I assume this is not difficult! DD will be making her juvenile debut in late August and we will have to do a planned program for the first time. I guess we learn what they are doing this way!

What do you mean by a "planned program"? Sorry - just curious and of course know so little about skating!

My daughter is getting a new program - no competitions currently planned but has tests in. I know its her first with a spiral and a step sequence and will have some axels/axel combinations and a few double jumps - and of course spins.

She's having some say over what goes in and has decided she wants a chnage foot camel spin which goes into a doughnut on the back camel. I don't see these as very attractive spins but she says they get more marks and if she's having a bad day she'll change it to camel-sit-backsit.... but - she is well known for going into a comp and just deciding to change spins and spirals if she thinks the coach coming with doesn't know her program! So - guess its a very unplanned program (shhh - don't tell the coach)!

It's not that difficult -- if you print out the form and have your dd and her coach work together on it. For each element you need to know the proper IJS code and the order it comes in. Doing it online is handy, but you also want to
make sure you input the jumps, spins, and step or spiral sequence correctly. It's not set in absolute stone, but it's best to be as accurate as possible.

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"Without a struggle, there can be no progress" ~ Frederick Douglass

Oops - so you meant IJS! My daughter recently did her first one under this style of judging - coach wrote down the codes and we played my daughter's music and she pretty much knew where every element was.

By the way my only (and biggest) IJS hint by the way is to dress warmly. Daughter was 6th out of 6 in warm up and the judging seemed to take forever. She was frozen when she went out to skate and did her worst skate ever! (For e.g. forgetting combination on combination spin - score = zero; holding second spiral in spiral sequence only 2.5 seconds - score for both spirals=zero). She was shivering when she finished her program and could jsut not warm up. Having said that it was a particularly cold rink and she'd gone round to the other side without a jacket and we weren't allowed that side of the rink without competitor pass! Big lesson for both of us!

I think it depends where you are. I know in our section there are drop down boxes on registration site and the jumps and spins etc are listed in plain English. You just choose "combination spin with change of position and foot" as an example. I was quite surprised how simple it all was.

I just bought her those zipaway polar fleece pants for just that reason.

Totally OT, but ... where did you get the pants? I've been looking for some for my dd.

I dont think USFSA is using those, they sound nice. DD has done comps pre juv twice under IJS and critques.We have to just use a form where you list everything in order.

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I am pretty sure I got them straight from the company- polartec online

I would think the coach would be the one who would fill out this form? I've never had to fill out a testing or competition form (besides signing for one and writing out a check) as my daughter's coaches were always responsible for her skating information.

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blades, gary, Lucy, Emily, take care of Aiden and Sami. Sami is my sweetest heart, and always will be, forever. RIP Cubby Boy, my hero dog.

The electronic form is on the USFS site in the Members Only section. You use it to fill out your Planned Program Content for qualifying competitions. Some invitationals also use this electronic form for their IJS events. The LOC can request it after they've received the competition sanction. If they're not using the electronic version, you fill out a paper version. Obviously, you have to do the electronic form yourself, since it's online under your USFS number. I suppose the coach could fill out the paper one, but we always did it ourselves. I recommend doing the online one even if you're going to copy it onto a paper form, because the drop down choices tell you exactly how to code things.

Thanks for the info. I'm thinking the coach and parent should do it together then, in case there's a question about an element? Nothing would be worse than having a skater do a great program, only to get penalized for not having the form filled out properly.

For synchro, the coach always filled out the IJS forms - no parent would know the levels/codes for the various handholds, etc. unless he/she was a judge!

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blades, gary, Lucy, Emily, take care of Aiden and Sami. Sami is my sweetest heart, and always will be, forever. RIP Cubby Boy, my hero dog.

They judge you based on what you actually skate. If you skate something different from the form, you're just making the tech specialist / video operators life slightly more difficult as they'll have to update the computer as you skate. The form's there to make their life easier so they know what to expect. There's nothing to stop someone skating the whole program back to front in terms of elements and making the judges lives difficult, but it won't affect the marks.

And synchro is actually really easy to fill out, you've just got to say when each of the elements start. So it's listed as something like, circle, block, wheel with the times, you don't specify the level as they decide that based on what you skate on the day, and hand holds aren't listed. And as per singles you could submit something that's completely different to what gets skated. The advantage the TS for synchro have, is that they get to watch the program at official practice so can update the computer then. For singles they don't get that luxury.

Even in sinles, the skater doesn't set the level on the PPC form. All you need are the elements and the times. The online forms at USFS let you pick the correct codes. After you skate, the tech panel assigns the levels and the data entry operator or accountant adds them into the computer.