I was cleaning out my skate bag & found judges' score sheets from 2 test sessions ago. At the end of June, I tested my American Waltz. It was, I freely admit, a terrible skate. I actually hit the wall & came to a dead stop at one point! Besides which, I had rushed this test, the dance wasn't great to begin with--the turns not really controlled, the expression stiff.

So the sheets from that test were, 2 fails, one pass. I was very surprised at the time that I even got one.

SO......fast forward to this past weekend, when I re-tested my American Waltz, having worked on ONLY that dance for the last 4 months. It's now totally controlled, we'd spent weeks working on softer knee action, better timing, better expression, not to mention control. I spent 2 entire weeks doing only 3-turn figures, not even dance patterns.

So, after all that work & re-tooling, I skated that dance like I never had before. I have it on tape--and it looks pretty good! Nice soft arm movements, perfect timing, good pattern, and that very definite rise & fall that they're looking for. NOW HERE'S THE SCARY PART......

The SAME judge that passed that first atrocious test----FAILED this one! (Meanwhile, the other 2 passed me, one of them actually gave me an extra point on expression!) What the.......????

I'm very glad about passing the dance; but it's frustrating to see how incredible arbitrary all this really is!

That judge might benefit from this post and a copy of the two test papers. Of course, you would have to do it ever so nicely, and with the professed aim of finding out what it was that was so much better four months ago and what is so much worse now.

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What type of comments were written each time?

I would definitely approach that judge with the two test result sheets before he/she forgets your most recent session. Tell him/her you want to learn from your testing experience and would like to understand what he/she liked about the first test and didn't like about the second one.

Sounds like this judge didn't offer many comments on the test sheet?

The comments on the first sheet were pretty general, good pattern, timing ok, etc.

On the second one, she commented mainly on the "stiffness" & not enough expression (which I respectfully disagree with!!), and also wrote that my right 3-turns were not placed correctly on the pattern. The thing is, that's an issue we worked on, I've seen the tape, & they weren't far off at all. I can guarantee the first test placements were much worse.

And the thing is, I doubt she'd remember me from the first test session as it was 4 months ago. I doubt she'd be able to say what was different between the two tests.