Just thought I'd put up a thread for reports on other things passed---the new Moves elements/rules, program length, solo dance at Nationals, etc. Anyone with any news, please share!!

It's not GC, but the ISU rules for next season are out.

http://www.fsuniverse.net/forum/showthread.php?t=58644

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Well the field moves have been tabled, and are not going and according to the green sheets have been referred back to committee and will not be implemented.

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That doesn't suprise me. The flip a coin thing really needs to be thought out a bit more. Hopefully the committe thinks of something.

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Does this mean that the added difficulty in the moves tests will *not* be implemented this year? How about '09? I am working on novice moves and I don't want to waste my time on it, if I'll just have to learn something else.

Also, what is the "flip a coin" thing?

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If this is referring to the new elements, I'm surprised. They've been so hyped & shown & discussed, etc. Not necessarily disappointed, mind you, but surprised. I thought they added too much difficulty at Int. w/ all the twizzles, & doubles at that.

Part of the proposal was because of the added length of the tests the judge in charge would flip a coin at the beginning of the test session to determine the direction of the first move, and then the next move after that would start in the opposite direction, and so on. So skaters would only do one side of each move. This was supposed to save time on long tests, ice costs for clubs and skaters, and it would be a "fair" way of requiring that skaters practice and learn each side because they wouldn't know which side would come up on the test.

Except that it's not really a "fair" way- because judges have said that a strong side can "save" a just barely not there side- so skaters with bad luck might always flip their bad sides.

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The flip a coin thing is just a really stupid idea from so many sides - I an see the utter confusion at test sessions - as if there isn't enough confusion as it is with double panels and all of that.

I'm wondering if they will pare the new Moves down a bit - it seems like a lot of coaches are going to have a lot of trouble teaching twizzles (which most have never done much) and loops (which also a lot of the newer coaches have never done/seen [sad, I know]).

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Interesting about the proposed MIF. Is the possibility of the GC not adding/changing the levels confirmed?

The proposed moves are listed as referred back to committee so that means they won't be voted on and won't be implemented. But, I did notice that I think one of them had been isolated for tomorrow, so we will see what we will see. I think they are going back to committee to be redone, since there has been no cost incurred so far, they are probably going to change the coin flip thing, and it seems that they may need a better reasoning than making the field moves matching current IJS moves. The wording was that the field moves were now relevant but I don't know if they worked for the audience. I liked the moves but as a test chair the coin flip thing would have been a nightmare.

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The coin flip is absurd. Interestingly, the upcoming PSA Conference has a presentation on "Rollout of the NEW Moves in the Field - Focus on Power & Flow."

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We do a coin flip in Canada for skills. On the preliminary test, there's 8 circle exercises, several coin flips determine which one you do. Skaters learn them all, it's good basic edgework, although the back edge circles are stupidly hard in comparision to the forward ones.

They way it would have worked is one coin flipped would have set the direction for the entire test session so even if the test was Juv, Int, Nov, Jr or Sr if there was a move with two directions the first would be X way and then if there was a 2nd way but some tests have 1 and others have 3 keeping track over a 6 hour test session could be tricky.

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Just saw it reported on ice dancers board that solo dance for adult nationals has been passed, for a 2 year trial. Making it permanent will depend on the number of participants. I'm planning to be there in GR next year!!! Can't wait to see what the dances are.

My coach told me in my lesson this morning that a coin toss used to be the norm for figure tests back in the day. So I guess there is a precedent ...

I'm also VERY glad there will be solo dance at AN next year. I'll probably sign up even though I have a partner, just to show my support for the idea.

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I am not sure if this is true, but I heard there will be Bronze, Silver, and Gold levels and the dances will mirror the dances for couples. I am not sure how this works with Bronze/Silver since I believe the dance teams do 4 dances and solo dance would be 2 dances, but it should match up with Gold. Also, I do not have a current rulebook, but I have heard the dances are already named in there. Does anyone know what the dances are?

Exactly, so I don't know why the coin flip idea is so controversial. One should be ambidextrous on both sides anyway. To me the flip thing was just like a draw at competitions: very few people like to skate first, but sometimes it's the luck of the draw.

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Well I do know they used to draw the figures for the figure event the day of the event when I did figures so I had to be able to do any 2-3rd test figure pretty much on demand.

That said, the coin flip idea was generally not liked during the field moves session but I don't think that was the reason for the new moves being referred. The speaker told us at the beginning of the meeting that it was about a 60/40 split for the moves, apparently that gap narrowed and they just thought it would be better to rework the moves and try again next year.

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When I started competing, they used to set three compulsory dances, and then would draw two of them to be skated when the draw for the competition was done. That was scary, as you never knew whether you would get the one dance of the three (and there always was one) that you couldn't do!

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gold: Viennese Waltz, Silver Samba (is it even possible to solo that???)
silver: European Waltz, Tango, 14-step, Blues
Bronze: Swing Dance, Fiesta Tango, Willow Waltz, 14-step

Ugh, the Silver Samba has to be one of the most miserable dances to solo. I had been planning on competing solo dance, but I am not sure I want to devote the time to perfecting a solo of that dance. I will just hope that perhaps these won't be the dances. I would think the Silver Samba would drive away a lot of potential competitors.

That is another good point about the MIF changes. I graduated from junior club/bridge program and started private lessons just as figures were being phased out and never had to do figures after the first test. I mainly did synchro with MIF and dance on the side, and even skating on a senior team never really had to do more than a single twizzle (and before IJS they didn't even have to be done properly, I'm sure most of us were doing double 3s and calling them twizzles), so it's really only been the past few years skating as an adult that I've had to work on them and that was because I was coaching and had to be able to teach my skaters to do them properly. And I literally learned how to do loops last year. No one ever did/taught them growing up once figures were gone.

Fortunately at my rink we do have enough "old school" coaches who either grew up doing figures or were already coaching back when they were still around, because you see all the kids now getting on the ice and just doing loop and twizzle drills for the first 10 minutes or so.

What about pre-gold?

ETA: Never mind. Looks like Silver Tango and Blues. Darn it I hate the Tango (but I guess I'd rather do that than the Kilian), but the Blues is my favorite.

For the solo dance events they're only going to have bronze, silver, gold. Don't know how they'll set up the test requirements to determine which level you fall into. I might end up silver, might end up gold (I'm working on pre-golds).

They are probably hoping for more entries if they keep the events broad.

Even though I'm working on Pre-Golds, I like the Bronze level best, although Silver is just fine, too...

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