I think this is an exaggeration. I don't know of many people who would want to give up their 20 minute warm-up so that other events could be added, so I don't know where this sentiment is coming from. I know that for both of my events at AN, very few skipped out on the 20 minute warmup, and none of my friends who were competing at AN skipped out on their 20 minute warmups either. Given a choice, I'd certainly keep the 20 minute warmup... I don't think many people were clamoring for a change here, but then again, I wasn't at the Adult Committee meeting at AN so I could be wrong. Why was I not at the Adult Committee meeting? Because I was skating on my 20 minute warmup for my open event instead!!!

As for IJS, I was never a big fan of it - we could probably go back to 6.0 and IMO wind up with the same (or very similar) rankings and results we had with IJS, so again if it would save money to go back to 6.0 for everyone, great. I'm not clamoring for solo dance, either; not that I'm against the inclusion of the event on its own merit, just that if it means something else has to go then I'd rather rethink that idea.

No one said we had to do it all. No one said we had to change anything. Or did they? In a post on the solo dance thread ( http://www.skatingforums.com/showthr...961#post317961) someone made the point that a few years ago we were trying to eliminate events at AN because it was too large. Now we're supposedly trying to add events, and now you're saying that for that to happen, something "has to give". Nothing has to give, though, if we don't add on events that we can't afford.

If we want to add Champ. Silver & Bronze, that could be done, but if you're going to do it, do it the right way by having qualifying at sectionals. And I say this as a Gold man who makes the trip to sectionals every year to go through the qualifying process without hesitation. Some years I qualified, other years I didn't. But I never thought that getting rid of sectionals was the answer (in fact, what was the question?). I see sectionals as another weekend to see my skating friends that I may not see at Nationals (that means you mskater!).

I think some of us are getting ahead of ourselves and seeing some of these changes (as well as their potential ramifications) as a foregone conclusion when that is hardly the case. Let's all just slow down a bit and not jump to conclusions here.

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Whatever!

Fair enough, that must be a hassle for you when you don't qualify for the FR of your open. But I do agree, if IJS is costing that much more for the LOC, then I say we scrap it (see my earlier post). I think that's preferable to potentially having to get rid of skaters' competitive and practice ice time.

Good point, I and several others I know felt that the surveys that were passed around at Sectionals concerning the Champ. events were a bit leading... as if to say, "You want to keep the Champ. events, and maybe add them to Silver and Bronze, right? Good! But you don't want to have Sectionals because you'd rather have the qualifying take place at Nationals, right?"

I think what we can all agree on is that there seems to be no consensus as to what direction Adult Nationals is or should be really going in. Is the point to establish competitive/championship tracks for all? To be more inclusive to all levels of skaters? To turn a profit? To mirror standard or international tracks? As has been said on other threads, a mission statement may be needed here.

As for the other RFA that I did not yet comment on, which had to do with the WBP reqs for Bronze, I'm wholeheartedly in favor of it. I was confused why there was a discrepancy when the WBP reqs came out a year or so ago, but am glad that the Adult Committee has taken steps to correct this... bravo!

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Whatever!

Oh absolutely. I'm not suggesting that we invoke chaos and I understand how easily this happens. However, I feel that as the President of a club, and adult skater, and delegate to Governing Council, I still have no general clue what is going on. If I hadn't gone to the meeting (which happened to not conflict with anything I was required to attend), I would never have known these issues. So therefore I may have shown up at GC, uninformed and voted for or against something that I might have chosen to vote differently if I had some of this information beforehand. Perhaps the internet is not the solution, but I think some effort needs to be made to communicate more effectively.

BTW - excellent job with the competition Manleywoman. I know that these things are a labor of love but nonetheless a huge effort!

LW

Amen! Also, on the practice ice, there were, on all my sessions, 21 skaters on the ice. Needless to say, I had to abort many elements. But I had plenty of room on the 20-minute warmup.

And speaking of practice ice, I thought skaters were only allowed ONE session per day. I saw some people skate on at least 3 sessions per day!

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Comparing AN to standard Nationals isn't a fair comparison. The "kids" do have to qualify through Regionals and Sectionals to get to Nationals, and that means the organizers have fewer bodies/events to deal with than the LOC handling AN has.

I find the 20-minute practice ice on the competition surface the day of the event invaluable, so I can remember which way to come out of spins and where to head for footwork, especially when I've been bouncing back and forth between rinks for practices. That gives me a chance to really focus on the event I'm preparing to compete in. Do I NEED that for interp? probably not, but for technical events, yes, I do need it to perform my best.. and that is what I hope to do when I go to any competition but especially AN or Adult Sectionals.

As for the Championship Bronze and Silver events... I'm someone who will not be able to make it to Gold. (There may be those of you who will see this as a red flag and say "you could make it to gold if you really worked at it and wanted to, etc."... but you've probably never seen me skate, don't live my life, etc... so trust me on this one, I think I know what I'm capable of.. and passing the Gold Moves and FS test is probably not in the cards, unless I win the lottery and can build my own ice rink and not have to work). I think the Championship events are amazing and those who do compete in them are to be honored for their dedication and talent. I just don't see the need for it at the Bronze (and probably Silver) levels, although there are many skaters at those levels who are also amazing skaters.

And just out of curiosity -- I SWEAR I am not trying to stir up trouble, if there were Solo Dance competitions at AN, would the dance couples still have IR and FR events? (As far as I, a non-dancer, can see there really is no difference in the two rounds since no one is eliminated, so it's not a qualifying round. Does it set the seeding for the event? Why is that necessary? We have blind draws for the FS events... and why is that less acceptable for dance? Again, I don't understand why this is done this way, I'm not advocating the Initial Rounds be eliminated, I'm just trying to figure this out and have never had the chance to ask the people who really DO know!) Thanks for the information!

I completely agree. The Adult Skating Committee needs to put something on the adult page of the USFSA website and [i]thoroughly[i] explain the rationale behind the RFAs for GC, including commentary on some of the issues raised here and elsewhere. And they really need to publicize and explain the statement about getting rid of Adult Sectionals. I wasn't at AN this year, so all I've heard about that is hearsay from people who were (or weren't) at the meeting.

Do we know how well attended the warm ups are? I think many of us skip them. I do if they're too early. But as It has been said - there needs to be sufficient practice ice - no more 23 sessions per person.

I'm in favor of no championship rounds at all. If we must have them, then the skater can not skate in the same open event. How many times do the same people need to do the same program?

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I find it all very interesting. My point of view is this:

Solo dance, there are a lot of us (women) who dance and will never find partners, I personally am too tall, I need a partner who is 6'2 minimum and can keep up with me. I enjoy solo dance as it works on details like edge quality, timing and posture. There are a lot of us who would like to compete in this event, it would most likely just be two dances unless the group was large and then there might be a IR and FR. In the end there will never be enough men for all us to have partners this allows a need to be meet and promotes and encourages people who may only dance because they don't like to FS.

I find it very amusing that so many people are against the Bronze and Silver championship events. When I skated silver I thought it was unfair that only gold had the championship event. I have always gone to my sectionals as a silver, gold and master's novice skater. It is friday plus the weekend, if you were to add the qualifying to AN's it would add even more events if you leave it at the sectional it helps the sectional garner more skaters and be a profitable event. Should you qualify you can still skate your open event and the general schedule will tell you when you skate your champ event so you know how long to stay at AN's and not waste $$$. I have yet to see how this will promote sandbagging, if you finish in the top 3 of your level more than two years in a row move up...(of course that is what I was taught) ... many people may not like that idea so, take for what it's worth, imho.

Unfortunately, it looks like the grants will become very scarce, it may mean that AN's will have to find sponsor for the event. IJS is a very fair system and I have seen it work with paper and pencil in Oberstdorf and Mountain Cup. I have also seen it work much faster at my local regional events and at competitions like Broadmoor, where once they got it going it went well, it was getting it started that took some time. I also have to admit that I am confused as to why they don't use the paper and pencil system I saw in O'dorf we had results in usually about 5 minutes and they would call our scores about 2 minutes after we skated then the next skater would go. It seems an over reliance on technology could be to blame or just the fact that the ISU system is the standard in Europe and people are just much more comfortable with it. It might be cheaper if we just go the paper and pencil route.

I usually go with my club to GC, and for anyone who is curious you should go, they send out a large packet that arrives about 3 weeks prior to GC. It is a very interesting event and run with a very strict set of rules. I find GC fascinating, I have spoken on items before as has daisies, it is an experience you should do if possible.

As US figure skating faces the loss of lucrative contracts with ABC/ESPN the question is what will happen, will our upcoming skater's lose funding? Will all events be required to get outside monies to run? What will happen to all facets of skating with this revenue stream gone? It looks like skating is going to get a lot more expensive...sigh.

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For people in the New England area, the New England Inter Club Council is hosting an informational meeting to discuss all the proposals for Governing Council on Saturday, April 21. See www.neicc.org for more information.

Actually, the way it was stated on the practice ice reservation form, skaters were allowed one session per day PER EVENT. So if said skaters were entered in three events, then they would be entitled to three sessions per day.

That's what I thought and should have specified, but some teams (entered in only one event) were skating on more than one session per day.

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Wow. Really? I didn't notice this. Granted, I arrived Thursday and didn't skate until Friday afternoon. Perhaps you were only allowed to reserve one session per event per day in advance, but if there were openings on other sessions, you could pay walk-on for those? For what it's worth, the sessions I was on were not very crowded at all. There may have been about twelve skaters on the most crowded practice ice session I attended and that was on Friday afternoon.

It wasn't a huge problem, and I, at least, expect major traffic on any AN practice session. But some more advanced skaters were practicing on lower-level-designated sessions--and then had the temerity to complain about how everyone was getting in the way.

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Gotcha. Well maybe we should include print-outs of the handy-dandy "Freestyle/Patch Session Guideline" topic here on skatingforums in the application packet for next year's Adult Nats.

It was explained at the Adult Meeting that O'dorf gets an additional $50,000 to use IJS. Which pays for all the extra manpower and technology to get those results announced immediately in the Kiss & Cry.

Personally, I think if Champ Silver/Bronze are added, Sectionals must stay in order tyo handle those qualifiers. If they are not added, Sectionals could go, as you could take the top finishers from the Gold/Masters open events.

All these decisions affect other decisions that have to be made. The Adult ranks are a tricky business!

ITA - I think I used maybe 10 mins of my 20-minute official warm up for interp and spent the rest of the time just skating around (I figured I should at least be on the ice since it was included in my entry fee!).

I think it might be beneficial to either do away with official warm ups for interp or possibly just make them shorter.

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I agree completely, and said so at the meeting. Marna Grim brought up a great point too, that the poeple who the survey most affected in regards to adding Champ Bronze/Silver ... the Bronze/Silver skaters! ... were not as a whole even ATTENDING Sectionals to be able to fill out a survey that directly affected them. So I thought the survey was way off in it's delivery. Besides which the ones that went to Easterns and Pacifics didn't list the pros/cons to any of the ideas brought forth.

Nova - at least they've stopped trying to do pairs on a fs practice! Some people will try to get as much practice ice as they possibly can with no consideration for the other 589 skaters at nats.

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I think to refer to the official twenty minute warm-up as "more practice ice" is not accurate. Often times, the practice ice we do get is rarely on the sheet of ice where we perform our competitive skate. Most of the time the practice ice is actually in a totally different builiding than the competitive event. I understand that the demand for practice ice leads to having separate venues but I feel that makes the official warm-up on the competitive surface that much more important. I can only speak for myself, but on the official warm-up, I'm trying to get a feel for the ice where I'll be competing (not every sheet of ice feels the same to me) and I'm deciding which direction I'll be facing to start my program. Some might say that it doesn't take all of twenty minutes to do all of that but for me, at the moment, it does.

I totally agree Frank! It's okay to have practice ice (i.e. not the official 20 minute warmups) on a separate sheet. If you're really hurting for ice time, I suppose these could be reduced or eliminated if the demand is not there to turn a profit, but I think the 20 min warmups should definitely be kept.

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Whatever!

Shorter perhaps, but to do away with them for Interp but not for other events isn't fair. There are lots of adults who come and just do interp. So I think you'd have to make it the same across the board.

ITA about the 20-minute warmup as well. It's not practice ice, it's "warmup" ice ... to get a feel for the ice, to get your body moving, to figure out where you are when you come out of spins, where the judges are, where the audience is. IMO the 20-minute is more valuable than paid practice ice.

I'm in favor of eliminating sectionals and instituting Bronze and Silver Championship rounds, and IMO it will actually reduce the number of events at AN. Here's why:

When you use the open events as qualifiers, which is what is being proposed, you won't have separate final rounds for, say, Bronze Ladies II, Bronze Ladies III and Bronze Ladies IV ... you will have ONE final round, the Championship round, with skaters from all age groups who qualified out of their age-separated open events. For ladies, there will be four FS championship rounds -- Bronze, Silver, Gold and Masters. Four, period. Under the current system, there are potentially about three or so Bronze final rounds, three or so Silver final rounds, etc.

Doing it this way will really streamline it, potentially opening up time not only for solo dance but to accommodate what hopefully will be larger open events.

The only thing I really don't like about your suggestion (ok, not the only thing, because I like sectionals) is that there is a presumption that all of the top finishers in all of the age groups actually want to compete in a championship event. For example, maybe the V's don't want to have to compete against the I's. If you keep sectionals, then it is the V's choice as to whether or not she thinks she wants to try to skate with the I's. If I am reading your suggestion correctly (that the current open events would become the QR for the championship final round instead of standing on their own), then it is entirely plausible that the winner of the various masters ladies V QRs will end up at the bottom of the championship masters event every time they skate at AN, and what's the fun in that? Isn't the ability to be competitive the reason we have age-separated groups to begin with?

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I'm still not sure how I feel about eliminating Adult Sectionals. I guess I'll mull it over some more. However, based on what I've read, I'm not sure I agree with the proposed percentage-based selection process across the age groups. If Adult Sectionals were eliminated and the open events were used as qualifiers, wouldn't it be more equitable to select the field for the championship events by comparing the Total Segment Scores from the open events for all ages instead?