No Shred30 at Worlds - Poll

[professor]

This might sound as defeatist but who cares? It's not like it's actually going to change the way footbag is played, or force players to stop playing now that Shred 30 isn't there.

Kudos to them for actually trying a change instead of bickering for ever over a forum and not doing anything. I'm sure once at Worlds people will whisper about it behind the organizers backs, or perhaps make some polite inquires, but then that'll be that.

Of course, I'm not going, but I wouldn't care even if I did. There's only about 5 people who should care, and that's the same 5ish or so people who consistently score over 200.

I agree.

[Ners]

You are right, Laroche, the people who care the most, are those, who are actually able to score more then 200, and hope to win a medal at Worlds. Which, for some people, is an important thing.

That's why, even though I don't have the power to make Worlds organizers run Shred30 (even IFPA can't do that, because routines are the only mandatory discipline), I will try to do my best to convince them that cancelling that event is not a good decision. And judging from the results of the poll I will be speaking not only on the behalf of Polish shredders. By the way, thanks to everyone who voiced their opinion in the poll!

Pozdrawiam
Szymon Kałwak (Ners)

[Tsiangkun]

Shred contest is also a way for people who don't do choreographed presentations and rehearsed strings to measure their raw game and get a number. A player can compare that score against any score from any player from any other event.

[Laroche]

To have any chance to compete you have to have a rehearsed string, and if you don't you're going to get some random number which doesn't really reflect your game at all.

Unless I misunderstood your comment, Tsiangkun?

[Tsiangkun]

Sure, to compete and win.

IMO, A lot of people who attend events don't care to win, work on a routine, or a rehearsed string, but would still like to take part in something. Shred contest lets anyone who wants to get a number have their chance, and then they can talk about how they did.

It's a way to get more people to fork over money to tournaments.

I'd wager that most people going to worlds are interested in the social aspect of hanging out and playing with the shredders from around the world, more than showing off a rehearsed string. Like people said, only about 5 people have any chance of winning, but lots of people want to be at worlds.

[professor]

You don't have to plan routines, just bring a song with you and shred.

Also, if MOST people go to Worlds for the socializing, then they won't care if Shred30 is canceled or not.

[Tsiangkun]

I don't think it is fair to the judges and spectators to make them watch a 2 minute unrehearsed drop fest.

a 30 second drop fest at least goes by quickly.

[Laroche]

I would say Circles covers the whole "Don't have anything choreographed but want to compete" aspect covered pretty well, and if there has been complaints about the judges in Circles, it's been pretty rare, or at least I haven't heard much about it.

[Tsiangkun]

I really like the circle contest for that reason, good point.

[Outsider]

and if there has been complaints about the judges in Circles, it's been pretty rare, or at least I haven't heard much about it.

Hell, I'll complain about it right now. I've judged a couple of Circle Contests in the last 7 or 8 months, and I think they can be very difficult to judge. I mean, not every time, but it can often be tough alot of the time. Besides the subjective part, its also a fight against one's own memory. By the time the fourth competitor has gone, it can be hard to remember just what the first or second competitor did, and you can wind up just putting people in order based on your "impression" of how they did in a given round, when you're really not sure anymore what you were basing that impression on. I mean, come on... Just a few months ago I was judging a Final round of circle with Clavens, Flash, and Somolinos, and it was hard as hell to feel like I was certain or accurate in any way after any given round. And its not merely about getting the First Place ranking correct -- its just as important to get 2nd and 3rd place right, and just as hard. I was just fortunate that the fourth guy in the circle wasn't also putting up really stiff competition that day, but, it could have been that kind of circle -- it could have been a circle where its hard to accurately distinguish between first and third, between second and forth, between second and third - all at once.

Hey, I think the Circle Competition is fun, and maybe its some kind of great innovation in footbag competition, but, speaking from experience, its definitely not always easy to judge well. And if anybody feels very different about that, please talk to me soon so you can help me learn how to properly judge that damn contest.

Oh, and Nick,
I pretty much agreed with you when you said:

This might sound as defeatist but who cares? It's not like it's actually going to change the way footbag is played, or force players to stop playing now that Shred 30 isn't there.

Pesonally, I wouldn't get upset at most tournments based on what events were or weren't offered. Whatever, ya know... any event can be fun to compete in. But... I completely disagree with your reasoning when you said:

Of course, I'm not going, but I wouldn't care even if I did. There's only about 5 people who should care, and that's the same 5ish or so people who consistently score over 200.

I just don't believe it makes that much of a difference if you're one of the 5 or ten best Shred30 competitors in the world or not. That very notion is total BS. I think people like Shred30 because they can compete against themselves and their own previous personal best score, regardless of what that score is. For instance, I've fairly consistently scored about 180 in Shred30 since about 2004 (not every time, of course, some rounds I just screw up bad, but I've usually been able to pull off a few good rounds like that in competition each year - I haven't competed yet this year...) and I'm fairly sure that with the right practice I can surpass this plateau I've been stuck at -- significantly surpass it. And if I ever manage to get myself back up off my lazy ass, I'd like a chance to try. That is to say, you've just arbitrarily declared that being able to surpass 200 points in Shred30 is some kind of significant acheivement, and now I want to take a crack at that goal myself, and why shouldn't I? I'd say I'm not that far from that goal, and its clearly fairly easy to mark one's progress towards one's goals with an event (and scoring system) like that, as opposed to saying "I want to do better at the Circle Contest and/or Routines". I mean, you can't really score yourself in practice at those, and you can't really track your ability or progress over the years at those, except maybe to say "I used to always drop, like, 5 times in each routine, and this past year I had a few rounds where I only dropped 2 times each - I must be getting better." And I think this goes for just about any shredder and any number that somebody arbitrarily decides is a significant Shred30 score. For instance, just a few posts back, Ansi and Kyle wrote this little exchange:

Who the heck voted yes?

If you never got over, say, 170 points in Shred30, don't bother voting.

damn... 166... so close!

And, again Anz just sort of arbitrarily decided what a significant Shred30 score is, and Kyle is now probably thinking that his short-term competitive goal is to blow past 170, something he's pretty close to doing. So who is Nick Laroche to say "forget those goals, they're lame and unimportant" ?

[Laroche]

Damn you and your long posts Jon.

I've judged a couple of Circle Contests in the last 7 or 8 months, and I think they can be very difficult to judge. I mean, not every time, but it can often be tough alot of the time. Besides the subjective part, its also a fight against one's own memory.

Yeah, this makes sense to me. Perhaps if circles had more rounds with less strings each it would become a bit easier to judge? The event is quite new and modifications like that aren't hard to do. It would also give the players a bit of an extra breather and we'd see some higher levels of play, I think.

Even then, as a judge you should be taking some notes when possible, I think. And I would also argue that judging Shred 30 ACCURATELY is just as difficult, regarding uniques, and ESPECIALLY with your strings, Outsider... and it's a given that it's more time consuming. Of course, this would only matter if there were non-footbaggers actually watching and caring about what happens, which has happened in years.... but that's a different topic.

Bunch of stuff saying that when Laroche and Anz gave 170 and 200 as examples it was BS

I gave 200 because it has a nice ring to it, and generally the top 7 or so scores in Shred30 each year are above that score. If your not hitting those scores you're generally not going to crack top 10 or top 5... again, rough numbers, 170-200 is *roughly, vaguely* in the same league.

Maybe we just have different ideas of what competition really means? I'd rather have one event that could say, overall, who is the better freestyler, and by better I would include all sub-disciplines within it: Difficulty, Links, Creativity, Style (Yes, Style is important.), as opposed to multiple events to distinguish the best in each of those sub-disciplines, like with running (Sprints, Marathons, etc).... that example came up on some thread sort-of related to this and I think it's relevant.

I could see something like that happening if there were enough players and no one could agree on what makes a good freestyler, but for today's game I don't see it as necessary, just like I don't see Shred 30 as anything of an indicative of how "well" you shred. And if it's not an indicative of how well you shred, what's the point? Modifying your game to fit an arbitrary system that's only used in about 2-3 different competitions in the world, about 2-3 times a year?

[Outsider]

Damn you and your long posts Jon.

I am genuinely sorry for that. I'm just unable to keep things breif. Its a character flaw...

Perhaps if circles had more rounds with less strings each it would become a bit easier to judge?

Maybe... Worth considering.

as a judge you should be taking some notes when possible,

Completely agree, but thats not always easy. #1, its hard to write when you've got to keep your eyes on the players, and it doesn't seem right to make the next competitor wait to start their string while you write down notes, and #2, really good players will often do ALOT that is noteworthy in almost every string. That could amount to a hell of a lot of note-taking after each run.

and it's a given that it's more time consuming.

Also totally agree -- scoring Shred30 is a royal pain. Its like, doing HOMEWORK or something And to think, years ago I used to enjoy doing that stuff. - But then, there is always some newb who will want to help do it. On the other hand, can you trust some newbs to do it right?

Maybe we just have different ideas of what competition really means? I'd rather have one event that could say, overall, who is the better freestyler, and by better I would include all sub-disciplines within it: Difficulty, Links, Creativity, Style (Yes, Style is important.), as opposed to multiple events to distinguish the best in each of those sub-disciplines, like with running (Sprints, Marathons, etc)....

Hmmm... I hadn't thought of it like that in a long time. I'd say that I actually usually FORGET to think that a competition is trying to determine the best freestyler. I guess its just that starting at least ten years ago I'd stopped thinking of competition as really judging the best freestyler. For one thing, ten years ago everything besides the 2-Minute Routine was virtually BRAND NEW and seemed pretty experimental

(except Shred, which wasn't totally new, but it was just about ten years ago now that they started to count Uniques and the ADD Ratio -- before that Shred contests were very rare [mostly only held at Funtastiks and I've only heard rumors and hints that it might have occasionally been run at some other events] and were scored purely on RAW ADDs, so everybody would do combos like whirl > whirl > whirl > whirl > butterfly > butterfly > butterfly > swirl > swirl > swirl > butterfly > butterfly > butterfly, etc. [the rules were, usually, that you could ONLY DO 5 OF THE SAME MOVE IN A ROW... it's just that nobody had yet thought of a formula to award adds AND uniques. I think it was Eric Wulff who invented the current formula about ten or eleven years ago] and it was obvious back then that because of that the original Shred contest was kind of whack and thus wasn't taken too seriously)

and shredders like me and Eli and Red and Dave would hang around and talk about who was the best regardless of who was winning competitions, and we'd always revisit and re-think our TOTALLY UNOFFICIAL little "top 5" list.

[(Big Add Chad was sometimes on that list, and he rarely did very well in competition. His game was just so cool... [blurry blenders just weren't that common yet...] [, and some of the best players, like Ahren German, just didn't compete all that often [Dave Holton, like, NEVER competed until we started doing shred contests more {Colorado Shred Symposium 1, started by Eli, Dave, Red, and me, was the first big tournament ever <so> to focus exclusively on the Shred contest - and that was only eight years ago} , he just thought that routines were fruity and stupid, and he just liked to shred hard, and personally I was glad that there was an event he didn't shun, so that he'd get out there and whup some ass, 'cause he could regulate...] ) .

So, I guess, ever since then I haven't even really thought of competitions as determining who the best freestylers were, but rather, there was an official result for who the best prepared competitors were, and an unofficial (varying and personal) list of who the best players were, and I haven't often thought about the need to find an event to combine those two categories. But thats just me. Now that you've reminded me, it might be a worthy goal - to compete to see who the best players really are. But then again, after all this time, I'm not too concerned about it. I'm still comfortable with my whole "Show them how clever, creative, and well-prepared you are" approach to competition.

Damn you and your long posts Jon.

Oops, did it again... sorry. I just can't help myself.

[Rieferman]

When I watch skateboarding competitions (like X-Games etc.) I notice that they have scores immediately after each person's run. I read the rules, and it looks to me like it's basically "The judges are skaters, or ex-skaters, and understand what's awesome and what's not. Scores are given based on who goes the hardest."

Pretty simple. I'm sure there's controversy sometimes, but like that TO Jam circle contest vid that I watched the other day, it was pretty clear that Jorden was just going nuts.

To combat the memory problem, maybe the judges could give a 1 through 4 ranking of the circle in between each cycle. Andrew, Johnny, Penske, Jorden all play their first turn. Pause, judges quickly rank 1 through 4. Ranking is based on judge's expertise and who went the biggest, most unique, or whatever excites the players and crowd. Next cycle. When a round is done, it would be easy to see that out of 4 cycles (or 5 or whatever it was) that Jorden had 3 1st place rankings and a 2nd.

Blah blah blah.. I'm talking a lot to say this: If skateboarding, which has very complex tricks and lots of nuances, can be quickly and fairly accurately scored based basically on gut level scores from knowledgable judges, why can't footbag be judged that way? The real time feedback is fun for competitors and for crowd, and I think in most cases will be pretty damn accurate.

[Jorden]

When I watch skateboarding competitions (like X-Games etc.) I notice that they have scores immediately after each person's run. I read the rules, and it looks to me like it's basically "The judges are skaters, or ex-skaters, and understand what's awesome and what's not. Scores are given based on who goes the hardest."

...

Blah blah blah.. I'm talking a lot to say this: If skateboarding, which has very complex tricks and lots of nuances, can be quickly and fairly accurately scored based basically on gut level scores from knowledgable judges, why can't footbag be judged that way? The real time feedback is fun for competitors and for crowd, and I think in most cases will be pretty damn accurate.

Well said Rief.

[david]

You are assuming judges are knowledgeable. This is really not the case. I could go on about this for hours, but I feel the judging of this sport at non-worlds tournaments is for the most part poor (of course there are exceptions). The people most qualified to be judges are almost always the ones in the final circle/round/sick 3 line up. Footbag is so advanced and so complex that I really wonder about the judging capability of some players. I have had tiltless players judge me before. When I was tiltless I had no place sitting at a judging table.

On that note, shred 30 is good because there are no judges. Everyone is subjected to the same system, it doesn't matter to me if the system is flawed because everyone has to work under the same flaws. I like shred 30 because it makes you have variety and use both sides. I am not the biggest fan of the add system but the pluses of shred 30 are just so numerous. You can track your scores and practice with a goal in mind. You know that the 200 in your basement is a 200 on game day. In a sport as subjective as footbag this type of format to me is awesome to have.

At worlds this summer I was one of the small group to be in on the meeting to replace Shred with STP. If you look at one of Ianek's post he does say I was one of the only ones in the room who liked shred, and I still do like it. I like what STP has to offer as well. I am unsure why people are so heated about this. Just keep Shred 30 and add STP.

David

[Jeremy]

People are heated because one of the two official individual freestyle events that exist in footbag was cancelled 2 months before worlds.

What does STP have to offer that the other events don't - especially at an elite level, rather than encouraging people to compete who don't want to compete in routines?

[RawSko]

You don't have to plan routines, just bring a song with you and shred.

Apperantly, that's what Vasek did for his finals routine last summer.

[Rieferman]

david wrote:

The people most qualified to be judges are almost always the ones in the final circle/round/sick 3 line up. Footbag is so advanced and so complex that I really wonder about the judging capability of some players. I have had tiltless players judge me before. When I was tiltless I had no place sitting at a judging table.

While I'd agree that often the MOST qualified are in the circle, I wouldn't go so far as to say that there aren't very good second best choices available at most (all?) events I've been to - if there aren't good second choices available, then it's not a big event, so who really cares anyways?

I don't really know, I don't go to events anymore, I'm just saying. To bring back the skateboarding thing, same problem exists there but doesn't hold back the judging from being relatively accurate. Why would there be any difference here?

edit: The key is to making judging (and I'm talking about circle with the rule idea mentioned above) not a horrible thing to do, therefore won't be as difficult to convince good/knowledgeable players to be judges.

[C-Fan]

I've skimmed this thread, and seen a lot of good thoughts. Here are my thoughts, in no particular order.

1. Shred 30 has the advantage of being a completely objective event. Routines are subjective, shred is objective, and Circle should ideally be a mix between the two. I know there have been years at Worlds where people with horrible routines advanced simply due to popularity, and I always liked that that could not happen in Shred30. I think it is a bad idea to eliminate the one objective event at worlds.

2. To do well in routines or in Shred30, you need to plan out your entire run. You can't wing it and expect to make finals in either event.

3. I don't understand what STP measures that isn't measured in circles, shred30, or routines. In order to do well in any of these events, you need to be consistent and have variety.

4. As Dave pointed out, the add system (and consequently shred30) is flawed, but everybody competes under the same flawed system. Everybody is judged the same way, and everybody knows ahead of time what to expect.

5. I've enjoyed competing in circle, shred, and routines. One thing I will say about shred30 is that at the very least it goes quickly. Few things are worse than watching a bad routine.

6. If the purpose of STP is to measure technical ability outside the ADD system, doesn't circle already do this?

[Senor Grommet]

Shred 30 is an oxymoron, which has now completely strayed from its roots as a shred event, because it is not shred at all. It is not called "shred" when every move you hit, and the order in which you hit the moves, is pre-planned. That's a fucking routine. And I defy anyone to convince me otherwise.

For this reason and this reason alone I DESPISE shred 30. If we are to keep the event, let's at least think about changing it's name to something that is representative of the actual event.

30 Second Routine with No Crowd Acknowledgment (30SRNCA) maybe?