Time limits for group
This discussion has an associated proposal. View Proposal Details here.Comments about this discussion:
Started
I think it makes more sense to create two time limits:
- Small Group: 4 minutes
- Large Group: 6 mintues
Comment
I completely agree.
This year at Unicon the small group performances seemed to drag on. It was clear that some groups had to work hard to fill the full 6 minutes. Large Group is where most clubs and countries focus and you can be much more creative with formations and skills with more people. With 8 people or less 6 minutes just seems too long.
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I could support that.
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More time gives groups more chance to show us stuff. True that 6 minutes is often too much. Rather than constrain small groups that have good performances, another approach could be to take a different approach on time limit. Not sure if this would work though, as doing more time is often perceived as racking up more Difficulty (and/or Presentation). Time limits are listed in the current rulebook without any discussion of what they're for. We should probably address this. Many riders have believed that they had to do that exact amount of time. That's sad. I want to tell them they don't have to fill the time, and if they don't have X minutes of material, it's okay not to fill the time. but this only works if there is no perception of "not having done enough" from a judge point of view.
Another possibility would be to divide groups by "quality". You could offer an Expert category along with the "regular" category, but that would still leave the disparity of large groups vs. small. The though would be to have 6 minutes for the Experts and 4 minutes (if not 3) for the non-experts. I do like the separation of small from large (or Big, as the Rulebook says). They can be hard to compare even under the best of circumstances. As groups get larger, their average level of skill tends to go down, just based on availability of top riders within a geographic area. Could we do four divisions without breaking things down too much? I don't know.
Another possibility for this topic is to just go from 6 minutes to 4. In most cases, shortening a performance tightens it up.
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From 5.19.1:
"All time limits are maximums. Riders need not fill the entire time, but a routine that is very short may suffer in points over a routine with more content. However, a routine that is boring, repetitive or `padded' may lose points for being too long. The rider must decide what makes the best performance."
I don't think there are enough groups to have expert and non-expert, even at Unicon. I'm not sure what the last paragraph is suggesting, but I'm definitely against having Large Group as 4 minutes. I think it needs the full 6 minutes.
Comment
I think the performance time for small and big groups should be unchanged 6 minutes.
I m against 4 min. for small groups, because in small groups are often very good riders with a lot of great skills and these riders need the time to show their skills and still having time for the presentation.
The idea of dividing the groups in Experts and non-expert is a good idea, but as Scott wrote really not practicable, cause we do not have enough groups.
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So, an individual expert rider is given 4 minutes at the moment. Some are really good and having hard times packing their stuff into 4 minutes. Now take 6 of these riders and give them 4 minutes for their group. There must be a reasonable relation between individual, pair and group routines. That opens the discussion for time limits of all routine sizes.
A story I want to share: I was once at a competition were a pair I coached did their routine in 3 minutes and another pair did less of what they do in 4 minutes. Well, the pair with 4 minutes won, because they did 4 minutes - Just to tell you how "maxiumum" is interpreted some times and this competition is a couple of years ago.
I think, that the individual and pair routines should be 3 minutes maximum, expert or not. For rookies its hard to fit them, but they can go shorter than 3 minutes and the good riders need to take a good selection of what moves they want to perform.
If by the end of this discussion, we can have a reasonalbe relation between individual, pair and group routine lengths - I'd be very happy.
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Thomas brought up an example of why many competitors are reluctant to use less than the full amount of time, or close to it. In his case, sounds like a failure by the judges if all other things were equal.
I'm okay with the idea of all Individual and Pairs being 3 minutes. It worked back in "my day" (said the old man). When watching the popular TV talent shows that are on in some of our countries, those performances are usually 90 seconds or less. Not that we should follow that as an example; just noting that more time doesn't usually make a performance better.
But does Gossi have an idea for Group time limits? If Individual and Pairs are doing 3, how about 4?
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I also think the performance time for small and big groups should be the same - severeal reasons are already mentioned.
I prefer to remain with the 6 minutes - but at least 5 minutes to have enough time for appropriate presentation next to the technical things.
I can't follow the idea of dividing the groups in Experts and non-expert. I would even prefer to finish this kind of classification in Individual and Pairs. I think the sportsmen don't estimate themselves in the right category not rarely.
To what extent the judges value the time may be the problem at the moment. I interprate the current rules the way that "time" is not a large part of the possible scores. If this is the main problem the judges should be trained / sensibilised accordingly. Maybe it would be better not to put 3, 4 or more parts in one section with a total amount of scores.
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I want to highlight sensibilised accordingly as this is a huge problem we are facing today - well said Ingrid.
So, when a judge watches a routine and it is boring because it is using more time, they won't reduce their score, because their judging sheets won't tell them, although it is written in the rules. They judge what they see in front of them on their sheets written down and what they can fill in.
That said, I don't have a good estimate for time limits, however I personally would reduce them in general. Maybe 3 mins for individual/pair and 5 mins for groups, just an idea.
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I think 3 minutes is too short for an Expert routine if they also want time to develop the presentation half and have time to tell a story. I don't always like routines that have tricks constantly. There's no room for the audience to breathe and enjoy the performance. I am completely against changing this time limit.
However, I do believe that Gossi has a point about there being a relationship between the individual, pairs, group time limit. For that reason I would compromise and say that small groups could be 5 minutes and large groups 6. This seems like the most logical progression of time limits without creating too much of a controversy.
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I can go either way on 3 vs. 4 minutes for Individual and Pairs. The only times I've really though the full 4 minutes was needed was by performers who developed characters, or storylines, involving time off the unicycle, or not riding. And the ones I'm thinking of were excellent performances. I would rather have them than lose the extra minute. Those routines might not have been able to work as well with only 3 minutes.
As for Group, I can think of few examples of a routine that needed to be 6 minutes long. The first one that comes to mind was Alan Tepper's Panther Pride group, performing at the 1999 USA Nationals. They had about 50 kids, almost all of elementary school age (12 or under), doing an entire musical interpretation of the Wizard of OZ. The average skill level was pretty low, but it was an excellent example of what a large group of school riders could do to put on a great show. Beyond that, even the great Toyoda club from Japan would still be amazing in 5 minutes, or even 4. I'm fine with a 5-minute time limit.
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Hmm, it made me think of expert vs non-expert for individuals which is 3 vs 4 minutes. Do the experts get the 4 minutes because they need it or do they need it to distract themselves from the non-expert riders? (Like giving rich people extra laws to make themselves richer and hard restrictions for poor(er) people to make a comparison)
If they are experts they should be able to demonstrate this within the same time as the non-expert riders. That's why I go with 3 minutes for all individuals and pairs, expert and non-expert.
At unicon I wasn't able to watch many small groups, because I was riding, too - however I can fully understand Patricias argument, that they can easily be boring which actually also applies to big groups, so why only reduce the limits for only the small groups?
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I think that there is a much bigger realm of skills that can be performed with more people. John, your example of the PPUT routine would still have 6 minutes to perform. I am only proposing changing the time limit for groups with 8 people or less. I completely agree that a large group needs more time
"If they are experts they should be able to demonstrate this within the same time as the non-expert riders."
Gossi, the fact that they are in the expert category means that they have more skills than the non-experts. Because they have more skills they need more time to show them. Also, by cutting the time I think we would also be cutting the emphasis on the artistic side even more. If there's only 3 minutes for the experts then they will be so focused on putting in all of their skills that they won't have any time to tell a story or perform. I would hate to see us take more away from the artistic side of freestyle.
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As I already mentioned I prefer to have the same time for the experts as the non-experts.
Another problem for a "normal" not "top-top" driver is, I think: They start at different competitions with a different level e.g. at a competition within the region of a country, at the country's national competition or even at unicon. At the regional competition they may feel "expert" but not at the country's national or the unicon. Sometimes the competitions there are less weeks between this competitions so that the training time between the competitions is not long enough to change the demonstration. And it is even worse if you change the age groupe within a "season".
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I think Ingrid has a good point about changing competition lengths between competitions.
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Well, that's something called "Trainingsplan" (It's the proper german scientific term for this, I think it can also be understand in english). It describes your planning for your practice even across multiple competitions. There are books written about this, I'm not going into detail about this. In short, if there are 3 month between the nationals and worlds, that's pretty ugly to plan for, to keep up your performance this 3 months or make a break and start new. It won't suit you as a rider, it's even the opposite - well the competition 3 months prior to worlds is planned as an offense to rider going to both. (3 months is an example here but has happened in the past, though this is something not adressed here in this topic). So, it doesn't make sense to discuss this one here, also I wanted to make a point there is much more to take into account for this (hint: look at what figure skating is doing for their season).
Talking about age groups: We had a nice workshop for this at Unicon and a committee is about being worked together to solidify age groups in unicycling. I personally dislike an age group change during season. I remember a skype conversation with some people from germany, if I remember correctly, it was Rosi, Jan, maybe Felix, maybe Kirsten, Ingrid, yout too? We didn't come up with a good solution back then, only there are too many variables to work out a general plan.
I'd like to get back onto topic again and talk about the behavior Ingrid is describing: With people feeling the experts at the lower competition and beginners at a more advanced level, well that's the way the system sport works. Sociological spoken, the system sport is determined by a win-loose-code - so I'd say it's naturally. What we need to prevent here is, that people can start in expert at a lower-niveau competition with 4 minutes and start in age-group with 3 minutes the next higher niveau competition.
Please let us stay on topic, the other issues are interessting but deserve their own thread.
Comment
I agree with Ingrid that age groups and experts individual and pairs should all have the same time limit of 3 minutes.
And I agree with Scott: 4 min for small groups and 6 min (or even 5 min) for large groups is very good.
Synchronized Skating has 4:40 for freestyle 12-20 Persons.
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> age group / 3 min versus expert / 4 minute compared with rich men laws and poor men laws
>
I think in general experts are worth to grant more time to do artistic than less skillful riders. It allows to create something theatrical or whatever, versus a less skillful rider struggling to fill up already half the 3 minutes and wasting altogether a lot of costly time.
In most countries poor men are more benefiting from rich men law' companies (employer, corporate tax) then they benefit from poor men law.
I don't see how that applies to unicycle competition, but I'm not against a discriminating distinct and different time limits, and, I guess I'm not alone on that: as in Brixen judges were alone (having exactly 0 spectators) at one point at age groups, while experts reached the limit of allowed people in that hall.
So focused on the competitor: why should age group have 4 in stead or 3, or why should expert have 3 in stead of 4 minutes? I'm not convinced yet it truly is unfair.
I remember I suggested the same difference for expert pairs, and the majority of the committee voted it in.
Back to the group time limit; I think it's exactly the concern that Gossi brought up: quantity overruling quality while the rules address this already.
So I rather question: how do we change the culture of filling up time to the maximum time limit, and encourage to do less if not needed?
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I'm sorry that I join the discussion that late...I just received around 30 emails about rulebook discussions...
Here is my opinion on time limits:
I agree with Kirsten and Gossi. I think that the time limit of 6min for small groups should definitely be kept. In my view, the more skillful riders usually sign up for small group because they would like to do more tricks than possible to do in big group routines. Individual and pair expert riders already struggle to fit all their stuff into 4 minutes. For groups it is even harder because group elements take more time.
For the individual and pair routines I am in favor of 4min for expert/age groups 15+ and of 3min for junior expert/age groups U15. I think the different time limits for experts and individual routines are a problem because some riders are expert riders at regional competitions but not at nationals or UNICON. I experienced this problem several times myself - it is especially annoying at qualification competitions for UNICON. Till and me signed up for expert pair freestyle at the qualification competition in Germany for UNICON 12. We didn't get a spot for the experts and therefore we had to compete in age group qualification with a different routine of 3min some hours later. Therefore, having the same time limit for expert and age group would also faciliate qualification competitions because nobody has to sign up for expert or age group in advance. All routines can be judged together and the best riders get the places for expert at UNICON. Moreover, I think that it would be great if the year of birth determines the age group and not the exact day of birth. In that way, nobody needs to prepare different routines within one season because he or she turns 15 during that year. This is something that should be discussed in general because it would also provide benefits for riders in other disciplines, e.g. racing.
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I'm sorry I meant UNICON 16 in Brixen.
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> I think that it would be great if the year of birth determines the age group and not the exact day of birth.
>In that way, nobody needs to prepare different routines within one season because he or she turns 15 during that year.
>
That's how it works in UCI cycling, where difference are more physical at such age.
So, besides freestyle or racing it would be a good rule in general.
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Age Groups determined by Age Year are now discussed in the main committee.
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I think the time limits should be the same across all categories whether individual expert/non-expert (4 minutes) or small/big group (6 minute). Heck I wouldn't mind if you gave individuals, pairs and groups all 10 minutes. The problem is that judges need to be more accurate at judging and if someone repeats tricks and the routine gets boring, they should definitely get some huge points reduced from their score. This would prevent anyone from doing a longer than necessary routine.
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I like the idea of 4 minutes for all individual & pairs routines ages 15+ and 3 minutes for all 0-14. I think that this will solve a lot of the problems of having to switch routine lengths in between competitions.
This is also a common problem for riders in the US where the freestyle level is lower. For example, at NAUCC I was in the Expert category and had a 4 minute routine. But for Unicon, 2.5 weeks later I was by no means an expert and so I competed in Age Group. I had to cut a minute out of my routine and practice all of the changes in 2.5 weeks.
I think having the time limit determined by age and not by skill level is a great idea.
Comment
Individual and pairs, all ages, expert/non-expert should have the same amount of time, unless we assume that all riders start riding unicycling at the same age and have the same progression over years. So, somebody starting to ride with an age of 15 and competes at an age of 18, will have 3 years of practice, same goes for a rider competing at age 14, who starts riding at an age of 11. The assumption an older rider has more to show is vague. Yet for a rider in personal, he should be able to compare his own routines, from his first one to the current one. If a rider starts with routines at an age of 12 and is 22 by now, must be able to compare his routines in order to properly see progression.
For groups: Marie, your view is probably too limited. While one fact is true, that skillful riders start in small group (which happened for us), this is not an explicit case. The small group routines I watched at Unicon also showed differences here. Hence, small groups can be the jumpstart for new clubs that want to compete in group freestyle and didn't have the manpower for being competitive against big groups. I don't know, Kirsten may have more experience on that, since I guess in nothern germany have competitions been held for beginners. Yet, statistically we well see more beginner groups than those with riders of high skill levels (though the concept of small groups must be better adopted, because it still is relatively new). And for these beginner groups, the time can be too long, if they fully use it and is the case Scott and Patricia are talking about, so I can truly understand them.
I'd stick with 3 mins for individual/pair and 5 mins for groups.
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Gossi, I actually disagree with you on the point you make about length of time someone has been unicycling as it applies at Unicon. Because there are now qualifications for freestyle the better riders get to do routines. So chances are, if there is an 18 year old who has been riding for only 3 years versus an 18 year old who has been riding for 12 years, the one who has been riding longer will most likely be the one who qualifies. So therefore they will be more skilled.
I don't understand what the length of a routine has to do with how a person compares and sees their progress. They will be comparing their skills, not their time.
I still think that 3 minutes is too short for an expert. Go watch Katrine Jensen or Matt Sindelar's individual routines from Unicon and tell me what whole minute of skills they could have cut out that wouldn't make their routine less impressive.
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I agree, this applies for Unicon, but the rules do not explicitely apply to Unicon.
Err, that one with person progress gone wrong. What I meant. If two people are riding for 3 years, they are by then 14 and 18 years old. That's where the comparison comes in.
Regarding Katrine and Matt. They had some new tricks to show, that's it which were undoubtly fantastic. They won because of this and I see that is basically a cause for the sloopy, unclear rules full of mistakes. However, one can argue they were smart enough to use it that way. Personally, I didn't like their overall routine, it was these tricks, their routines were worth for me. Cut the rest out, do the math and they have enough time left.
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By comparison I also mean, that you imply, that the age is the responsible measurement to divide between experience and unexperienced riders. While actually the time you ride a unicycle (or you competitively ride) is the responsible measurement. That's why the age independent and not a factor for that division.
Sorry for the trouble, that took a little to explain.
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"I like the idea of 4 minutes for all individual & pairs routines ages 15+ and 3 minutes for all 0-14." -- Please no. I'd rather see 3 minutes for all Individual and Pairs, which is a good amount of time for top riders to show who is best.
Patricia mentioned the problem of having to prepare both 3 and 4-minute performances due to differences of where she fit into different competitions. Yes, one can train for both time limits, but that shouldn't have to happen within a single season. She explained how it does happen to lots of riders if they are able to compete Expert at smaller competitions but not at Unicon, for example. Having a single time limit, whatever it may be, would eliminate that problem.
I also agree with those above who say longer time limits shouldn't be associated simply with rider age. Especially older riders (like me!).
But this thread is about time limits for Group. I will maintain the general opinion that shorter is better.
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It seems like we're having trouble coming to a consensus here. I think that I will go ahead and create a proposal for the group time that we can vote on. The pairs and individual then can move to it's own discussion to be continued there.
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I was wondering if we can vote on different options here. I think the vote is valid, yet the options should be more than just the binary yes and no (at least for this one). Like this one here: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/pow-operator#vote (just look at the table, left the voters, right the answer options). I'd like to vote for 5 mins both.
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5 minutes would be a good compromise. It would also avoid any problems caused for groups if their numbers change. Like a group that plans to enter as Large, but later finds out they won't be able to bring enough riders. They wouldn't have to redo their routine.
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I think 5 minutes is a good compromise and makes sense to have same time limits for both groups. In my opinion 6 minutes is a long time and many of the large groups end up being boring and repetitive over a few minutes.