Individual & Pairs Time Limits (Closed for comments)
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Please continue the discussion about this here. The conversation was started in the group freestyle discussion but will be continued here.
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My opinion is:
4 minutes for all routines ages 15+ (both Age Group and Expert) and 3 minutes for all routines ages 0-14.
This creates a continuity between routine lengths and makes it easier for riders transitioning from regional to international competitions where they are in different categories. It also maintains a long enough time for the most experienced riders to show all of their skills and incorporate a story/artistry.
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So you want to provide small group and individual/pair seniors the same amount of time? Because?
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Please don't give 4 minutes to all 15+. Most of them are not prepared to fill it. While people are allowed to use less time than the maximum, if riders use significantly less, they tend to get penalized for it.
As an entertainer, I learned that performances in front of audiences (not unicyclists) usually must be defined in minutes. If you are the best performer in 4 minutes, you can still be the best performer in 3 minutes as long as you keep the good stuff. My choice on this matter would be to leave things as they are, as only the Experts really do well with the 4 minutes. If a change is to be made, the best would be to make them all 3 minutes, to eliminate some of those training issues if you have to do both times with the same performance.
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I agree to Patricias opinion.
If you are a good performer you need 4 minutes to show all of your skills and to combine them with presentation. If you only have 3 minutes, you put all your tricks in a short and quickly way in to the performance, because you want to show all of them, but have not enough time. That lead to have a performance which isn´t fluent, but snatchy.
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Maren I'm sure that you could fill even 10 or 15 minutes with different great tricks and wonderful presentation and I'm also sure, that you are smart enough to pick the best tricks and do a great performance in 3 minutes.
The length of the performance wont have influence on the ranking. The best rider in 4 minutes is also the best rider in 3 minutes, but spectators will see more attractive performances with a firework of well selected best tricks that makes our sport very nice to watch and more attractive for media (that bring sponsors)
I like the idea of same performance length (3 minutes) for all riders.
PS:
What length is used in japanes national competitions?
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The idea of having the same performance length for age group and expert would make a lot of things easier, but in a way I also liked having 1 more minute for Expert performances, because that was a benefit for the Expert riders and for some riders a reason to sign up for Expert, because they really needed the 4 minutes and filled it. If all 15+ riders would get 4 minutes it really could be boring, so maybe we should decide that all 15+ riders are allowed to ride 4 min., but could get a lower sores if the performance suffer under the long performance time. The deduction could be in Showmanship and Originality. The same should be done by the U15 riders. We all don't want to watch a performance of a U9 kid on a local event 3 minutes, they normally can't fill the time. But I still go with the 4 minutes for Expert and 3 min. Jr. Expert.
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Petra, I think while your point about the order of the top riders not really changing based on the time limits is true I would argue that within a competition we are not only trying to determine who is 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc., but we are also looking to see riders put together the best routines possible. So while taking away time wouldn't necessarily change the results of a competition I do think that it will greatly affect the quality of the Expert routines, and not for the better.
Kirsten, I like the idea of make a more clearly defined penalty for routines that drag on and get boring. This could really solve our problem of having routines that are too long in general.
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Scott just told me that "while" might be a confusing word for me to use because it means something different in German. To clarify, you could replace the word "while" in my post with "although". Hope that it's clear.
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While thinking about this topic, I realized there are different time length that are valid to talk about and I'm pretty sure I'm talking about a different one than you. However, this cannot be explained within just 5 minutes and this post here. Also the explanation is a bit more scientific and I'd support my explanation with examples to back up my arguments (because many of which I see are just hypothesis which already have been rejected). I will write a blog post about this to explain this in detail, please stay tuned.
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As announced, I get my hands dirty to write an article about this: Time-Analysis for Unicycle Freestyle Routines
We are talking about the maximum routine time (RT) here. What we also must adress is the effective use of a routine. The second example of Janna (which is linked in my article) shows an effective use of 22 seconds. However, as mentioned in the sheet I expect this number higher, because the video I used to measure this time was of poor quality and because I know her routine, I assume the actual value to be around 60 seconds. Which means with 4 minutes of maximum time a rider is able to use 5 minutes of that. That means two things (1) It invalidates the argument a rider wouldn't have enough time with 3 minutes to show all he needs to (2) It also means with 4 minutes maximum that there is no real challenge for the rider to properly select the moves for his routines, because he is kinda able to select all.
I will also try to summarize this whole discussion with all delivered facts and solutions and pros/cons at the IUF knowledge base, which should help to easily read all this.
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Thomas, very interesting article which it looks like you have spent quite a bit of time developing. It put things in perspective for me and suggest anyone who hasn't at least glanced at it to take a few minutes to look at it.
I would vote 3 minutes for everyone, age groups and experts. This solves the problem of someone entering expert at a Nationals and then having to take away a minute to do age groups at Unicon. Experts should be able to cut out all the "void" and "filler" tricks and make their routine more solid and even better with 3 minutes. Another benefit is that it would make the freestyle competition a little shorter for organizers, judges and the audience. In my opinion from the expert routines I saw at the last Unicon, there were only 1 or 2 performers that used the 4 minutes properly.
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Jamey, I don't know that it would actually make the competition much shorter. You are adding a minute for all of the younger age group riders and taking away a minute for all of the Expert riders which would actually be pretty even in numbers.
Gossi, I appreciate all of the time that you put into your study. However, I would be curious what things you considered filler or void. That seems rather subjective. To one person it might seem like filler but to another it could seem like artistry. Would you be willing to watch Kaito and Natsume's routine from Unicon and do your analysis? I'm curious what you will get as results. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwiy1qtrP5w
I agree that there are many routines that are too long. However, I am really concerned about the loss of amazing routines like Kaito and Natsume's. To me it's worth watching several routines that are a bit boring to watch one amazing routine like this that really fully utilizes the whole four minutes. I also think that we could add in a stipulation in the presentation judging that penalizes routines that drag on.
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Patricia, sorry I didn't realize that it was only 2 minutes for younger age groups....hopefully most of them wouldn't use the whole 3 minutes (making sure riders and judges both understand they get huge deductions by dragging on routines).
I do agree that it is great to see a 4 minute expert routine when done properly. The example above of Kaito and Natsume, they could have easily cut out the last 30 seconds and it still would have been just as good of a routine. I'm sure they could cut out another 30 seconds throughout their routine by either riding in a smaller space, taking out some of the easier tricks or repeated tricks and it would still be an awesome routine. I might even go as far to say that it may be better. Curious to see what Gossi's analysis would be.
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I'm curious why people are okay giving the youngest, least experienced riders a minute more time but are not okay with giving the older, 15+ riders a minute more. Often there are lots of 15+ riders in the age groups who are good enough to compete in Expert but are kept out because of country quotas. This is definitely the case with some of the older German and Japanese riders. It seems contradictory to give the youngest riders a minute more time and give the Expert riders a minute less.
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I am in favor of keeping the small kids to 2 minutes as I didn't realize this was the current rules.
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Just to clarify would you have it be:
0-14 Age Group 2 minutes
Jr. Expert 3 minutes
15+ Age Group 3 minutes
Expert 3 minutes
?
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Yes
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I agree, keep 2 mins. for younger riders! I like the breakdown Patricia showed above.
Jamey speaks to the idea of riders only using the amount of time they need, but until there is a change in judging, it's too risky. There may be an assumption that a short routine means you didn't have enough material to fill the time, which if taken on its own, may change your placing regardless of what else you did. And which side of the judging committee is supposed to track that? In any case, the current setup seems to "require" riders to fill most of the time limit or risk a reduced score regardless of content.
Thanks to the link to that great performance; great to watch it again from a different perspective! That routine contains many elements of what makes a really good Pairs routine. Does the routine contain "filler"? Yes, but very little of it is boring. Much of the filler is riding over a much longer distance than needed to show the skills. And often unnecessarily far from the audience.
Not to go off topic here, but Jamey already mentioned this as well. If they kept their routine to a smaller area, except when necessary, it would require a lot less time to do the exact same collection of skills. Most skill performances, in any genre, benefit from using less time. It forces the performer to eliminate the unnecessary and leave only the best stuff. Long, long ago I rode in performances with the Redford Township Unicycle Club. Our "shows" (as opposed to parades) were usually presented in kind of a lecture-demonstration format, and contained lots of cool stuff for their time. But the two best shows we did during my few years with the group were both 10 minutes long. We had limited time, limited space, huge audiences and also a huge sound system. All our best stuff was still there, packed together without a lot of the less-interesting filler.
I also come from an era of 3-minute Freestyle performances. We later gave Experts an extra minute to show more stuff, but we never figured out a cure for the "transition", where people are faced with either adding or removing a minute from an existing performance. That was a big part of the discussion during the change to 4-minutes as well. When our music was on cassettes and CD's, and a lot harder to edit! :-)
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I guess I'm curious as to why you guys are okay with there being a timing difference between 0-14 Age Group and Jr. Expert but having 15+ Age Group and Expert the same. This seems to go against one of the main goals of this discussion: having the time limit be the same for the same age so that riders can compete in different categories at regional, national, and international competitions and not have to change their routine length.
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After reading all the arguments, I'm not convinced to change the performance time at all.
I looked at our last German open competition
We had following routines:
Individual U15 = 41 AgeGroup + 8 Jr. Expert
Individual 15 + = 24 Age Group + 6 Expert
Pair U15 = 20 Age Group + 3 Jr. Expert
Pair 15+ = 28 Age Group + 3 Expert
In my opinion we should stick to 2 min. for the Age Group Riders under 15 years. If a U15 riders needs more time to perform, because the rider has some more good skills and the condition to perform a good routine, than it is time for Jr. Expert and that is also a reason why riders move to Jr. Expert categories.
If all U15 riders would perform 3 min. most of the routines will be boring. Why and when should a rider move to Jr. Expert? Only because of the title?
The whole competition will be longer and in our case hard to do /nearly impossible to do in 2 days.
All the above replies to 15+ routines and I my opinion we should stick to 3 and 4 min.
Expert riders should show a variation of skills and a good presentation. Judges need to see more of an Expert rider in oder to see more of the riders skills in order to compare it with an other routine.
Having 1 more minutes for Jr. Expert and Expert is also a reason why the riders move to these categories. If the times are the same, it might happen, that a lot of riders want to start in Expert categories and that would be a desaster. Age Groups can be splitted, but Jr. Expert/Expert can't be splitted. If age groups or expert groups are to big the judges won't be able to judge correctly. No one is able even by writing down all the skills to compare for example 20 routines correctly. The judge are probably able to figure out the best 3 riders, but all the other ranking is as per my experience totally mixed, when a group is too big.
The idea of a penalty for routines that drag on and get boring seams for good and maybe some Expert routines will be shorter.
OK I have to rush - more next year.
Wish you all the best for 2015
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I vote all U15 & Jr Expert get 2 minutes and all 15+ and Expert get 3 minutes. If someone under 15 is so good and can't show all their tricks in 2 minutes, they do have the option of entering Expert. My reasons why I think these time limits are stated above in my comments.
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Another question independent of the time limit by itself: Why do we have to separate age groups an experts from the beginning of a competition?
I think it would also be possible that everybody starts in his age group and than qualifies for the final of this competition - separated in U15 and 15+. E.g. 1.-3. of each age Group qualifies for the final U15 / 15+ (or another method considering the number of starters in a age group).
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I've already spoken my piece on time limits, which puts me in agreement with Kirsten and Jamey; absolutely no need for more than 2 minutes for 0-14 riders. I'm flexible on whether or not Junior Expert should have 2 or 3 minutes. Either of those would work. Remember, on TV variety contests (such as America's Got Talent) all performances are 90 seconds and they seem to work for the TV environment.
For Ingrid, the reason we do Experts by election in Freestyle is because there isn't a good method to select "finalists" from the age groups in a consistent way. They are judged by various and different teams of judges, without a centralized group of "recruiters" to watch all performances and agree upon which should advance to a Finals. It may be possible to do that, but it would create some other problems, such as riders who don't want to compete in a Finals, and the added time of every finalist doing their routine twice. In the past I have tossed out ideas along those lines, but we've never figured out a good way to turn everybody's "favorites" into a reasonably short list of Finalists everyone can agree on.
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"If someone under 15 is so good and can't show all their tricks in 2 minutes, they do have the option of entering Expert."
Jamey, this really isn't true. With the current country qualifications it is highly unlikely that a 13 year old rider could perform a better routine and win a spot for their country in Expert over all of the 15+ riders from their country.
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Unlikely yes but totally possible if there is an amazing young kid out there. I forgot his name but the youngest level 10 was under 15 and he would have definitely put up a good fight if he went expert. He might choose to do a jam packed 2 minute routine to win Jr Expert but all I'm saying is the option is there.
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In short: I did a huge summary of all the posts here and also found some obscure arguing, which makes me very sad. But let's go through it one-by-one.
Weird arguments
Already given facts are ignored althought highlighted again through the discussion, they are ignored. Don't do that! There are experience and non-experienced riders. That can address every age and is thus age-independent. Although there is a correlation between younger and non-experienced riders. It gets even more obscure when you use 15+ as an argument against non-experienced riders, this is sooo wrong! Please don't do that.
Time Analysis
I'm happy for the feedback. To the requested clarification: Filler can only happen during the execution of a trick. E.g. when you hop SIF and we all wait for the 180 Unispin to happen. Does that help? Does it help you to run the analysis on your own, Patricia? That's actually what my article/manual is for.
Background
With Jameys last post, I thought I provide some background information on this. I definitely agree with him and we often see these very talented young riders that could easily compete with the adults. This is has different reasons. The most interessting one I discovered for unicyclists is the different practice conditions in different cultural environments. Typically in germany (and I guess most western countries) we have practice at average 2-3 times/week at 1.5h per practice. In japan the practice conditions offer an almost daily practice with multiple hours per day. Unsurprisingly japanese riders dominate the junior ages for that reason. The most enlightening moment was when I rewatched Satoko Matsunaga in switzerland (2006) and then again in brixen (2012) (she showed more tricks in 2006 but dancingwise she improved greatly to 2012) - I bet you have discovered some similarities or recab them as you are reading this (:D). The zenith is different, you can carefully and positively call this cultural doping.
Knowledge Base Article
See: https://github.com/iuf/knowledge-base/wiki/Freestyle-Time-Limits
I (hopefully) collected all facts and solutions I found in this discussion and referenced the facts as pros and cons for each solution. It is very hard to get through this discussion when every aspect isn't catched in one place, that's what I did with an article in the IUF knowledge-base. Please don't nail me on issues there I got wrong, I encourage you to tell me what I need to correct/add, etc. on there.
For now I'd go with my solution but that's hardly biased as you haven't reviewed the article.
What I can say however, that we must additionally to the time-limit discussion address the boredom in a routine. I will create another discussion for that.
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I don't see any point in forcing riders to show their tricks in a shorter amount of time. There are really great riders who can do a lot of amazing tricks (for example just watch the expert male category) and they already cannot fit all their good tricks in 4min. Moreover, I think that presentation would suffer from shortening the amount of given time because most riders would still want to show their tricks and would cut the time which they use to do easy tricks or normal riding - time used to focus more on presentation! In order to avoid boring routines - effective use of time should be a factor in the presentation judging! A 3 minute routine can definitely be as good as a 4 min routine - maybe even better...this should be included into the judging system.
In my opinion, we still need a change in the time length due to the fact that riders compete in expert at some competitions and in age group at others (as already stated).
I agree with Patricia's idea:
4 minutes for all routines ages 15+ (both Age Group and Expert) and 3 minutes for all routines ages 0-14.
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Gossi - it is a good idea to collect all facts and solutions, but try to include all.
I like to stick with the old system, since all the other ideas still didn't convince me, but I would like to include a penalty, please see my previous comments.
Here just some questions for consideration:
How many riders are switching all the time from Age Group to Expert and back?
If you perform Expert in your country and you don't what to start in Expert at a Unicon, is it so difficult to cut one minute? This only happens every 2 years! And the event is known long in advance.
If you turn 15 during the year - you are allowed to add one min. you don't have to. If is it so hard to add one minute? If we work with a penalty, maybe riders don't add in that case. How often does that happen, that riders enter 15+ ? just once!
Is the adding or the cutting of one minute just laborious for just a minority? But giving all Age Group riders one more minute (3min/4min) affects the majority. The age group performances won't get better, probably more boring and it has an time influence on a convention.
1 more minute should be a reward/appreciation for entering Jr. Expert/Expert. We don't need to compare age group riders with expert riders.
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I am the same opinion as Kirsten. I like also to stick with the old system.
For the experts: It would be maybe more interesting to having less time. The same amount of skills in less time = more transition. I would love to see some "killer-transitions".
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I would rather keep the current system than give 4 minutes to all riders 15+. Too few need it!
While mention of penalties for "boring" have been mentioned, this would be really hard to implement, I think. It would be a subjective judgement, and then require a way to penalize riders that do it. For it to work would require a "cultural" change in the way people build routines; a change away from the current "fill the time or else" approach. It will be hard for judging panels to get past the idea that a 2-min. routine can score as high as a 3-min. routine. If we change those rules but don't change the culture, I think it will be as Thomas described earlier, the riders doing shorter time getting penalized just based on time, and not necessarily based on overall skill and presentation.
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@ Kirsten: I actually think that having the same amount of time for both expert and age group could solve our problem in Germany that really good riders prefer to enter competitions as age group riders rather than expert riders. In my opinion, it would encourage more riders to enter the expert category.
Furthermore, I think it is definitely a challenge to cut or extend a routine by one minute - not if you have one year until UNICON, but definitely within one season in Germany. Moreover, having the same amount of time for both categories would make qualification competitions easier because you don't have to do qualification rounds for both categories.
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@Marie, I think the German Problem must be solve in other ways. I see the risk that too many people enter expert categories in Germany and then we are not able to judge them correctly, because of the high number and expert can't be splitted as we can do it in the age groups. The few riders, who should (in your and in my opinion) move on to expert category should be encouraged by the coaches,and other riders/trainings mates to leave the age group. We are only talking about I guess 5 or 6 Idividual riders and 1-2 Pairs. I have no glue why these riders won't move to Expert. In my opinion the number of expert and jr. expert riders should not exceed 15 riders per group other wise the judging results suffer. The German problem must be solved in the next 2 month, cause we do need the qualification for the Uncion this year. Riders have to know now, how, when and where we are going to have the qualification in order to have enough time to prepare the routine.
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@Marie, @Kirsten: Crazy idea for Unicon qualification: Just let the under 15 ride for 2mim, the 15+ for 3mim. If judged by the same criterias and the same point scale, you can simply put the bests in experts and the best of each age in their age groupe according to their score. The few riders in jr./ experts will then have 1 year to add 1min. This system would allow that the non-expert rider, who don't qualify for the few expert places, don't need to change their routines. Additionaly everybody would have the chance to go for expert and get the worldchampion title. Furthermore if you already have your routine a year before Unicon the routine would be nearly without mistakes. The rider can afterward always ride another routines at the competitions, but would be forced to ride the same qualification routine at Unicon (because you aren't judging the riders abilities, you're judging the rider's performance).
For Unicon I would keep the current rules.
Philipp
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I would also keep the current rules.
At the one hand I think the Expert riders really need the 4 minutes and I don't think that it's too long! A perfect routine needs not only time for all the great tricks, it needs time for the presentation and show, too!
But I also agree that 4 minutes are too long for most age group riders! In my opinion at this point the level is still too low.
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@Kirsten: I was pretty sure to miss some statements here but I need to know which ones exactly to add them.
Age Group vs Expert: A 2-class society
Riders signing up for Expert actually opt-in to be in the upper class, because they are the best, because others say they are the best or because they have an ugly routine but the judging system says they are the best or for whatever reason and are rewarded with an extra minute to do more stuff and to really show the lower class age group riders why they are better. Well, if they really are better then they'd be able to compare to the age group riders under the same conditions. Now, let's compare this expert/age group thing to another sport and another discipline to get a better understanding. I would like to take athletics javelin throwing. The javelin has a weight of 800g (if I remember correctly), which is written in the rules. Now let's assume there would also be a rule distincting between expert/age group athletes and the javelin for expert athletes has a weight of 600g to make sure the expert athletes, just to make sure expert athletes can prove their stand. This comparison shows exactly what the time limit differences between age group and expert riders is about. That is what the comparison of athletic achievement is about.
With all that explained, that brings me to one argument, that is completely lost in this discussion is fairness.
Fairness
We must ensure, that rules are fair across all riders and that we ensure same conditions to all competitors, which also includes their preparation. If a rider prepares a routine for 4 minute at one competition but only has 3 minutes the next competition a month later... we have failed. If a rider turns 15, because he/she was born that day and "out-of-a-sudden" has 3 instead of 2 minutes for his routine but only 3 weeks to practice... we have failed. It is not about whether or not so-called expert riders need 4 minutes. If they are true expert riders they work out the best with what they are given. The question is not about how many riders are affected but are riders affected and what can we do about it.
I also updated the Knowledge-Base Article: https://github.com/iuf/knowledge-base/wiki/Freestyle-Time-Limits The way it is currently solved shows the most conflicts, so I can't believe you still want to persist on this rule. Please help to keep this knowledge-base article up-to-date by exactly mentioning all missed statements - thanks.
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Gossi, I don't really agree with your points and I don't think that the javelin analogy really matches. I don't think that anyone is disputing that we would get different results if all of the 15+ riders had 3 minutes. I agree that you should still be able to tell who are the best riders regardless of the length of their routine. What I think is really important though is to encourage riders to put together the best routine possible. I am afraid that if we cut a minute for the best riders then we will lose part of the quality of their routine. In order to cut down a minute they will either have to have less artistry or less high level tricks. So will we get different overall competition results? Probably not. But we will see a lower quality of routine from our best riders.
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I don't think we will necessarily see a lower quality of routine from the best riders if it was reduced to 3 minutes. I would say the opposite in that we may see a higher quality routine as it will pack more tricks and artistry into a shorter routine (and will eliminate some of the easier tricks). To over exaggerate to make my point, say we had two options on the extreme sides, 1 minute and 10 minutes. I'm pretty sure the 1 minute routines would be far better than any 10 minute routine. It would actually be nice if we had some examples and could get some of the top experts that placed at the last Unicon to do a similar routine in 3 minutes. Then we could compare them and see which we prefer. (Any takers?!)
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Hmm, Jameys idea is way better than my javelin example (though I still like mine). I only take that as a hypothesis that cutting a minute will negatively impact routines, I doubt it. At the moment 4 minutes probably seem to be enough to put everything (in regards to tricks) in there - yet nothing we want to see (I do not even remember a routine that couldn't be cut to 3 minutes and still keep their high quality). I explained a metric above to measure these outcomes and to measure what's actually possible. I also believe the effective use isn't used in its full potential yet. Unless this is granted through some good method, I don't believe it and unless we start to get our hands dirty and run these researches, the rules will stay slooppy.
To quote Petra (above) "The best rider in 4 minutes is also the best rider in 3 minutes" explains all this very, very well.
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I don't think my point is coming across clearly. I stated that I did agree with what Petra said. I am not trying to deny that at all. The best rider should be the best regardless of time. My point is that I think we will be missing out on some of the superb artistry that a four minute routine can bring. I think that we might be denying the unicycling community and public for that matter from seeing some amazing artistic performances.
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Patricia has got me confused. She agrees that the best riders would still have the best performances regardless of time. But that somehow, by taking a minute off the time, there would be a loss of artistry. So which do you prefer?
If you take off a minute, what you lose is 1 minute of time. That means you also lose 1 minute of content. Okay, can't argue any of that. So what does the competitor do? The best ones keep the best of their content. The challenge is to figure out what that is. In the end, you have *raised* the per-minute quality of your performance. You have removed the parts that weren't the best. And you have saved each audience member, and each judge, a minute of their lives, multiplied by however many of them are watching. :-)
There have been some really great Freestyle performances since we extended Expert time limits to 4 minutes. I don't think I can think of any that would not have still worked well at 3 minutes. This is a tenet of show biz that is well understood by people who have to fit their performances to changing time limits. Essentially that applies to most variety artists. Sometimes you're doing your own show, with all the time you care to use, but at other times you have a very specific amount of time to work with, which was often chosen by someone else. Then you fit your performance to that time. As I wrote in an earlier post, very short time limits led to the best Redford Township Unicycle Club performances I ever saw. None of you guys were there (some of you weren't born yet) so not the best example, but it's true.
As I see it, we have three major ways we can go with this (in no order):
- Leave things as-is. People who have to switch from one time limit to another will have to figure it out. This is not as bad as it seems. People who have a known birthday approaching (turning 15 this year?) will not be taken by surprise. But yes, having and practicing two different versions of a routine is a hassle.
- Keep same time limits for the major age groups; 2 minutes for 0-14 and 3 minutes for 15+. It will work just fine. Expert performances will be shorter, which means they will be tighter. Competitions will take a little less time (omitted; side discussion on how current judging system takes way too long).
- Eliminate time limits. Explanation below.
WHAT? Eliminate time limits? That's nuts. Okay, I think someone already said something about this above. Here's how I see it. Our current system is geared toward filling the time limit. If your routine is noticeably short. You will tend to get a lower score because you did less "material". Even though our time limits are maximums, and there are no minimums, our system is biased against short performances. How do we get past that? How do we get the judges to just judge the performance without worrying about time? By taking the time limit out of the equation. AND by being specific that judging should be based on the CONTENT (and quality) of the performance, not the QUANTITY.
Don't worry, I know unicyclists. If you don't have a time limit, someone's going to go out there and purposely try to waste our time by performing War and Peace or something. So we probably need an outside limit. Or we can have a cutoff, such as a designated person who blows a whistle or hits a buzzer to eject the performer. I'm not a fan of that, and it would require a structure of who does this, how to decide, etc. So better to have an open-ended time limit. Something like 6 minutes, WHICH WE DON'T EXPECT YOU TO FILL. Something like that. Do you think such a thing could work?
I do. However I'd rather stick with time limits, just as we should have space limits because that's the real world. My vote would be to take off the extra minute for Expert and Jr. Expert routines.
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Take away time limits...now that's an interesting idea and might work as long as the judges made sure to penalize uneccasary long and boring routines. It sure would get all competitors attention and they would really need to think about their routines. But I agree with Foss that time limits and space limits should be used.
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My opinion is as follows.
3 minutes are given to 15+, Expert and Jr.Expert.
2 minutes are given to 0-14.
Because there are persons with the skill as much as the 15+ in Jr.Expert.
It's too short for 2 minutes for them.
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In the past, the Expert categories were always elective, which meant the riders could choose to enter them or not. So the different time limit wasn't an issue then. We have only had this problem more recently, when riders did not get to choose their category. I don't know if it's possible to get back to that system. If not, I am inclined to say riders can do a lot in 2 min. The big national talent show we have on TV here, America's Got Talent, consists of 90-second performances. Careers for variety entertainers can be made or broken in 90 seconds, so I think 2 minutes is enough for unicyclists under 15.
And for riders that want more, maybe they can enter in the next higher category? Compete with the 15-year olds? Why not?
Comment
Would we like to find a TV star?
No, we're going to decide a champion of a unicycle. We're speaking about proper time for free style.
90 seconds will be enough for a dancer and a singer of a television program. But does everyone know that time is a little more necessary to show the skill of the unicycle?
Jr.expert riders has much skill already. They need time, too.
Would Jr.expert riders like to enter a category higher than the next one?
No, they wish to become a champion of Jr.expert.
Please give time to the young ability. They make the future of free style.
Comment
I agree with Atata about the Jr. Expert time limit. I don't think the argument that if they are good enough they can enter a higher category is true, the country qualifications make this near impossible.
Comment
Agreed. It is extremely unrealistic for a rider under 15 to be in Expert at Unicon due to country qualifications.