Seat Drag Falls
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Right now it is not clarified in the rulebook whether a fall doing seat drag is classified as a major or a minor fall. Normally, at least in the US, the chief judge declares how it should be judged for that competition. There should be something written in the rulebook so that this is the same for all competitions.
Here is my idea:
Since a minor fall is when the feet of the rider touch the ground, I think that all falls in seat drag where the rider merely steps off, or no other part of the body besides their feet touch the ground, it should be a minor fall. The rider should not be penalized as a major fall since the unicycle was already touching the ground to begin with.
If any other body part of the rider, besides their feet, touches the ground, then it should be counted as a major fall.
Essentially, you would keep the current fall language for major or minor but for seat drag falls you would discount the language talking about the unicycle.
Here is the text from 5.24.1 regarding Mistakes: Dismounts
"Major dismounts are when the unicycle falls and/or a hand or any body part other than the rider’s foot or feet touch the floor. Major dismounts are also when the choreography of a rider’s routine is clearly affected.
Minor dismounts are when the unicycle does not fall, only the rider’s foot or feet touch down and the choreography of a rider’s routine is not affected. A minor dismount may also be counted when Judges cannot differentiate between a planned dismount and an unplanned dismount."
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Sounds good to me!
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Sounds good.
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Agreed but would it still be a minor if the unicycle shot out from under the rider and rolled several meters away?
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Note that 5.24.1 applies to both types of judge. All judges must pay attention to dismounts as they can affect both scores.
The problem for Seat Drag (and also other skills like riding an Ultimate Wheel) is that the rider has no other contact with the unicycle besides the pedals. Most dismounts from seat drag lead to a fallen unicycle. You could cover that, if you wanted, for Technical judging, but the existing rule is appropriate for Presentation judging. The basic idea is that seat drag is a more risky trick, since nearly any dismount is going to be disruptive to your routine. It's very difficult to maintain your flow, or possibly to catch up to your choreography, from a seat drag dismount. As a judge, I know of this level of risk, and reward the "Seat Dragger" accordingly for the amount of risk she takes.
So I guess what I'm saying is that the rule is fine as-is, because it is as much about disruption to the routine as it is about "counting dismounts," a practice that should never have a specific point value. Dismounts are negative, and breaks in choreography/flow are negative. Seat Drag generally risks bigger breaks.
If you want to create a technical description to "protect" Seat Draggers (which I don't consider necessary), you could add something about tricks where the rider has no contact with the uni other than the pedals, and to note that dismounts in such positions should be measured differently. Maybe halfway between major and minor?
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John, I think the fact that the judges never know how to judge it means that the rule isn't explicit enough. I disagree that it's fine as is.
Jamey, I think that if the unicycle shot away then it would re-hit the ground. I don't foresee a fall like that where the unicycle would so perfectly glide that it wouldn't come off the ground and then hit the ground again. This is a good situation to consider though.
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If a change is needed here, then please submit a proposal.
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Good job on the new text to explain about seat drag skills. They have otherwise lived in a gray area due to the way we defined dismounts.
What I'm not a fan of is giving a specific score per dismount. This is only accurate if riders take similar amounts of risk in their performances. For example if I have a Ryan Woessner doing 86 different, specific tricks in his routine compared to another performer who only does 20 really interesting ones, should each rider be penalized 10% of that portion of the score for each major dismount? It puts Ryan at a huge disadvantage. More than that, it discourages someone from attempting large numbers of things if they are worried it could eat their entire Mistakes score, even if they were 80% successful.
Back to one of my personal rules for judging: Thou shalt not count tricks. While I do count dismounts, I do not have a specific devaluation per dismount, since it's mathematically not equal for each performer. They are counted in proportion to the amount of "stuff" the rider has attempted.