was the most intersting comment:
"It's all math now," said renowned coach Frank Carroll, who guided Kwan to the top and now works with Evan Lysacek. "It's unfortunate that it is more math than skating and you lose a little of musicality and pleasure of watching it. So why do anything more than what is being scored?"
Mathman finds a comment about math interesting? How very odd.
Okay, call ]i]me[/i] an optimist but I think knowing what's being scored is a big advantage over not knowing. Right now, for example, almost all the top American women, plus some from other countries, are doing the same spiral sequence: an arabesque change-edge; a Y position catch-foot; and a fan spiral (the one with the free leg in front). Only Irina, that I've seen, is getting a Level 4 or 5 with her Beillman sequence. Of course I'm sure we'll see more variations as the GP series goes on. But that's par for the course in any new system.
Also, the COP tells you what's being scored but it STILL does not tell anybody what moves to do. Emily Hughes, for example, does that wonderfully difficult deep edge "swoop out" with one hand touching the ice that Michelle used to do at the end of her Charlotte. To paraphrase a line from Shakespeare's "Julius Ceasar": "The fault lies not in the COP. The fault lies in ourselves." "Ourselves" meaning a lack of creativity among coaches, choreographers, and the older skaters who can contribute to their own choreography.
When Sasha first hit the scene as a contender and started with the "SashaMovesTM" thing, even I gagged. But now I can see why she tried to do it. Nobody I saw was doing the fan spiral, although I'm sure Sasha didn't invent it, when Sasha started doing it. Same with the I-spin (it's not even fun to call it the BC anymore). Now both are all over the place.
The other thing the COP doesn't tell you is what to do in terms of choreography. Even if Robin Wagner hadn't changed the music selections when she took over Sasha's "Swan Lake," it was clear at least to me that even though Cohen was doing the same highlights, such as the scratch spin with the arms held elbows up in front and in back of her head, RW's "Swan Lake" was like the same balloon but with all the air let out of it. If ever a case could be made that it's not the COP that makes the choreography good or bad but the choreographer, that was one.
Also, the COP does not tell you in what order things must be done. Sure, a skater gets more points for doing jumps after a certain time (is it the 2 or 3 minute mark?) but that seems fair to me. I remember when a French skater whose name escapes me did her LP to "Legends of the Fall" and did all her spins at the end of the program, about five or six of them, a couple of combo spins too, all in a row. I absolutely loved it; I found it mesmerizing and it reminded me of leaves whirling off the trees as they fall. There is nothing in the COP to prevent a choreographer from doing something unique like that or something else. The French skater lost the bronze at that year's Europeans to Volchkova and there was nothing to look at, besides the OBO marks, to get an indication as to why.
Anyway, the person who made the remark is Frank Carroll who has coached for a
very long time, quite successfully, under the 6.0 system. At his age, I can't imagine he's too thrilled about trying to incorporate a whole new scoring system into the tricks he must come up with and around which the choreography must be built.
I think that we'll see a lot of copying of the tricks done by the top skaters at least for a while. Skaters and coaches are naturally insecure about what to do, especially in an Olympic year, so everybody is playing it safe. However, I think that over the next four years those skaters who want to break out of the pack will seek out those choreographers who can be creative with the COP and also coaches will look for ways to use their skaters' strengths in technical areas such as the spiral step sequence and the footwork instead of just copying last year's top point getters in those areas. I mean, the fan spiral doesn't look that great on every ladies skater who is using it. There are a great many ways to lift the free leg (catch-foot or not) and get a deep edge on the skating leg as one glides at top speed across the ice.
As for someone making the argument that Michelle couldn't hold the second part of her change-edge spiral as long because holding it longer didn't get her anymore points. That's what it says on paper, but Michelle never tried different spiral sequences in front of COP panels of judges, so I can't feel bad for her on that score (no pun intended). I thought Sasha's spiral sequence from that included Y-position catch-foot 180-degree turn would certainly rack up maximum points, but it didn't. To my way of thinking, the catch-foot Y turn had great difficulty of position and required great edge control. However, apparently the judges did not see it as a spiral because it did not glide across the ice. Fair enough. But Sasha had to try it to find that out.
What the coaches, skaters, choreographers, and judges decided they wanted to see in a top level spiral step sequence is variety of positions, difficulty of positions, and superb execution. A position may be so difficult and the execution so great that a skater may still receive a Level 5 without a lot of variety, or any other combination of two great elements. But it seems most skaters go for their best in all three areas since usually one of them isn't their strong suit.
Finally, last night ESPN reran it's '05 "Worlds Roundup" or whatever it was called with Paul Wylie hosting. My favorite part was irina describing her free skate because things she did that I thought were "Finally, some creative choreography instead of the same old thing!" were actually mistakes she made, lol. For example, she was so tired she forgot to do her footwork sequence and started to do her oh-so-familiar final Beillman combination. At Worlds, she did the first half of the Beillman combo and then went into the FW sequence. I thought, "Great!" Anyway, because she was off the music she had to make up some things to finish her final spin with the music, i.e., as she and Paul were watching a tape of her LP, Irina would say, "I make mistake before so this part I make up." Loved it.
Anyway, even if the COP results in less creativity in competitive figure skating choreography, it's not like it was very creative before in singles. We had the Lori-Frank-Michelle collaboration for six years; two Olympic-year highlights from Phillipe Candeloro's camp; and Tarasova. Of course we still have Lori, just with a different skater, and also Tarasova. I think when we start having coaches and choreographers brought up under the COP we will see a whole new era in skating. Whether us old OBOers will like it or not is another story.
Rgirl
