Critical Concepts, and Exceptions

[BenRea]

I would be sad if add's didnt exist.

then again is that what we are really discussing here, i read all of the posts and wasted a lot of time and still don't really know what it's about. everyone seems pretty confused except the one who started this thread and seems to somehow make sense out of everyones posts.


ADD's were one of the main reasons I got addicted to this sport. and i think it's a nice aspect of the sport especially for begginers . Im sure its importance fades as you become better and your skill increases.

[Pancake Flogger]

That would make Pixie Paradon, Blurriest, Scorpion's Tail and such all 6's, which is too many adds for those tricks. I don't like that idea. Repetition already sounds sort of like XDex anyways.

I'm an amateur player so I probably shouldn't be talking, but aren't the tricks you mentioned part of the more difficult portion of 5 adds? Shouldn't they deserve to be worth more than Phoenix or Paradox Torque?

This is more of a question with a purpose rather than a statement. I do like this idea though, if that counts for anything.

[dyalander]

I haven't had the time to go through thee discussion closely, and won't have the time to contribute to it at length, but from the bits I've read a couple of questions sprang to mind.

It was mentioned that the add system should be given more responsibility. I'm not sure that is a good idea.

To me, the real importance of the add system lies in shred 30, and as such, any alterations that are made to it should have that competition in mind. There may be potential for an improved add system or another system which also included link difficulties to be used for sick 3 type comps in the future. However, any comps that have more than 30 moves or so will always be better judged without having to put together add scores. For comps with lots of moves, the time it takes to get the final scores will be too long to make for a compelling competition.

Personally, i feel that if you take this competition focused view on the add system it would better to keep as few add categories as possible in order to make judging as quick as possible. I'd remove paradox and x-dex entirely.

One significant problem with changes to the add systems is that it would render old scores obsolete, which is a real shame.

It has also been implied, if not flat out stated, that top players have more to contribute to this discussion. I'm not convinced that is true. You don't need to be a top player to have a vision for the future of footbag, and for that vision to be correct. Yes, you need a certain amount of experience in footbag, but I think once you've reached a certain level of knowledge of the sport - whether you can perform at the top level or not - you can speak with as much authority as anyone else. Moreover, I suspect that the top players have varied views on the pros and cons of the current comp formats as well as different views on the place of the add system in the sport. Their contributions should be shaped as much by these views as by their experience of hitting the hardest moves and combos.

Finally, I'm not sure the community can construct a better system as a community - it would take an individual or a small group of dedicated individuals. The community is a great starting point, but I'd suggest people talk in the broader community to solidfy their own views, then go about costructing what they think is the best system. Present it to the community and if its a great enough leap forward people will get on board. If not, people will propose further improvements and discussion will continue.

[mc]

I'm with jorden. just throw the whole shit out the window. Freestyle is about being FREE with your STYLE, and i know for a FACT that adds limit style, and here's why:

ADDs quantify.

Quantification is easy to understand, so newer players are drawn to it.

"Trick X is quantified with more points than Trick Y, so Trick X is BETTER!"

and, as we all know, our fundamentals are what we all depend upon to make our styles strong, so elements that effect us fundamentally are going to have a strong effect on our game.

The add system makes for clipper dominated games with a lack of delays beyond toe and inside. Body rolls are almost entirely neglected. osis is the only major move with a "carry" element to it, whereas rakes are seen as a "cheap" way to get one more add on a move.

Because they're seen as "cheap", they're done less!!! This wonderful element to our game is really left behind, despite how easy and styley and truly beautiful they are. And why are they seen as cheap?

ADDs!

ADDs are the opposite of freestyle.

I'm totally alcoposting right now, but I think there's some sense in there somewhere.

[Ian Brill]

I would be sad if add's didnt exist.

I would be concerned if they didn't. Otherwise I feel there would be entirely too much subjectivity in judging events.

then again is that what we are really discussing here, i read all of the posts and wasted a lot of time and still don't really know what it's about. everyone seems pretty confused except the one who started this thread and seems to somehow make sense out of everyones posts.

Lol. I am suggesting that there are ways that the add system can be improved that could account for many of the problems that people have with it. And, I am trying to propose a system to do this, though I am totally open to people taking this original idea somewhere on their own. Mostly I am encouraging a forum for useful methods to improve our aging add-system.

ADD's were one of the main reasons I got addicted to this sport. and i think it's a nice aspect of the sport especially for begginers . Im sure its importance fades as you become better and your skill increases.

Maybe that is the case. Moir and Cross don't seem to feel the add system and, well, they are the sort of individuals that I would like see improving it with their influence. That is fine though. I am excited about getting to Matt's post and reading beyond a skim-through. Criticism of the add-system is the number one way of finding ways to improve it.

[Ian Brill]

To me, the real importance of the add system lies in shred 30, and as such, any alterations that are made to it should have that competition in mind."

I disagree. I feel that shred 30 is the number one reason why their should be more concepts and exceptions. I think shred 30 can be hard to watch at times. Add hunting tricks are not always the most impressive. I would like to see dada curve lose an add as an exception. Bamn! Just like that. I would also love to see a situation where people started bailing into double-spinning clippers because the second spin was worth two adds.

any comps that have more than 30 moves or so will always be better judged without having to put together add scores. For comps with lots of moves, the time it takes to get the final scores will be too long to make for a compelling competition.

They should take a while. They should take a really long time, out of respect. I think it is sometimes offensive when some competitions are judged as fast as they are.

Personally, i feel that if you take this competition focused view on the add system it would better to keep as few add categories as possible in order to make judging as quick as possible. I'd remove paradox and x-dex entirely.

If you had to make a new concept or exception, what would it be?

One significant problem with changes to the add systems is that it would render old scores obsolete, which is a real shame.

X-dex has already done this, so I don't feel that is a major issue.

It has also been implied, if not flat out stated, that top players have more to contribute to this discussion. I'm not convinced that is true. You don't need to be a top player to have a vision for the future of footbag, and for that vision to be correct. Yes, you need a certain amount of experience in footbag, but I think once you've reached a certain level of knowledge of the sport - whether you can perform at the top level or not - you can speak with as much authority as anyone else. Moreover, I suspect that the top players have varied views on the pros and cons of the current comp formats as well as different views on the place of the add system in the sport. Their contributions should be shaped as much by these views as by their experience of hitting the hardest moves and combos.

I don't feel that the top players have more to contribute regarding ideas. I do however feel that their opinions are more important. Here is why: because they are competing. And because they are competing in a sport called freestyle. This is why I would like them to have the freedom to influence the manner with which their creative output is evaluated. Having an objective means to evaluate top players for what they feel is important strikes me as a step in the right direction. Mind you, I am open-minded about this but for the sake of getting better feedback I am going to try and defend this proposal.

Finally, I'm not sure the community can construct a better system as a community - it would take an individual or a small group of dedicated individuals. The community is a great starting point, but I'd suggest people talk in the broader community to solidfy their own views, then go about costructing what they think is the best system. Present it to the community and if its a great enough leap forward people will get on board. If not, people will propose further improvements and discussion will continue.

I disagree again. I would prefer to have the community point out a million different reasons why the add-system is weak. This would give us reference points to adjust and organize a stronger series of solutions.

[Ian Brill]

I'm with jorden. just throw the whole shit out the window. Freestyle is about being FREE with your STYLE, and i know for a FACT that adds limit style

The major problem I have with throwing out the add-system is that it would make judging so subjective. Another reason is that structure makes the sport more accessible to new, goal-oriented athletes.

...as we all know, our fundamentals are what we all depend upon to make our styles strong, so elements that effect us fundamentally are going to have a strong effect on our game.

The add system makes for clipper dominated games with a lack of delays beyond toe and inside. Body rolls are almost entirely neglected. osis is the only major move with a "carry" element to it, whereas rakes are seen as a "cheap" way to get one more add on a move.

Because they're seen as "cheap", they're done less!!! This wonderful element to our game is really left behind, despite how easy and styley and truly beautiful they are. And why are they seen as cheap?

ADDs!

ADDs are the opposite of freestyle.

I'm totally alcoposting right now, but I think there's some sense in there somewhere.

I agree with everything you just said, and I see a lot of sense there. That is why I would like to see the fundamentals change accordingly. The major difference of perspective here is possibly that I believe a point system is needed at all.

[Rieferman]

matt wrote:

The add system makes for clipper dominated games with a lack of delays beyond toe and inside. Body rolls are almost entirely neglected. osis is the only major move with a "carry" element to it, whereas rakes are seen as a "cheap" way to get one more add on a move.

Because they're seen as "cheap", they're done less!!! This wonderful element to our game is really left behind, despite how easy and styley and truly beautiful they are. And why are they seen as cheap?

That's part of it, I'm sure you're right. But more than add hunting, I think new players emulate the "top" players as well as emulate what they widely see. Being "good" is important to most players, so being able to do what everyone else does is a measuring stick that players aspire to. But, I'd argue that as you see more players breaking molds (Jorden, Jon, Matt C., a bunch of others) they'll be emulated more often and diversity will come. The level of world play is approach a level where, to stand out, you must innovate - so I think you'll see the pendulum (pun!) start swinging in a new way in the near future. just my opinion.

In terms of Ian's project idea though, maybe easiest way to start thinking about it is to list "cheap" moves (widely considered way too easy for their add value) and "cheaped" moves (widely considered much harder than their add value would suggest). I don't think you need a full list of these, but if you have a bunch, they can be categorized and patterns may be able to be found - those patterns might be the path to an improvement idea. Actually, I'm guessing this is how x-dex probably came around.

[Laroche]

Freestyle is the only sport that I know of where we have an objective numbers based system for a competitive event, Shred 30.

If we look at ANY other sport that has any sort of flexibility in how the athlete can perform, they have a subjective judging system. Why do we need an objective system when subjective works just fine?

We all know when we do good or not, or whats hard or whats not so hard anyway, so it's not really much of a problem to drop shred 30, stick with a subjective system like circles, which no one has complained about as far as I know.

What makes this sport so different from, say, skateboarding or figure skating, judgment-wise?

[Rieferman]

Although I don't disagree with you, the topic is to generate ideas on how the add system might be improved, not whether an add system is needed. Though that would be a good separate topic I think.

[Frank_Sinatra]

I agree with a lot of what Dyalander wrote, especially dropping pdx & xdex.

I've done a lot of thinking out loud about this with my friends... it seems to me that adding new concepts like pdx and xdex, or even the repetitive dex idea hasn't really been a solution. One reason is these concepts aren't consistently defined or applied (pdx mirage & far pickup seem roughly equal in difficulty to me) - and everyone seems to have their own definition of xdex.

To me a good place to start fixing this would be categorizing moves according to half dexes or full dexes. DATW - two full dexes. Butterfly - half a dex. Fairy ss clipper would be half a dex, pixie ss clipper would be a full dex. So that's one pattern that would be fairly obvious (direction of the dex and what side the bag ends up on determining if it is a full or a half dex).

But this isn't by any means a complete solution. Maybe some tricks are hard enough that they deserve a 1 & 1/2 dex designation. Maybe some tricks are really more accurately 3/4s of a dex. And just the fullness of a dex isn't the only contributor to difficulty - pixie might not be a full dex, atw is a full dex, but atw doesn't have a weight shift while pixie does...

So there's an obvious tradeoff between accurately assessing difficulty and simplicity of use.

And this only addresses dexes, when as Matt pointed out there is so much more to footbag than how many dexes you can throw. To me, the really big question that I haven't found an answer for on my own is whether every component is deserving of the same value as an add. Are xbod, delay, and dex truly equally difficult?

Anyway, despite these obvious flaws or limitations, I still think that replacing pdx & xdex with a 'fullness of dex' value would be an improvement over what we've got now. But obviously it is only a partial fix.

[Zac Miley]

I'm an amateur player so I probably shouldn't be talking, but aren't the tricks you mentioned part of the more difficult portion of 5 adds? Shouldn't they deserve to be worth more than Phoenix or Paradox Torque?

It's not just those tricks. The simple double downs would all be 5 ADDs and stuff like that. I think pdx torque is harder than those others.

[BenRea]

Because they're seen as "cheap", they're done less!!! This wonderful element to our game is really left behind, despite how easy and styley and truly beautiful they are. And why are they seen as cheap?

dada curve

[dyalander]

Matt and I disagree on the pros and cons of the add system and the effect it has on players and trick selection and we've discussed it before so there's no need to cover old territory. If your interested, you could search for previous discussion.

In answer to the question put to me above - I wouldn't add new components I would remove components - I don't think the add system should be made a better indicator of difficulty but rather that it should be made a better tool for judges of competitions.

While its nice to say that we should judge comps over the time required to do it right whatever that may be - how many sports do you watch where the judgement by officials takes a long period of time - as long as it would take if you added even more concepts to the system? The audience wants to know the result - a complex add system does not let that happen.

Competitions are flawed hoops and the add system is a flawed system - but they do enough to allow for competition. There will never be a competition or an add system that offers a perfect and valid test of the skills and techniques of footbag. Shredding in circles will always be the only true measure. But this said comps can have their own rewards for players and for the sport. No one is forcing people to compete, the community accepts shredders whether they want to be world champ or push the boundaries of their physical capabilities, or just want something to do. Things have their place - and there may well be a place for a more coherent and accurate system for articualting moves and links, but it will not necessarily be in competition.

If the system was made more intricate and complex with more components I don't see it being a feasible judging system - its hard enough to find competent and willing judges as it is, and already takes too long to judge shred 30.

[Ian Brill]

Matt and I disagree on the pros and cons of the add system and the effect it has on players and trick selection and we've discussed it before so there's no need to cover old territory. If your interested, you could search for previous discussion.

In answer to the question put to me above - I wouldn't add new components I would remove components - I don't think the add system should be made a better indicator of difficulty but rather that it should be made a better tool for judges of competitions.

While its nice to say that we should judge comps over the time required to do it right whatever that may be - how many sports do you watch where the judgement by officials takes a long period of time - as long as it would take if you added even more concepts to the system? The audience wants to know the result - a complex add system does not let that happen.

Competitions are flawed hoops and the add system is a flawed system - but they do enough to allow for competition. There will never be a competition or an add system that offers a perfect and valid test of the skills and techniques of footbag. Shredding in circles will always be the only true measure. But this said comps can have their own rewards for players and for the sport. No one is forcing people to compete, the community accepts shredders whether they want to be world champ or push the boundaries of their physical capabilities, or just want something to do. Things have their place - and there may well be a place for a more coherent and accurate system for articualting moves and links, but it will not necessarily be in competition.

If the system was made more intricate and complex with more components I don't see it being a feasible judging system - its hard enough to find competent and willing judges as it is, and already takes too long to judge shred 30.

This is gonna sound tricky but I agree with you for the most part. But, I feel like our sport has the opportunity to be unique here. I think that one of the best things about the competitions is that we can cite specifically why a winner is decided. I see no harm in pursuing this and I think that coming up with a system would be infinitely easier than playing this complex sport. I'm not going to get Asperger's about though. It's simply an ideal that I feel is worth pursuing.

[Laroche]

Shredding in circles will always be the only true measure.

I agree with this, but in that case, what's the point of competitions if we, the players, don't even really care who wins what as shred is the only thing that matters?

In that case, what about Circle competitions? Seems like a pretty viable solution...

Regarding the add system, and though this is off-topic I don't really see what's so wrong with X-Dex, and remembering the discussion that went towards that and the controversy, any proposed change is sure to be shot down by "purists". The real problem is when we use adds as a difficulty measure.

But we don't really... Shred 30 does. Anyway...

[Spontaneous Spaz]

...........or

we could just scrap everything and rate them on a scale of 1 - 5

1 would be simple stalls and tilts
2 would be simpler 3 add moves
... and so on

[dyalander]

I agree with this, but in that case, what's the point of competitions if we, the players, don't even really care who wins what as shred is the only thing that matters?

What is the point of comps? What is the point of any hoop we set ourselves to jump through. Some people find jumping through hoops fun.

Who is the best runner in the world?
No single running race can claim to truely answer this question definitively.
Each tests a different aspect of the broader set of skills involved in running. Arguably some do so more than others
Who is the best footbagger in world? Ok we happen to know this.
But no single event can answer this question definitively.
Each tests a different aspect of the broader set of skills involved in footbag. Arguably some do so more than others.
But does that mean the others are all useless. Not at all. Each is its own challenge. What footbag needs is a governing body that is willing to impose a coherent vision of how to manage the various footbag comps into a sport with official events.

How are we going to achive that - by setting up an organisational system for the sport so that our various efforts and ideas can be channelled into the sports progression in a coherent mannor which maximises their effect. But I digress.

[shreddaily]

There are so many thoughts that go threw my mind about freestyle, and they evolve and grow like a living thing. Rather than write them down I encourage everyone to simply think about what they want in there game, and practice that; once you have achieved something make a video. Writing about ADDs and competition and difficulty is an endless cycle. Though on many levels, which I think about but don't feel like typing about, it's ALL needed and important. Talk about the great paradox!

[Tjuggles]

I don't think that I am keen on this repetition dex either. First of all, at least to an extent, saying "this move is harder than that move" is fairly subjective; I may feel that pixie is more difficult than stepping, or that fairy ducking is easier than whirl. I think that really depends on the person. Also, once you have a move dialed, you have it dialed. I believe that you forget about the difficulty of the move because you have realized what you have to do in order to hit it, and you have learned to put your body through the motions that it takes to complete it.

With regards to a triple ATW getting more dexes...I think that makes even less sense. The ADD system in place now seems logical to me in that aspect.

My two cents,
TJ