Women at Worlds

atze · Post by **atze** » 04 Aug 2004 01:00

I've moved this thread here from the worlds video's thread and will start with the two quotes that gave this thread it's name. Anyone interested may of course join Jane and my discussion:)

And props to all other routines that were on those vids and xtra big props to Carol! Almost any freestyle competitor out there could learn a heapload from her! Did you notice how she smiles almost through her entire routine? And the grace...and the style!
I still don't see any woman out there to beat her in routines. Caro, Verena, Hania, Jane and others are taking women freestyle to another level, but still need to smoothen their game in order to beat Carol. Isa, Jule and others have got the natural grace but are far from competing with her technically.

Maybe Denmarks Lise Tygensen will step up next year, she's definately got the talent.

Jan Zimmermann

I know this will sound bad, but I don't really care today. I beat Carol last year even though the placements don't show. with the old judging system (slower, yet more thorough) I would have gotten 1st without a doubt. ANd I would say about 99.5% of the people that emailed me having seen all of the top women routines last year couldn't believe i wasn't given 1st. (and i got a shit ton of email about this which made the coping process a lot longer )

if you watch (and they're still around online)...I beat isa and carol--- the judging just sucked for women's finals pool (some inexperienced, some biased). I had lowest drops (3), carol(6!), isa (8!!)...I beat everyone (including carol) in adds, difficulty ratio and execution. I was "smooth"...not choppy...just go look and compare. judging always gets f-ed at worlds. I also beat everyone in 1st round shred 30(by a lot!) last year...I just was so pissed about 2-min routine judging results that I was uncentered for final shred30 and couldn't get a good run going leaving me with an upsetting 3rd to also cope with -- oh well -- happens to us all. I beat her at our shred 30 in seattle last fall and felt semi redeemed. i watched the shred 30's for this year (including euros) and am positive I could kill those scores right now. so could caro...she just had a fluke.

I just don't think that what you say is true Jan (and this is in the argument of *footbag* and not against you...*you*, I'm cool with) You say that Carol is not beatable now until some of the up and coming talent gets more polished...it's already happening and the reason her routine (which I haven't even seen yet) is so good is because she has felt the pressure to push her game for the first time in several years...otherwise there are many on her tail that are competitive. it's a good thing because it has inspired her to give her game another push and she's awesome enough to step up her game again to another level. I have nothing but respect for Carol and think she is worthy of 1st this year, but please...not beatable...and saying that none of us are "smooth" enough right now...I'm kind of offended that you don't see my game for what it's worth. well, to me at least

okay, all that said, I'm not a good performer because i get too nervous on stage...i take results really personally and am extremely hard on myself when i do poorly to the point of sometimes never wanting to play freestyle again. you see...I, like a lot of freestylers, am the hardest judge of all on myself. I don't need other judges making me feel even worse about my game -- i do that enough already. I hear stories about Nate getting ganked, some shadey judging situations that I wont mention publicly here this year at worlds...and even in some of the pools i judged in last year at worlds. It's enough to make me never compete again and a large reason why World's didn't really sound that fun to attend this year. but unfortunately, I usually feel obligated to compete as a woman in the sport because otherwise there's not enough of us for a women's bracket and we virtually disappear eventually.

anyway, I'm kind of offended that you say i'm not "smooth" -- I would comsider myself smooth...so i'm curious how you mean... do you mean that I don't put extra non-technical, non-footbag, girly "trying to look pretty in my tight shorts" fluff in my routines? yeah, i don't do that...you will never see me do that...i don't EVER want to see womens freestyle go there and neither does Carol. why do guys have this double standard for what they judge highly in men's routines versus what they judge highly for in women's routines? I'm really sick of it!!!! (that last sentence should be ALL CAPPED) men are judged higher for technical difficulty (without non-footbag fluff) and women get judged down for it...iu mean come on...placing me first last year and then taking away enough artistic merit points from me to drop me down 2 places to a routine with 8 drops?!!! either there's a double standard going on, or there's a hell of a lot of biased (bad) judges out there.

My conclusion is that judging will never be fair because it never seems to be...so if you get ganked ever...just consider yourself not alone. last year was bad though and from what i hear...this year was no different. anyway, there are a lot of issues brought up in this that each have a LARGE vast tangent for me to go off on, so I'm not going to unless someone wants to address one of them specifically.

wow...I guess I'm putting this all right here in this one thread...I also wanted to say to a comment I read somewhere by Max about how few women were at worlds. "EXACTLY!!!" that's why shreditas.com
I think European's is the World Championships for women. maybe us US/Canadian girls will start spending our money to go to EUros rather than worlds. not enough women serious enough about footbag to spend thousands of dollars to fly to worlds other than me, carol, caro, sunny, patris and maybe a couple of others i forgot.

damn, i just dug myself a big fat hole... let me have it!

P.S. Huge props and congrats to Carol, Verena (glad she could make it to represent!) and Sunny. I wish Caro had been on...I thought this would be her year! We all know Caro is one of the best...we don't need results to see that...heard she busted barroque twice last week...once from out of a ripwalk!!!
_________________
Jane Zerbe

atze · Post by **atze** » 04 Aug 2004 04:46

AAHHHHHHHHHH! I just took 3 hours time to write a HUGE statement and when I posted it my session had expired...now its gone...

so sorry if I don't write it all again right now. The download was probably simply that players today have the wrong rolemodells (shredders vs. routinists) and that in both men and women freestylers we need to see better performances.
you get more props for a hard routine than you get for a well presented routine (that's wrong!).
carol, jane and isa were only 1 point apart at worlds 02, any othe cmbination (except isa taking first) would have been possible too, but would also have caused discussion.
jane is smooth! only her smootheness results in years of playing (3 years ago she was not smooth), while others conciously work on their style. Verena will be smooth in three years too. If she'd work on her style (and if people would encourage her to do so instead of encouraging her to hit harder and harder tricks) she'd be smooth much sooner though.
learning ps whirl soon after you hit symp. whirl is considered cool. as opposed to learning to make the symp. whirl look good first.
people shouldn't expect to get the same props on stage as they do in a circle. it's two differnet worlds that require very different preparation.
non footbag crowds want to be entertained! footbag freestyle as it is performed today will only entertain them for a short period of time. If they've seen one tournament, the next one will look just the same to them and become boring.

RESPECT FREESTYLERS WHO PUT ON A GOOD PERFORMANCE AS MUCH AS YOU RESPECT PLAYERS WHO PUT ON A GOOD SHRED!!!!

there was more and elaborate examples...sorry.

Jan

Juana · Post by **Juana** » 04 Aug 2004 14:22

One correction...that was 2003, not 2002

Anyway...
I agree with you on your points. While it's cool to hit big tricks and push your game...players with natural ability should not overlook the fundamentals which ultimately smooths out their game, increases their consistency and lends to their overall style. This is especially important when it comes to routines. and you're right...my game did smooth out about 3-4 years ago...it was because I did a 6 month Infinity Toys tour and gave a lot of shows (3-4 per day)...that smoothed out my game a lot! Also playing for 11 years. Like you said...Verena will smooth out the longer she plays...right now she riding on her athletic ability, strength and natural talent. the rest comes with time and practice. I would like to see her take the plant out of her butterflies...that will smooth out her style.

Jan Zimmerman wrote: you get more props for a hard routine than you get for a well presented routine (that's wrong!).

This is true to an extent. While the artistic aspect is important in routine, the 2minutes should not be so inflated with non-footbag presentation (dance, props, etc) that it isn't even what it is...an athletic sport competition (footbag, not theatre arts). It is possible to do a technical routine artistically to music...without dance, without props. To me, I see the art in how a player can hit a trick(s) to the music...style and flow of tricks change with the music...I love that kind of stuff. that's how mulroney and vasek can be so technical and still have high artistic merit points.

That brings us to the thing I want to really talk about is how women's is judged on a totally different standard than men's. it's messed up! I have lots of examples and it's detrimental to the sport -- either men need to get less technical and more artistic for routine to do well, or women more technical and less artistic for routine. it has created a double standard and women and men are not awarded points for the same reasons. Should we really award points for what looks more like a drill team dance routine --this is what is happening to womens routine. Most of your may not notice this problem because you're all competing in men's brackets, you actually lose points where you could be packing adds in. Alex Zerbe would place higher in a women's pool...Vasek would place lower in women's pool. that's what I'm getting at. that's an exagerated example, but it demonstrates my point. I've talked a lot about this double standard with Carol and we both agree we would like to see a single standard and not see women playing the cute girl/tease card to get more points from male judges (saw a lot of that happening at Worlds in 2003..puleaaase...this is a sports event, let's not have a strip tease!).

edit: keep in mind that i wasn't at worlds this year, so my opinion is based on pre-2004 worlds.

atze · Post by **atze** » 05 Aug 2004 03:43

Hi Jane,

kind of my point is I think, that I would like to see mens frestyle judged more like womens freestyle, in the sense that you state it.

I think no "modern" footbager has ever gone into any depth of where the presentational aspect of footbag freestyle can be taken. And I don't necessarily mean gimmics, props, or other "non footbag" stuff.
Just look at your average player today. When performing they are so focused on the bag and on the technical stuff there is absolutely nothing that justifies them performing in front of an audience. We might as well hold the World Champs in a closed room with no spectators, record the routine on tape and evaluate the technical stuff to the last add. That's how important the crowd seems to be to the people performing.
Women in the past have always been the ones that didn't step on stage to play for their own benefit. They've always known that they are playing for the audience and the judges. And that is what I have always loved about women freestyle. I don't care that Isa droppes a couple or times because although she droppes I have tons more fun (as well as the audience) watching her routine that seeing the average male 2min shred routine. And this is no bull! Take any competition that Isa has performed in and she has always been one of the crowd favorites. No matter if she places 1st, second or 5th. The same is true for Jule Böhm. And it's not their technical ability but it's also not their "good looks" that make them crowd favorites. It's the fact that they are good performers. They're not GREAT performers, but they are far above the average freestyler. Kind of like Ole or Jan Struz.
Of course Isa, Jule, Ole and Jan S. cannot expect their performing talents to win them tournaments anymore because their technical skills are nowadays so far behind the other competitors (OK, Jan Struz I think could still go really far if he would party less and sleep more at competitions). But I do think performance should give you not only an edge over the other competitors but count just as much as technical ability.
In this sense I think womens routines as well as doubles routines have always been judged more "sensibly" than mens routines.

And I don't understand why this feeling of exclusively always comes into these discussions, as if it shouldn't be possible to present a routine that is both highly technical AND crowd pleasing.
But while everybody is constantly pushing the technical side, everybody is ignoring the presentation. After all, it's a bitch to prepare a good presentational routine and you don't get props in your circle for it.
One minute of Vasek or Ryan on stage shred is enough to convince me that they are technically damn good players. Why can't they use the rest of the 2min to add some entertainment to it? And I mean quality entertainment. Something that combines skill and show. They could go sooo f-in far with their skill. But they don't because nobody makes it necessary for them to do so.
How often do good freestylers practice routines nowadays? Usually they practice enough to barely be able to hit all the moves they've planned without dropping too many times. They don't waste more than a second on presentation. At utmost they stall the bag at some point and take a peak at the audience (*APPLAUSE*).
And then we have a few natural performers who get dissed simply because thy can do naturally what others would have to work for. Therefore their skills shouldn't count?!?
Why? Vasek has naturally been able to go on stage and hit anything he wanted. Everybody else has to work hard to be able to hit even their midrange tricks consistntly on stage. While Vasek is cheered as the "golden child", people like Ole, Dexter, Alex are dubbed "clowns" and Isa, Jule, etc. are reduced to their "good looks".

The way I see the developement right now, in about 3-5 years time we'll have 10 Vaseks in the worlds final. Everyone doing the same stuff, just to different music. It will be sooo boring! Once a non footbag audience has seen the first 3 competitors it will have seen everything. There will be no need for a spectator to come to a second championship after he's seen the first.

There will still be no money in the sport, players will still not be able to make a living off of it and major tournaments will still be held in front of a handfull of freinds and family.

And a last point: I've seen Verena playing on many occasions now and I realize that she is young and new to the sport, so I in no way whatsoever want to disrespect her. She will learn and she will grow, I am sure of that. But watching her routines today I have to say that I don't necessarily enjoy watching them. This would be OK if she was like number 25 in the world. But she is European Championess and now ranked No. 2 in the World. This means that she is a major representative of the sport of footbag in the world. But show her routine to any professional performing athelete and they will think it's a joke. She doesn't look confident, she doesn't look as if she's enjoying herself, it looks improvised at many points, the few points where she actually has some choreography are not tight, there's no theme or anything an audience can recognize and relate to, there's no build up and release of tension, etc., etc.
This might be hard for Verena should she read it (but I know that she will take the criticism for what it is) but the same criticism holds true for 99.9999% of freestyle routines on the market today.
And that's a problem I had to cope with as a competitive player but now also have to cope with as a tournament director, which is even worse.

Juana · Post by **Juana** » 05 Aug 2004 09:21

GREAT post Jan. I like it when modified hs something worth reading. You actually have me semi-convinced and believe me, Alex and I argue this point over and over again each year. He's on your side. And you forgot to mention yourself amongst the excellent performers. Your styly hat stuff is off-the-hook...and I like it because, while prop oriented, it is done in such a way that it is technically a footbag trick...not just a hat trick with no footbag involved. I would also throw Sam Conlon in there...but it bothers me that someone with Sam's performance skills could still take home a title if she competed with really low technical skills and the same routine she used to do year after year. you should have *both* in your routine to do well...not one or the other. That's why carol finally took the title from her for good...she was able to do both...smooth performance and technical difficulty.

Just to be sure -- I wasn't implying that Jule and Isa ride on their good looks they are 2 of my favorite European shredders to watch. I was referring to some other stuff I saw. I was surprised that you say Isa is not technically near the top...last I saw her, she shredded hard in the circles and hits some tricks effortlessly that are quite difficult for me to hit...she just dropped too many times in her finals routine. I figured if she had competed at Euros, she would have won. And I agree, i get bored watching routines where people shred, *stop* *look up* *look down* *shred again*. It's like a shred 120 with pauses. Before Shred 30 became an official event, I liked routines to be more more technical. Now that we have an event dedicated to shred, it should become less important for routines I guess.

And while I'm rambling...what ever happened to the drop? The new system doesn't emphsize how important a dropless routine is. Performance-wise (artistic merit and technical merit) a drop is EVERYTHING. A drop is poor execution. A drop takes away continuity and flow from your routine. A drop is technically less difficult. A drop should hurt you a lot in routine. a drop hurt you a lot more in the old system as it should. what about quantifying drops again? deduct points off your score (.25?) for each drop...then look at the overall ranking. or something to that effect.

really, most of these issues can be resolved with better judges on the panel. they are things all good judges are aware of and take into consideration when scoring. the problem is getting people to commit. I know I even shirked out of one pool in 2003 because I was pissed that I had been assigned to judge for 2 hours right before my shred30 pool which i was *assured* would not happen if i judged while being a competitor (and I was encouraged to judge so that the panel would not be all male).

The BIG issue is how to make players see that Shred30 is for shred and routine is for performance (and some shred

) The only way to really enforce this is to make sure it is judged this way. so start judging the men more like the women. but let's teach people to be consistent across pools. otherwise, let's judge the women the same as the men. hopefully just reading these threads will help influence that. it's the judges that show the players what they like to see...the players will play in whatever way gets them the better scores. sort of a chicken/egg situation.

I will think about what you said when/if I prepare my next routine!

The good thing that comes out of all of this is it forces one to take a step back and ask why they play in the first place when results aren't always fair -- we play to have fun...not for the results. But it doesn't mean that we shouldn't re-evaluate the system each year to see what improvments it could still use. Talking about it is good...little by little it improves. I love having quick results. and it's great having Shred30 because it is one event that leaves subjectivity completely out of the equation. (so long as they score the women correctly which has been an issue at almost every event I've competed at --2s are not unique!)

Peace out.

verena · Post by **verena** » 05 Aug 2004 11:41

this is my second post on modified, and i usually don't really like posting on here.
so, however, thanks to jan for being open-minded (it wasn't something that i enjoyed to read, but i appreciate it.)

about euros: i've beaten isa twice so far (podersdorf and footjam), but i also think like jane with my routine at euro's isa would have won. i was really unhappy with my finals routine. especially, because usually this shouldn't be enough to become european champion.

about worlds: my finals routine was better than semis. i had four drops and it went okay. i actually had a routine (trick for trick) in copenhagen and montreal, but both times it didn't work out.

i also agree that i have to work on my style.
though i think that hitting hard tricks and pushing women's freestyle is good. with other players in europe like hania and lise women's freestyle is getting better and better. also, when isa got to know how hania and me improved she pushed herself harder which basically is a good thing. i hope you agree on that.
.
..
.
i don't know if my post made sense, but i felt like i really needed to comment it, since there was so much stuff written about me and it's strange to read all this stuff and shut up.

~verena

Juana · Post by **Juana** » 05 Aug 2004 15:37

Hey Verena! It's good to hear what you think...I was hoping you'd chime in. I had forgotten that you beat Isa at other events...thanks for reminding me and major props on that. I know it can be difficult to listen to people constructively criticize...that's how I ended up getting heated up enough to start this thread in the first place.

Well, here is what I admire about your game...you approach freestyle routine more like the men do...more how I would myself with a routine. I like to watch shred choreographed to music. Though, I hear what Jan is saying and I know that ultimately routine is about the performance aspect of footbag...I just don't feel like myself when I put on some act for an audience with props and gimmicks. It's not my style and I feel like footbag should be treated more as a sport, and less as an art. That's just me though...I know that it's different for others. I do however see art in shredding to music...some people don't see that without a prop or gimmick...it frustrates me.

I like that you shred and push your game hard...that's how I like to approach footbag too. in fact, just ask anyone that knows me if I've ever had a planned routine...*ever*. that's right, never...I hate doing them. I perform better without one because I can relax. I actually had one for World's 2003, but I decided not to use it because if i got too nervous, I wouldn't be able to execute it well with few drops.

So, this is something I brought up last year and it sort of went by the wayside. How about "overall champions"...as in a composite score of routine and shred30 scores. as it is now, the real champion is usually the one the wins routine -- shred30 is just treated as a side category. how about making them equally important. maybe then people would really distinguish between routine and shred when they prepare for competition.

cclaudia · Post by **cclaudia** » 05 Aug 2004 20:08

man, after reading some posts made on this thread.... it made feel as though i shouldn't have competed... and gives me some feelings of not wanting to compete again

i was so happy with my decision to compete... i basically only decided to compete two days before the actual competition at the very last minute... and did it only to see what it was like and for fun.... not to try and beat anyone ... so all that didn't really apply to me as much as it did to others (it will if i decide to keep on competing).
as much as i respect jane and jan's opinions and everything they say, this post sucked all the fun part that i feel of competition and made me think to myself "so i should only compete to satisfy the standards of judges and spectators?". what made the competition fun and worth it for me, was the feeling i had once i stepped off the stage... my routine was shit... i pretty much made it up on the spot and it was not artistic at all, but i was still happy with what i gave, i made some long strings and hit a new move that i was really hoping to hit. what made it fun to me was that i reached some personal goals that i was aiming for.
but reading this whole post made me feel pretty bad... made me feel as though i shouldn't be happy at all with what i did because it was not "entertaining" enough to watch to the trained (judges) eye, and just not what a "world's calaber" routine should have been. if i had read something like this before worlds.... i definately wouldn't have competed....so the last thing i'd like to mention is.... to all those girls who might have felt discouraged by this thread... do your personal best and i'll be cheering you on no matter where you place.

(sorry if my post didn't make any sence.... it's hard for me to organize my many thoughts! oh and, this is all just my personal opinion, no one take anything personally if found offensive)

Juana · Post by **Juana** » 05 Aug 2004 20:22

Hey Claudia! If you had fun going up there and gave your personal best, then props! That's what it's all about - you should feel good about what you did. We're just analyzing the judging system and I've pointed out that men are judged differently than women. I think we should be judged based on the same standard. That's the main point for this "Women's at World's" thread that actually got moved from its original thread under videos. It also got cut up and put partially into "Juding at World's" which is more about the overall problems with the system and not so much in relation to women's pools. I definitely recommend that you don't read that thread if you didn't like this one!

I was wasn't at world's this year though, so maybe it was not this way this year, but it always has been in the past.

I'm about finished with this topic...I've got a life outside of modified to tend to.

atze · Post by **atze** » 06 Aug 2004 00:22

Hi Jane, Verena and Claudia!

I'll settle this discussion with my last post as well:)

concerning drops: yes, drops are and should be imprortant, since they really cause a break in the routine and that's bad for both presentation and tech. Personally I would rather see more players go droppless in their routine by simply tuning down on difficulty. I think a lot of drops aare caused because players try to push their game too far in a routine, when they actually don't have the skill to do so.
For me a perfect routine is one where you are 100% SURE you will hit everything you've planned (so if you drop at all, that's really only down to bad luck). So when you practice the routine you should go droppless every single time. Once you've reached that stage with your routine you should start working on the presentational aspect, adding some gimmics (footbag related), freezes, work on getting a smile on your face while you play, etc.

but anyway, rambling again:)

Thanks Verena for seeing my criticism as constructive. ANd don't take it too seriously! TO make a point I usually over emphasise stuff. I know how hard you work on yourself and I am sure you will be among the best women freestylers this world has ever seen and will proove it on stage many times!
I do agree that finally Isa sees that she has to continue working on her skill. She had become very sattisfied at just being the best there was in europe. I hope she will take up the challenge you "new girls" have presented her and continue to play and work on her game.

@claudia: I'm sorry you feel this post is discouraging you from competing!!! It is my strongest feeling that everybody should compete at every chance possible. No matter what your skill level. Like Jane said, in the end it's for yourself! It's a great experience (as you noticed) and what I love about the footbag scene is that people really respect the effort you're making, even if you're a newbie.
I'm talking here about the top men and women freestylers who compete for the big titles. I think if you really want to be at the top you should be expectd to put some serious effort into your routine that is, make sure that it is both technically challenging as well as fun to watch for an audience.
Of course I don't expect players who compete in their first tournaments to have a perfect routine. First you have to gather experience, get used to being on stage, etc. Not having a routine actually helps you at first (as Jane said, it helps you relax), or rather it is better most of the time. But if you want to be top notch you should be able to perform a choreograophed routine anyway.

Bla, bla, bla, enough said. All girls (actually anybody) reading this and feeling discouraged about competing. DON'T! Ask anybody in my clubs in Berlin, Zürich or the guys and girls in Switzerland, I'm always the first to encourage people to compete at every chance available. And quite a few have thanked me for pushing them on stage afterwards;)

Out!

mouseman · Post by **mouseman** » 06 Aug 2004 08:11

I liked Verena's play. Clipperbased, hard tricks. That's the attitude womens need generally. Push up the difficulty, believe in yourself.

mentor · Post by **mentor** » 08 Aug 2004 04:43

Hi Jane

I was judging Women’s finals along with Mads Neuhard last year at Worlds. Therefore I find it necessary to comment on your post on the subject. I hope you will not take it personally just as I do not take it personally when you call us inexperienced or biased.

Most of your tricks in your routine were crispy or too low in the set. In my opinion that is some of your weak points as a player. The judges might have taken that in consideration and given you less in difficulty/execution, artistic/ smoothness. I would love to see your game being lifted up and it would add to your style as well. I don’t think your routine had the most interesting combination/ mixture of tricks to the music. You had though the lowest number of drops and a good day on the floor but you were in my opinion (now as well as then) not the Female World Champion in Singles Freestyle last year.

I hope you can use my answer and it is unfortunately not possible to kill results

Mads Hole

Juana · Post by **Juana** » 08 Aug 2004 19:04

Hey Mads, what's up!

thanks for your explanation, though it only confirms to me that you're in the .5% I was talking about

I'll give you that my rank was debateable between 1st and 2nd, but not 1st and 3RD!! I was actually ranked #1 overall on the technical merit card as it should have been. where i got robbed was on artistic merit. and while I understand your reasons, i disagree with parts of them. I actually placed 1st overall above Isa...they showed it on the overhead. It was after Carol (last routine) when that I shockingly got dropped down not 1, but 2 places...why, because Carol took some of my artistic merits points and not Isa's...carol didn't take many of my technical points (which was correct). but a 6 drop routine with lower adds & difficulty was not enough to beat my routine...and certainly not enough to drop me from 1st down 2 places below Isa who had a whopping 8 drops. but you have your right to your opinion, and me mine

The point here is that one can NOT have good presentation for a high artistic merit card with lots of drops. drops are EVERYTHING. in any sport, a drop is fatal...it doesn't look good to drop, you lose time with a drop, you lose your place in your routine, you lack flow and continuity...DROPS are HUGE. ANd if you look at the points they look like this:
---------------------------------- technical --- artistic
1. Carol Wedemeyer (US) ---- 1 1 1 2 3 2 --- 3 2 2 2 2 2 --- 23
2. Isabelle Widmer (CH) ---- 3 3 3 3 2 3 --- 2 1 1 1 1 1 --- 24
3. Jane Zerbe (US) ----- 2 1 2 1 1 1 --- 1 3 4 3 3 3 --- 25

how is it posible that someone who drops 8 (that's 8!) times!!! gets almost ALL 1's for artistic merit. give me a break!!! and you'll see i beat both on technical, so it's artistic that lost me the 1st place. where carol has 2's, she took them from me (dropping my 2's to 3's) and not from isa so isa pretty much stayed where she was at while I dropped WAY down. Who's this "4" judge? if they had judged even in the ball park with other judges, we would have had some ties. I'm still holding to bad judging pool on women's finals...this is all subjective anyway, so I can do that, right?

Anyway, maybe it wasn't your card that cost me the spot, but it was that lowball judge (yes, one low-ball was enough to make a difference between 1st & 3rd when you consider Carol, Isa and I were only seperated by 1 pt each.)

Not *all* all judges were bad for my pool, just a handful...and that's bogus to say my sets were all low ...it's online & i just watched it, and sets aren't all low when they are, it's as i regain control and save from dropping...also...i don't play crispy, so who were you watching

http://www.shreditas.com/vids/worlds200 ... ds2003.wmv

...I'm actually very leggy when I kick. ANyway, this is all water under the bridge, but I still pull examples from it to apply to these judging debates. it sounds to me like your just not a fan of my style...and that's the subjective part...nothing i can do about that.

ANother detail that has not been mentioned is that your group was not supposed to be judging women's open. some kid, can't remember who threw a fit to steve goldberg about intermediate not getting to go again on finals night, so Steve allowed intermediate to go again...thus, the judges that were supposed to be judging women's open ended up judging intermediate...and we got stuck with the less experienced pool of judges (while maybe not all of them were inexperienced). that's the story I was told anyway. which brings up a whole other topic that steve has pretty much rudely befriended me over so i care not to get into it again.

that's all from me...this is just making me look bad and this was over a year ago. i just took it very hard because i had skooled my friggin' ass off that entire 02/03 year...thought it would be my year. but as people point out, it was a personal best for me, so i should feel good about that...it doesn't really matter what the judges thought.

another thing...this thread wasn't supposed to be about me last year, but about the double standard in how men are judged versus women. isa got second with extremely low technical...i got 3rd with the highest technical and best execution. in mens, it would have been the other way arond. *that* is precisely what I was trying to get people to discuss. so let's go there and move away from what happened in 03. are we going to judge men more like women or women more like men...the double standard is really enfuriating.

Peace.

jon · Post by **jon** » 08 Aug 2004 19:34

There is some interesting stuff in this thread about how shred 30 should be for shred and routines for performance but for me there is still a big problem with this. Personally I much prefer shred on beat for a routine as too much performance just seems like the old school hippies chasing the bag around a grass field or some form of bloughchi. But getting back to what I wanted to say, with only shred 30 and routines I do not believe there is a place for good shred to be judged. Shred 30 is all about adds and I think we all know adds mean nothing. If routines are to be for performances rather than shred where is the event where someone can hit really styly, hard moves and be rewarded? I would like to see an event with something like a one minute shred where adds are not counted but the judging is totally based on technical aspects. Right now some one could do an entire shred 30 of vortex, grifters, reapers, and triple around the worlds and lose to someone doing ripwalks, sidewalks, ect... and this is a shame in my opinion. Having one event based on adds and one for performance is fine but there needs to be a place for shredders to show off cool shred and not have to worry about add hunting or toe stalling and looking for applause.

Juana · Post by **Juana** » 08 Aug 2004 19:42

Good points Jon...i hadn't really thought of it that way. I'm with you though... i like routines without the gimmicks and old skool hippy tricks. I'm on your side...i see the artistic end of shredding with the music versus just shredding and trying to get high adds and uniques. somehow i think we're out numbered though. but men's freestyle is definitely judged more in this way...for example, Vasek does really well in artistic when really he's just shredding to the music. in women's bracket, he would place extremely low on his artistic card.

i do think it's important in routine to have variety...use of floor plane and vertical space (low, medium and highset tricks...fliers). you can have this while being technical and not appearing too bloughchi-ish. routine seems to be evolving into this stand in one place and shred unless your chasing the bag...occassionaly stop and look up at audience...repeat. that's not routine.

ptaku · Post by **ptaku** » 09 Aug 2004 05:55

I agree with you Juana. I see your point about juding women and men freestyle. And about routines too. Routies should be build on style and synchronization shred to the music. This is sport (at least for me). Not circus or theather.

atze · Post by **atze** » 09 Aug 2004 07:13

I hope nobody read into my words that I want freestyle routines to be "circus" or "theatre". I don't think breakdancers for instance would consider what they do circus or anything.
It's sport combined with music and choreography.

freestyle routines should be similar, with a little less choreography because there's not as much possibilities as in breakdance.

admittedly the best routines are those where

-you notice that some thoughts have gone into the composition of the routine (trick wise, combo wise, music wise, etc.)

-there's tempo changes in the music for different styles of play or elements of the routine

-the routine has a build up of tension that is either all released at the end or released at different points throughout the routine

-the audience can relate to the routine in some way and will remember specific parts of it simply when they hear the song again

-you actually notice that the player is playing for the audience and not only his own benefit (i.e. most freestylers don't even bother to face the front of the stage most of the time during their routine, don't aknowlege the audience before and after their routine, etc.)

-etc.

Not to mention that it is probably unheard of in any other sport that the contestants perform on stage wihtout any thought of their apearance. so you get all these sweaty, barechested, unshaven, dirty socked people apearing on the stage at a world championship final, where people pay hard cash to enter...very unprofessional!

I want to stress: NOBODY wants routines to be clownish or stuff like that. I get the impression people always think that's what I and others want. But it is not so. I at least only want the freestylers to wrap their athletic abilities into a better packaging.
We have a bunch of uncut diamonds out there all they need is to cut their game into facets and they will SPARKLE!

Juana · Post by **Juana** » 09 Aug 2004 08:41

I watched 2004 semi-finals...Yacine captures exactly what i think it should be about. he does performance technically to his music...that's what i like to see in routine more than the "theater" stuff, and I think that's what you're siding for too, right Jan? Although, I don't mind when the gimmicky stuff doesn't interfere with the routine...like Jule's Euro finals...she sets up the sign, does her little interaction with the audience in the beginning...but then does her routine without the gimmicks so that they don't distract you from the technical aspect. otherwise, I think gimmicks should be integrated technically...like who you, Jan, when you shred with your hat, almost as if it's worthy of an extra add

that stuff is some of the coolest ever and very original.

ptaku · Post by **ptaku** » 09 Aug 2004 11:30

Yeah... now I know that we have similar thoughts about good routine... Sorry Jan, Earlier I understood your posts not fullcorrect. For me routine should be like Vasek routine on TDX vol. 5, where he shred perfectly to the beat, or like Ryan routines when he change game speed when the rythm is faster or slower. Routines should have elements like these... If I showed Vasek's Tdx5 routine to my grandmother he said that this is great and very artistic, that his moves are very harmoniously with the music. And my grandmother don't know anything about technical merit... Anda Yacine's routine is another ex...

And to artistic merit should cover the game fluency. Fluency generally = style and NO DROPS. I think that 1,2 or 3 drops shouldn't change artistic merit note, but if someone have many drops (I can't mark how many) then fluency is worse and artistic merit is worse...

atze · Post by **atze** » 09 Aug 2004 23:08

Just my final note:
I think Yacine definately went in the right direction in his semi final routine. And I promise you, that if Yacines routine is judged as "the standard" in good presentation, at the next worlds we will see 40 routines like it. But actually what he did was kind of the easiest way to add some presentational apect to his routine and not overly creative or unusual.

anyway, in my eyes that was only a first step towards better presented routines. Ryan and since about a year also Vasek are going in the right direction too. But things could be much better if people thought more about presentation when they prepare their routines...

btw the best routine I've ever seen was Lons "black and white" routine at worlds 2001. I'd like to see more of that kind.