The time has come, dear internet friends, for me to blog. In the past two months, it has often crossed my mind, but only now do I feel truly ready to say something on this internet platform. Every time someone says they read this, it startles me a bit, but people are reading (even if they don't comment), so it's nice to know I have an audience.
So, the Cobra still waits, a recluse in his dank and foul den, but that's not what we are here today to talk about. No, no, we are here today to discuss something else which is equally mysterious in nature. It is a thing from which the sting cuts just as deeply and painfully as that of the dark serpent. It is elusive, unpredictable, and surprises many with its swift, cruel justice. And like its shadowy counterpart, this beast will likely warrant several sessions of Socratic questioning, wringing of the hands, and general melancholy and stomach upsets.
We are, of course, talking about battle judging.
But what about battle judging? We all know about the rules. What's that, you say? You DON'T know the rules of a slalom battle? Oh, well, why don't you go ahead and download them from here. There you go.
Great. Now that you are well-versed in the law of battle, let's take a look at some stuff, now, shall we? And since I am not in the habit of publicly critiquing other people over the internet without their consent, let's just go ahead and look at some video starring little ol' me.
Let's start with Battle Belgium 2009, when I had been slalom skating for about one year, and thought skorts were the greatest thing EVAR:
The reason I chose this video is because, well, Chloe is in it, and I just happened to come across it when looking for the video of this year's women's final.
NOW, take a look at the video from the women's final from this year's edition of Battle Belgium:
Can you please tell me what's wrong with this picture (video)?
Yes, that's right. My freestyle looked better two years ago.
How depressing is that? Sure, I can do some TRICKS now. Oooooh, how we all love TRICKS. I'm stronger. I'm faster. I am smoother. I fall (slightly) less. My fashion is less 1980's-Madonna. There are a lot of things improved about my skating in general, and also specifically my slalom. And when there is no competition in sight, my freestyle is actually very good, sometimes rather awesome, I must admit. But as far as freestyle in competition goes, I was stylin' it out better in '09, because I didn't really care about doing tricks during the battle. Because, well, then I couldn't do any.
Well, I will be the first to go ahead and say that I spent too much time during this final doing screw-type tricks. I did a bunch of toe-toe screws, swans, and toe-heel screws. I have been training these tricks really hard so that I can do 20 of all of them, so doing about half that number of each felt about as ordinary as eating Loops for breakfast. I really enjoyed the power of being able to turn as many as I wanted, without being controlled by my own lack of technique which, in the past, used to dictate how many of each of these things I could do.
And for that, I would like to thank Polish women skaters. :)
I didn't sleep for two nights in a row after judging the battle in Berlin. It was a thoroughly traumatizing experience, because the essence of battle judging is lining up four of your friends, and then telling two of them that they can't play slaloms anymore. And then there are all the gray areas. Which is better --a line of beautiful, playful freestyle; or 20 labored toe shifts? You tell me.
No, really. You TELL me.
After Berlin, I found myself preoccupied with the concepts of rules and justice. I started reading about all kinds of rules, systems, ways that people cope with and eliminate uncertainty. I might have gotten slightly carried away with my learning, but I was looking for answers to help me sleep at night, because after all, I DO take this whole slalom thing rather seriously, even though I try to keep it light.
So what's the answer? Which is better, the freestyle or the toe shifts?
Well, according to the rules, it's the technical difficulty of the skating being presented that must be considered. Technically, we are supposed to leave aesthetics out of it, while still incorporating into the judgment the qualities of speed, continuity, finishing of each trick, integration into other freestyle, and the range of tricks presented. That's a whole lot to see, and judge, during somebody's 30 seconds.
However, this still doesn't give us an answer. Let's say that the toe shifts were executed without fault, that they were clean, but that they just looked like they were a lot of hard work and they weren't pretty to watch. And let's say that the freestyle was gorgeous, it gave you goose bumps, and it was fast and fluid and clean.
Out of these two things, which is more technically difficult to display?
Now, here is where we get to the fact that judges are humans with souls, and that they are very often impassioned skaters themselves. Personally, as a skater with loads of experience practicing one-wheeled tricks with only moderate success, and also with loads of experience simply expressing joy through my feet, I would be tempted to say that the toe shifts are more technically difficult. After all, I seem to have no problem coming up with nice-looking freestyle, right? So it must be easier to do.
Also, it's taken me a long time to train to be able to turn as many screw-type tricks as I want, and to be able to do them consistently in battle as well. The "freestyle" part I have also worked on, to be sure, but I've spent more time gritting my teeth and PRACTICING on the non-freestyle movements. And maybe that's where I'm going wrong.
WAIT. Maybe it is only easier for me. What about this "trick monkey" type skating (Dance, monkey, dance!), where skaters execute their complicated trick sequences like good little robots and then roll on over to their coaches for a Sweet Cookie? (Yum yum.) And, of course, if they fail, they get a Shame Cookie. (Yum yum, but with tears rolling down their faces as they choke on the bitter crumbs that taste of their own ineptitude.) How easy is it for them to bust out a line of gorgeous freestyle?
Of course I'm being completely over the top and sarcastic (and mean no offense to anyone who sees himself in this category of skating) but I'm also not going to pretend that I've never fallen prey to this mentality myself...after all, how many screws did I turn in the battle final? And can I please have a cookie now, hold the shame?
So, how do we define and reward the soul of freestyle? Because I want to. It's very important for me, and I know it is for so many people. This discussion has been on everyone's mind all year. I know the answer lies in the fact that we have to reward both the difficulty and beauty of slalom, but the beauty part is so often perceived as subjective. However, it's only subjective to a degree. As a culture we can define our own standards of beauty, and in fact these standards already exist, which is in part amusingly demonstrated by the huge wrench in the system that the Koreans' dancing has thrown into everything. :)
Well, before I write again, I WILL have revisited my art philosophy books. There must be some applicable thoughts in there somewhere, and if not, I'll just keep questioning til I discover the answers.
Anyway, it's all part of a greater adventure, and I'm very happy to be a part of it.
Until next time, enjoy your slaloms (however you like them served up!) and thanks for reading. :)
xoxoxo
meg
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
The Meaning of Life. Also, Stylish Slalom.
Some Philosophy:
First of all, "How to Do What You Love" by Paul Graham. It's so true. I want to read more things like this.
More things like that? Oh, well how about "How to Do Philosophy," also by Paul Graham, and even more awesome, especially since I majored in philosophy in college for many of the reasons that the author himself wanted to do. However, unlike the author, I satisfactorily went away having learned what The Meaning of Life meant to me, which is, in case you wanted to know, to make meaning. It's a simple concept, but not necessarily easy to do, which is evident in all those people busily searching for meaning outside of themselves. I know better, of course, and I have a feeling that most creative people out there do too, that is, if they are not too busy enjoying missing the point of existentialism in the first place, as I used to tend to do. :)
But anyway. Let's jump ahead from existentialism to post-modernism and get right down to slalom, because freestyle slalom embodies that concept so well.
Manipulating Style
Well, what I originally wanted to blog about today was style. It's been on my mind as I've been designing a classic run for the upcoming season. And yes, the reason that I haven't been here blogging about slalom is because I've been out there doing it, taking advantage of the nice weather as much as I could. I've been trying to find my run all week, and it's coming along slowly. Today it is raining (not drizzling...RAINING...otherwise I might still be out there), so therefore I am writing.
Do you think about your style? I am starting to think about mine. In the past I've thought a lot about other peoples' style, but not really my own. I mean, I know I have a certain way of skating and there are things I like about it and things that I don't, so in that sense I have thought about my style, but it's only very recently that I've been thinking about it as something I can improve with practice, like getting better at wheelings or anything else.
However, I didn't make up my style. It's not something I created. It was already a part of me before I started skating slalom, and I want the way I improve it to be equally organic. If I go out and try to change my skating to fit the vision of what I think good style is, I will only reach it to an extent. I can grasp and incorporate new elements of other styles, but my basic character remains the same. So in order to make life easier, I suggest on working WITH your existing stylistic attributes instead of attempting to scrap your whole identity as a skater and come up with a new one. There is a word for that. It is called "poser."
As a bit of a teaser, I have an exercise I would like to try out in my pilot workshop in 2 weeks that is all about discovering and defining your own style. In my Leadership classes we have been reading a lot of intriguing materials that are really helpful for self-discovery and I think they can be applied to style as well. We shall see how it goes over with the group, but obviously, I hope it is useful and goes well!
Objective Elements of Style. Help! Because I need help coming up with them.
"Style" is often perceived as "merely" subjective, so how can any one style be better than another? The answer is that while there are many different KINDS of style out there, style itself is present in differing AMOUNTS. There are definite objective criteria to consider when talking about a skater's style, the same way there are objective criteria in technique. So when comparing two skaters side by side with completely different styles but technically identical skating, it can still be possible to determine which one has a better mastery of his or her own style, and therefore who should win the battle round. Of course this isn't always easy for judges to see and they are making calls on the fly, so no process is perfect. Regardless, in theory, this should be possible.
So what are these criteria for measuring style? To be honest, I don't really know. I have an IDEA, but I am not done thinking about this subject yet. What are the things that jump out at you as ALWAYS IMPORTANT in measuring style? This is not where we ask ourselves, "What kind of style does this skater have?" but merely "Does this skater have any, and how much?"
I would venture to say that one of the most important factors in answering this question is COMFORTABILITY. Perhaps this concept might show up on judge's sheets as "trick mastery," but that's not my terminology and "comfortability" is more clear to me personally. Skaters who look comfortable are always nicer to watch than skaters who look like they are seizing from the waist up. If there are two skaters turning the same screws down the line of cones but one has Flarms (flailing arms) and the other does not, the skater without Flarms is going to win because he or she looks more comfortable and has clearly mastered the trick at a higher level than the Flarming individual.
I think it's also useful to think about comfortability with regard to a person's basic skating level, though I'm sure people are only judged (and should be judged) in the context of the competition itself. How strange is it to watch someone gliding through the cones in Cobra when that same person can't make it downtown on their skates? That's a situation I just made up, but I can very well see that happening. A person with a high level of comfortability on their skates is going to adapt better to different surfaces, slopes, and situations than someone who has only practiced tricks, and it's going to shine through in their slalom, no matter how easy or difficult the runs are. Look at somebody like Naomi, who doesn't often show alarmingly technical slalom but who looks cooler than practically any other skater, ever, and a lot of it is due to the fact that the woman can SKATE. Period.
What are some other objective elements of style? I really want to assemble theory on this. I'll do some reading. But if you have ideas and want to share, I would be thrilled to hear them.
What I like:
In the evenings after my sessions this past week I have been watching videos of different kinds of skaters in order to try and pick out elements that I also want in my skating. Some of them show technique that I would love to master. Some of them skate perfectly in time with the music. But after backing up and re-watching several videos because I couldn't pay attention to anything in particular and I was just plain mesmerized, it becomes obvious that this is the skating that I want to emulate: slalom that is smooth, connected, and forms a whole instead of being created from Difficult Elements.
Yes, these people are also incorporating Difficult Elements and there are certainly "Wow" moments in their runs, but everything is integrated in such a way that the skating is something to be judged as a whole.
This is a specific style of slalom that I personally really like. There are, of course, many other styles of slalom that other people may prefer, but they are ordinarily not to my personal taste as much as a skater who integrates everything in such a way that the parts are not individually perceived.
I wish my skating was like this. I don't know if it ever approaches it, but at least it does in my head sometimes. :)
When I'm not thinking and am doing that "zen" thing I do with freestyle is my best guess as to when I might even approach this. My skating is certainly not like this in classic runs, where I always feel pressure to make every second of Great Significance because I'm only allowed 90 of them, or in battle where I feel rushed and I bounce around like a circus monkey attempting to show what I've learned in the past few months. My next step is to connect the first, "zen" situation with both classic and battle competitions. Once I can do that, I'm confident my style will fall directly into place where I want it.
Well, I'm far from done thinking about this, but I'd say that was a good go of it for the moment.
On that note, please enjoy this lovely classic run from Jon Larrucea. :)
As always, thanks for reading!
xoxoxo
meg
First of all, "How to Do What You Love" by Paul Graham. It's so true. I want to read more things like this.
More things like that? Oh, well how about "How to Do Philosophy," also by Paul Graham, and even more awesome, especially since I majored in philosophy in college for many of the reasons that the author himself wanted to do. However, unlike the author, I satisfactorily went away having learned what The Meaning of Life meant to me, which is, in case you wanted to know, to make meaning. It's a simple concept, but not necessarily easy to do, which is evident in all those people busily searching for meaning outside of themselves. I know better, of course, and I have a feeling that most creative people out there do too, that is, if they are not too busy enjoying missing the point of existentialism in the first place, as I used to tend to do. :)
But anyway. Let's jump ahead from existentialism to post-modernism and get right down to slalom, because freestyle slalom embodies that concept so well.
Manipulating Style
Well, what I originally wanted to blog about today was style. It's been on my mind as I've been designing a classic run for the upcoming season. And yes, the reason that I haven't been here blogging about slalom is because I've been out there doing it, taking advantage of the nice weather as much as I could. I've been trying to find my run all week, and it's coming along slowly. Today it is raining (not drizzling...RAINING...otherwise I might still be out there), so therefore I am writing.
Do you think about your style? I am starting to think about mine. In the past I've thought a lot about other peoples' style, but not really my own. I mean, I know I have a certain way of skating and there are things I like about it and things that I don't, so in that sense I have thought about my style, but it's only very recently that I've been thinking about it as something I can improve with practice, like getting better at wheelings or anything else.
However, I didn't make up my style. It's not something I created. It was already a part of me before I started skating slalom, and I want the way I improve it to be equally organic. If I go out and try to change my skating to fit the vision of what I think good style is, I will only reach it to an extent. I can grasp and incorporate new elements of other styles, but my basic character remains the same. So in order to make life easier, I suggest on working WITH your existing stylistic attributes instead of attempting to scrap your whole identity as a skater and come up with a new one. There is a word for that. It is called "poser."
As a bit of a teaser, I have an exercise I would like to try out in my pilot workshop in 2 weeks that is all about discovering and defining your own style. In my Leadership classes we have been reading a lot of intriguing materials that are really helpful for self-discovery and I think they can be applied to style as well. We shall see how it goes over with the group, but obviously, I hope it is useful and goes well!
Objective Elements of Style. Help! Because I need help coming up with them.
"Style" is often perceived as "merely" subjective, so how can any one style be better than another? The answer is that while there are many different KINDS of style out there, style itself is present in differing AMOUNTS. There are definite objective criteria to consider when talking about a skater's style, the same way there are objective criteria in technique. So when comparing two skaters side by side with completely different styles but technically identical skating, it can still be possible to determine which one has a better mastery of his or her own style, and therefore who should win the battle round. Of course this isn't always easy for judges to see and they are making calls on the fly, so no process is perfect. Regardless, in theory, this should be possible.
So what are these criteria for measuring style? To be honest, I don't really know. I have an IDEA, but I am not done thinking about this subject yet. What are the things that jump out at you as ALWAYS IMPORTANT in measuring style? This is not where we ask ourselves, "What kind of style does this skater have?" but merely "Does this skater have any, and how much?"
I would venture to say that one of the most important factors in answering this question is COMFORTABILITY. Perhaps this concept might show up on judge's sheets as "trick mastery," but that's not my terminology and "comfortability" is more clear to me personally. Skaters who look comfortable are always nicer to watch than skaters who look like they are seizing from the waist up. If there are two skaters turning the same screws down the line of cones but one has Flarms (flailing arms) and the other does not, the skater without Flarms is going to win because he or she looks more comfortable and has clearly mastered the trick at a higher level than the Flarming individual.
I think it's also useful to think about comfortability with regard to a person's basic skating level, though I'm sure people are only judged (and should be judged) in the context of the competition itself. How strange is it to watch someone gliding through the cones in Cobra when that same person can't make it downtown on their skates? That's a situation I just made up, but I can very well see that happening. A person with a high level of comfortability on their skates is going to adapt better to different surfaces, slopes, and situations than someone who has only practiced tricks, and it's going to shine through in their slalom, no matter how easy or difficult the runs are. Look at somebody like Naomi, who doesn't often show alarmingly technical slalom but who looks cooler than practically any other skater, ever, and a lot of it is due to the fact that the woman can SKATE. Period.
What are some other objective elements of style? I really want to assemble theory on this. I'll do some reading. But if you have ideas and want to share, I would be thrilled to hear them.
What I like:
In the evenings after my sessions this past week I have been watching videos of different kinds of skaters in order to try and pick out elements that I also want in my skating. Some of them show technique that I would love to master. Some of them skate perfectly in time with the music. But after backing up and re-watching several videos because I couldn't pay attention to anything in particular and I was just plain mesmerized, it becomes obvious that this is the skating that I want to emulate: slalom that is smooth, connected, and forms a whole instead of being created from Difficult Elements.
Yes, these people are also incorporating Difficult Elements and there are certainly "Wow" moments in their runs, but everything is integrated in such a way that the skating is something to be judged as a whole.
This is a specific style of slalom that I personally really like. There are, of course, many other styles of slalom that other people may prefer, but they are ordinarily not to my personal taste as much as a skater who integrates everything in such a way that the parts are not individually perceived.
I wish my skating was like this. I don't know if it ever approaches it, but at least it does in my head sometimes. :)
When I'm not thinking and am doing that "zen" thing I do with freestyle is my best guess as to when I might even approach this. My skating is certainly not like this in classic runs, where I always feel pressure to make every second of Great Significance because I'm only allowed 90 of them, or in battle where I feel rushed and I bounce around like a circus monkey attempting to show what I've learned in the past few months. My next step is to connect the first, "zen" situation with both classic and battle competitions. Once I can do that, I'm confident my style will fall directly into place where I want it.
Well, I'm far from done thinking about this, but I'd say that was a good go of it for the moment.
On that note, please enjoy this lovely classic run from Jon Larrucea. :)
As always, thanks for reading!
xoxoxo
meg
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