Housseinian and Wiseman Win Jingle-JIK 2013

2013 Jingle-JIK
Cologne, Germany
December 22-23, 2013

Finals

1. Mehrdad Hosseinian/James Wiseman (42.8)
2. Freddy Finner/Alex Leist (42.1)
3. Sascha Höhne/Dan Lustiger (36.4)
4. Philipp Krüger/Harald Skomroch (34.0)
5. Tim Pattberg/Waldemar Wagner (31.6)
6. Johanna Matthia/Ilka Simon (30.6)

Semi A

1. Mehrdad Hosseinian/James Wiseman (43.1)
2. Tim Pattberg/Waldemar Wagner (38.9)
3. Philipp Krüger/Harald Skomroch (37.1)
4. Irena Kulisanova/Toby Künzel (36.9)
5. Naim Megassabi/Pepyn Tavernier (29.4)
6. Udo Engeter/Jan Zverina (26.0)

Semi B

1. Freddy Finner/Alex Leist (45.6)
2. Sascha Höhne/Dan Lustiger (42.2)
3. Johanna Matthia/Ilka Simon (41.3)
4. Benjamin Edelmann/Nico Schwarz (36.6)
5. Jonathan Kriss/Andreas Nogay (25.2)
6. Chris Bellaj/Ian Schwarz (21.7)

German language event recap

FPAW 1988: Incredible Video Treasure Chest

Stefan Karlsson and Rob Fried opened up their archives this month and treated us to hours of video from the 1988 FPA World Championships in Santa Barbara. Aside from the privilege of seeing legends like Chip Bell and Joey Hudoklin at arguably the peaks of their game, we get a chance to see some magical freestyle from the late Mika Nordman, the mythical Hal Erickson and Konn Cummings plus many others. FPAW 1988 is notable as Dave Murphy’s first world championships, and it looks like he came mighty close to winning the co-op title (with Dave Schiller and Joel Rogers) in his first try.

The 1988 FPA World Champions

Open Pairs: Chip Bell/Joey Hudoklin
Open Co-op: Larry Imperiale/Skippy Jammer/Tom Leitner
Women’s Pairs: Stacy Anderson/Carolyn Yabe
Mixed Pairs: Kate Dow/Dave Schiller

Videos from Stefan Karlsson

Jams

Mike Cloud made a great observation on Facebook about these jams: “In many ways its more informative to watch the masters warming up, than to watch their tournament routines.” So true.

Joey Hudoklin, Bob Coleman, Dave Schiller, Ritchie Smitz, Randy Silvey
Joey Hudoklin, Rick Castiglia
Joey Hudoklin, Konn Cummings, Adrian Wainwright , Ritchie Smits, Jamie Chantiles
Joey Hudoklin, Chip Bell, Dave Zeff
Joey Hudoklin, Mike Nordman, Chip Bell

Open Pairs Final

1. Chip Bell/Joey Hudoklin
(remaining order of finish not known)
Skippy Jammer/Tom Leitner
Doug Branigan/Rick Castiglia
Larry Imperiale/Bill Wright
Craig Burris/Mike Connaway
Tristan Doshier/Steve Hanes
Ritchie Smits/Dave Zeff
Bob Coleman/Dave Schiller

Continue reading “FPAW 1988: Incredible Video Treasure Chest”

Aichi Flying Disc Tourment 2013

Aichi Flying Disc Tournament 2013
Chubu University, Aichi, Japan http://goo.gl/maps/fc13h
December 1,2013
AIFDA

The Aichi Flying Disc Tournament was an overall tournament that included Distance, Accuracy, SCF and Freestyle. It may have been the first tournament in Japan to have a mixed pairs freestyle division.

Open
1.Yutaka Harashina/Masaki Hirashima
2.Kimitoshi Murakami/Ryuichi Suzuki
3.Hiroyuki Takeuchi/Takahiko Yamamoto/Hiroshi Oguri

Mixed Pairs
1.Ryuichi Suzuki/Mayumi Suzuki(f)
2.Tomokazu Yamamoto/Yukari Komatsu(f)
3.Masaki Hirashima/Aya Ichikawa(f)
*female marks (f) after the names.

Amateur
1.Naoki Maeda/Tomoyuki Matsuki
2.Yutaro Hirasawa/Keisuke Watanabe

Why I Love the 2013 Beach Stylers Judging System

There was a judging experiment this year at Beach Stylers, and I loved it.

The Beach Stylers judging system was a simplified version of the FPA system. Two panels of judges scored routines. The first panel handled Execution and Artistic Impression. The second panel handled Difficulty. Key changes across the board created a competition that served our sport by rewarding ambitious play.

Execution
Penalties for mistakes were reduced and collapsed into fewer deduction categories. With 0.2 as the worst penalty for any mistake, taking risks got very attractive.

Difficulty
Difficulty was scored by phrase. Normally this doesn’t affect risk incentive because the easier, transitional phrases mute the effect of the peak moments. At Beach Stylers, only the top 10 phrases counted, creating an incentive to go bigger and bigger. Every time a team replaced a weaker move with a stronger one, their mark went up noticeably. Combined with the reduced penalties from execution deductions, the top 10 approach encouraged players to pushing their limits.

Artistic Impression
AI was simplified but touched enough elements to measure the performance while not being a burden. With the added responsibility of judging Execution, it was helpful for AI judges to track fewer subcategories.

Linking Execution/Artistic Impression
In the Beach Stylers system, the AI score and the Ex scores are multiplied together. This is a cool approach to reducing the skewed impact AI and Ex traditionally have on the final score and preserving the importance of Difficulty. Here’s how it works. AI/Ex can contribute a maximum of 50 points to the score. Let’s say a team maxes out in AI for 50 points (10 x 5 subcategories). But they have 3 drops. That would result in an Ex score of 9.4 and an Ex multiplier of 0.94 (Ex score divided by 10). The AI/Ex score is 50 x 0.94 or 47 points.

This is a reversal of the scoring dynamic from the FPA system where AI adds points to the score and Difficulty is locked in a narrow averaged range. At Beach Stylers, Difficulty was unleashed by the top 10 approach, allowing teams to add to their score in a tangible way every time they replaced a weaker top 10 combination. Meanwhile, AI/Ex stayed in a solid range, generating modest distinctions between teams. Teams that sacrificed difficulty for AI were likely to be hurt more than teams that sacrificed a AI for difficulty. That said, I saw a team or two lose points by not addressing AI.

The Judging Experience
I judged only AI/Ex, and it wasn’t taxing. Cooperation among judges helped to minimize Execution tracking errors. It’s possible to judge AI without taking many notes, so focusing on Execution marks while taking in the whole performance felt relatively effortless.

Let’s Do This More Often
This judging approach is a breath of fresh air. Like the turboshred approach, it incentivizes state-of-the-art freestyle play. It unleashes us. It’s an engraved invitation to step up. Turboshred has a presumption of mistakes that the general public understands. That’s not usually the case in team play. Beach Stylers addresses this by including enough incentive for cleaner and cooperative play to be fun for the general public to see. Let’s try this approach to competition more often!

Lazzaroni 2013

Lazzaroni 2013
Bologna, Italy
November 23-24, 2013

Final
1. Andrea Meola/Valerio Occorsio (40.8) [video]
2. Clay Collera/Andrea Dini (40.0) [video]
3. Manuel Cesari/James Wiseman (39.7) [video]
4. Mehrdad Hosseinian/Dan Lustiger (37.1) [video]
5. Gloria Alessandrini/Marco Prati (34.7) [video]
6. Piccio Cusma/Andrea Poli (34.6) [video]
7. Luca Mazzucato/Andrea Rimatori (34.3) [video]
8. Emanuelle Faustini/Fabrizio Nizzo (31.2) [video]

Semi A
1. Clay Collera/Andrea Dini (44.7) [video]
2. Piccio Cusma/Andrea Poli (43.4) [video]
3. Emanuelle Faustini/Fabrizio Nizzo (40.0) [video]
4. Luca Mazzucato/Andrea Rimatori (38.2) [video]
5. Sascha Höhne/Freddy Finner (36.9) [video]
6. Marco Fera/Andrea Sarti (33.6) [video]
7. Andrea Marciano/Lorenzo Modarelli (33.5) [video part 1 | video part 2]
8. Gianluca Giglio/Mirco Zanchetta (31.9) [video]

Semi B
1. Mehrdad Hoseinian/Dan Lustiger (41.8) [video]
2. Gloria Alessandrini/Marco Prati (39.1) [video]
3. Andrea Meola/Valerio Occorsio (38.8) [video]
4T*. Manuel Cesari/James Wiseman (38.7) [video]
4T. Andrea Girodo/Fabrizio Nicco (38.7)
6T. Edoardo Gargano/Andrea Ludergnani (28.1) [video]
6T. Marco Chessa/Francesco Lucci (28.1) [video]
8. Dario Marinoni/Lorenzo Telo (24.0) [video]

* tiebreak

Prelims A
1. Andrea Marciano/Lorenzo Modarelli (37.6)
2. Andrea Girodo/Fabrizio Nicco (35.2)
3. Gianluca Giglio/Mirco Zanchetta (32.2)
4. Dario Marinoni/Lorenzo Telo (26.9)
5. Gianluca Bertoncelli/Simone Nonnis (25.8)
6. Anna Bragagnolo/Andrea Pecchiari (23.9)

Prelims B
1. Luca Mazzucato/Andrea Rimatori (38.5)
2. Marco Fera/Andrea Sarti (33.6)
3. Marco Chessa/Francesco Lucci (33.1)
4. Edoardo Gargano/Andrea Ludergnani (27.5)
5. Roberto Borghesi/Raffaele Pilla (24.9)

Mob Op

1. Mehrdad Hosseinian (13 Votes)
2. Valerio Occorsio (11 Votes)
3. Manuel Cesari & Freddy Finner(10 Votes)
4. Marco Prati (7)
5. Sascha Hohne (6)
6. Andrea Poli (5)
7. Dan Lustiger (4)
8. Luca Mazzucato, Emanuele Faustini, James Wiseman (3)
9. Andrea Marcianò, Raffaele Pilla, Silvia Caruso, Paolo Magni, Clay Collerà, Gianluca Giglio, Fabrizio Nicco, Andrea Rimatori (2)
10. Lorenzo Modarelli, Fabio Nizzo, Anna Bragagnolo, Andrea Meola, Mirco Zanchetta, Lorenzo Telò, Marco Chessa, Andrea Pecchiari, Andrea Girodo, Gloria Allessandrini (1)

2013 Sonoma Shred and Turboshred Competition

Sonoma Shred and Turboshred Competition
November 30, 2013
Rohnert Park, CA

1. Matt Gauthier 88
2. Jake Gauthier 84
3. Arthur Coddington 83
4. Lisa Hunrichs 79
5. Carl Dobson 74
6. Scott Weaver 73
7. Mike Esterbrook 67
8T. Bob Gossett 63
8T. Lori Daniels 63
10. Michael Clarke 59
11T. Dan Exelby 51
11T. Phoebe Lett 51
13. Steve Stotter 50
14. Rick Moody 49
15. Luke Smalanskas 33
16. Raj Mistry 25
17. Wil “Spaz” Spaziani 20
18. Katie Smith 15