Nice work Nate - a very good routine! I can only imagine that the other routines in this group must have been amazing for you not to make it through! Great work anyway.
In my opinion routines are not about adds, but artistic merit and style. Some people can get up there and bust a shred 2:00, but it is not as styley as when someone gets up there and puts together a nice routine with well placed sections to the music. Granted, difficulty must be weighed when judging a routine, but if you drop 5+ times in a routine, no matter how difficult, it shouldn't be regarded as a success over a dropless routine. If you have a routine that you constantly drop due to high adds, then you should lower the difficulty so that you can keep the show going.
I felt that nates routine was very well put together. While it may not be the most difficult routine in the world, he only had 1 drop! Last year at funtastik he went dropless. Nate has a very keen awareness of what routine is appropriate for him, and how to put it together in a near dropless routine. It just seems like everyone in that pool had quite a few drops, and Nate was somehow judged near last. Very strange in my opinion
Props on the routine Nate.
Always Shreddin
James Erickson
Eugene Footbag Association (Orton, Nasty, Me)
w/ new additions (Casey, Alex, Eddie, and Shawnell)
yeah to some extent I agree with Damon. I think drops are very important, but I also think that it would be silly to judge routines based on how many times someone drops it. Nate's routine was excellent but probably was lacking in diffilculty a bit. I personally believe that the point of footbag competition is to show the most skilled footbagger. Obviously creating a good routine is part of this - but just as important - if not more important is demonstrating a high level of footbag skills. I haven't seen the other routines, but I can only presume that that's what they did - demonstrated that they do have a high level of skills.
There's no shame in not making the semi's in Open level competition and it was a fantastic routine.
In regards to Vasek's semi routine - I think you have to judge him compared to the other competitors - not against his own standards. There is little doubt in my mind, watching his routine, that he his a much more skilled player than some of the other players in the semi's and I think it's completely justified for him to have got through to the final.
I like all the discussion about judging. However when it comes to saying "he didn't advance because," those who didn't witness the whole pool 6 don't realy no whats up.
FlexThis wrote:I agree with you that 5 drops is too many regardless of difficulty.
No one had fewer than 5 drops in pool 6 but me. There were only 4 non-finals routines with 1 drop or less(vasek yax honza and I). (EDIT: this may be incorrect. My emotions are stronger than my memory.)
It may be easy to say not making it to the semis is still an acomplishment, but I was there and I saw who made it to the semis, and maybe if it wasn't for the fact that I heard from most of the top guys who WERE there "you were robbed" I wouldn't say this but.... well blah I'm not gunna say it.
It is disappointing that when my friends go to the worlds website they see I got third to last. I didn't deserve that.
Last edited by shreddaily on 11 Aug 2004 11:04, edited 1 time in total.
You're totally right - I haven't seen the other routines so I can only try to think of reasons why the judges made their decision - and the obvious reason is that the other competitors must have pushed the diffilculty.
A similar thing happened in the routines at New Zealand in 2003. - Johnny Murphey came 3rd I think with a routine which had something like 14 drops in it but lots of hard moves. Dan Ednie came 4th with maybe 3 drops or less. However Dan's routine has to be the saddest routine I have ever seen (sorry Dan) - it had one four add - blur - and a whole "toe stall variety" section where he hit a whole range of different styled toe stalls. It was also done to a piece of very slow classical music. Yes Johnny dropped it lots, but it was much more exciting to watch his routine than to watch Dan's (which honestly made me cringe at times) - I only saw them on video. Especially considering Dan came second (I think) to Ryan Mulroney in the shred 30 - beating Lynton and Johnny (I think).
Not that Nate's routine was anything like Dan's - I really enjoyed watching it, but if the other players were hitting bigger stuff I can understand why they got through.
ahhh, that actualy makes me feel better. I shouldn't have gotten worked up aboot it. I still love the sport and I'm still gunna perform with high choreo and low difficulty, and if some judges prefer otherwise , so be it. Thats why routines are subjective.
Hurray for freestyle
i agree that it wasn't the most difficult of routines but i'll tell you exactly what i liked about it: it was an honest routine!
your routine was composed of stuff you were sure to be able to hit on stage and under pressure. and you didn't try all that stuff you might be able to hit in a circle but only with a lot of luck on stage, like most other freestylers do in their routine.
From an overall perspective, i would consider your routine to be a perfect intermediate world champion routine, that with a little luck could also go to the second round of open world champs. but that would be assuming all other competitors in open would also take your aproach to routines, i.e. hitting only stuff they are 100% sure to be able to hit.
without having seen any of the other routines but assuming they all had 5 drops or more and that half of the pool advanced to the next round i think it's safe to say that you should definately have advanced.
i really hope your disappointment of dropping out will not change your mind about how you do routines. personally i think your aproach is the correct one and should be followed by all open freestylers.
the usual aproach is: "ok i can hit a blurriest in a circle sometimes, so i'll try blurriest on stage too." and then you see that player try to hit blurriest in their routine for three consecutive years and only in the third year is his skill finally advanced enough to really pull it off.
With your aproach I think you will go a long way! you'll be steadilly progressing technically and presentationally and this will be directly reflected in your routines. And because you know that you can hit your routines droppless or with one drop consistently you'll gain more and more confidence which will give you an edge over all other competitors.
wait for the vids, watch all pool 6 routines IN ORDER one after the other, and YOU judge them. It's no easy task trust me. If you think pool six was hard on the players, you also have to imagine what it's like judging such a pool: lots of players (9 I believe), very high skill from all players and all with no excpetion did a great job on stage.
Max said what I was thinking. It is so easy to analyze it now and I'm surprised how easily people say 'oh it should have gone this way or the other', when they haven't been there, seen all of the routines and so on.
But this discussion has lead me to an interesting question. I don't think it is clear how much drops should be penalized in the new system. At least it's not clear for me. I've heard really different opinions on this one. Let's use this situation as an example (this isn't supposed to be the exact situation - just something similar)
Player A - 65 contacts, 190 adds and 1 drop.
Player B - 80 contacts, 225 adds and 5 drops.
Player C - 110 contacts, 280 adds and 6 drops.
Player D - 85 contacts, 235 adds and 3 drops.
Player E - 73 contacts, 224 adds and 5 drops.
Player F - 100 contacts, 250 adds and 6 drops.
How would you rank them technically, just by knowing this information. We know you can't do real judgment just by the numbers, you would have to know variety of tricks hit etc. but this will be enough for me to know the answer to my question. How much does drops affect your technical score?
Feel free to answer, no matter who you are, but I would really appreciate if people that have judging experience (especially in big tournaments) will answer this one.
Numerous drops are totally unacceptable even if you have high difficulity. Drops are simply not professional. That's the bottom line.
The public doesn't care if you can hit hard tricks if you drop a lot. Drops make you look incompetent even if you're hitting the hardest tricks in the world.
One of the many problems with the judging system is that many of the people judging would rather see hard stuff than a professional routine.
Numerous drops are totally unacceptable even if you have high difficulity. Drops are simply not professional. That's the bottom line.
The public doesn't care if you can hit hard tricks if you drop a lot. Drops make you look incompetent even if you're hitting the hardest tricks in the world.
One of the many problems with the judging system is that many of the people judging would rather see hard stuff than a professional routine.
Well, thanks for some replies and keep them coming. I think these are the kind of things that should be discussed in a judging meeting, because I think right now there's a lot of different opinions what makes a good routine. As long as this is the case, we will have problems with judging.