Proposal 38: Freestyle Judging [ Revision 1 ]
Committee: FreestyleSubmitted on 2015-03-25
Status: Set-Aside (Reviewed from April 03, 2015 to April 22, 2015)
Background
The current rules do not work. They are too complicated, aren't able to judge art, don't push the rider to create art, care about too many stuff and in a too detailed way; judges are too busy while judging, often giving results that doesn't fit their feeling about the routine because they have to fill boxes and are thus unable to feel (and/or think about) the routine. The only possible solution IMHO is to erase "everything" and start new.
Proposal
Old:
5c. Freestyle Judging:
I won't copy the all 5c section, but it would be the "old rule" in his whole.
New:
5c. Freestyle Judging:
There are 10 judges, each giving 3 scores from 0 to 100: technic, artistic and fault. Technic and artistic are counted positively. Fault are counted negatively, so a high "fault score" would eventually result in a bad ranking. Judges give their score right after the rider's routine. For each score, the chief judge should remove the highest and lowest one. The total score is then computed this way: (sum of all remaining technic score) + (sum of all remaining artistic score) - (sum of all remaining fault score) = total score (this number is allowed to be negative)
In everything that follows, "audience" is to understand as a fictive audience, not the actual one watching the competition.
5.23 Individual Freestyle - Technic:
This score is counted positively and should reflect the rider's unicycling skills.
In order to give this score, judges should ask themselves the following questions:
- Do you think the rider took big risks in doing the tricks/transitions he made? Were the tricks/transitions difficult?
- Where the tricks executed easily or was the rider searching for his balance all the time? Did the rider showed mastery, control?
- Did the rider showed any original tricks, original variations of a tricks, original transitions, original use of the unicycle?
- Where the tricks executed: fast or slow? Huge or tiny? Long time or short time? Did the rider took risks in the realization of his tricks, making it big, last longer?
- Did the rider showed a very precise routine where every tricks is at the place it should be or were the tricks disorganize and kind of randomly placed in space and time?
- Was the trick choice coherent with the overall routine? Were the tricks "useful"?
5.24 Individual Freestyle - Artistic:
This score is counted positively and should reflect the rider's ability to entertain an audience.
In order to give this score, judges should ask themselves the following questions:
- Did the rider looked like being on stage, in front of an audience or was he just training in a stage situation? Was the rider aware of the audience, present on stage with his whole body or lost in the middle of the gym?
- Was the rider able to transmit a sense of beauty, gracefulness, humor, poetry, story, theme or some of the kind to the audience? Would an audience be attracted by the routine?
- Was the music choice coherent with the costume and the overall routine? Was the music well used or used at all?
- Was the rider aware of his body and face expressions and used it to express some beauty, humor, poetry or some of the kind?
- While doing tricks, was the rider in a totally different "body mood" than in the rest of the routine or did he kept acting, dancing, singing or whatever?
- If props or decorations were used: were they essential to the routine? What happens if you take them away?
5.25 Individual Freestyle - Fault:
This score is counted negatively and should reflect two things: dismounts (max 50 points) and boringness (max 50 points). (boringness also includes redundant choice of tricks)
In order to give those score, judges should ask themselves the following questions:
- How much and how visibly did the rider fell?
- How did the rider handled his dismounts?
- Would an audience feel like seeing always the same trick?
- Would an audience be bored by the routine?
5.26 Pairs Freestyle - Addendum:
Additional questions for technic:
- If the routine contains some synchronized tricks, how well synchronized were they?
Additional questions for artistic:
- Were both riders coherent with each other? Were they forming a whole or was it two random people performing together?
Additional questions for fault:
- How did the rider handled his dismount or the dismount of his partner?
5.27 Group Freestyle - Addendum:
Additional questions for technic:
- If the routine contains some synchronized tricks, were they really synchronized?
- If the routine contains some shape tricks, could the audience precisely see the shapes (square, star, cross, line, circle, etc.)? If a line-shape was executed, did the audience really saw the line.
Additional questions for artistic:
- Were all riders coherent with each other? Were they forming a whole or was it some random people performing together?
Additional questions for fault:
- How did the rider handled his dismount or the dismount of one of his partner?
Body
The "question form" helps the judge looking at what he should be looking; but it doesn't take away his freedom of mind or his feelings, impressions about the routine.
The fact that the rules aren't detailed, makes it harder for the competitor to see what the perfect routine is. He would thus start thinking about himself performing and not just competing.
As we want to see art, I think those rules (maybe not to the letter) are something we should go for.
Remark: they may be some changes to make in other section (for instance 5.12.6) so that the rulebook doesn't contradict itself...