Hi guys! I wanted to ask sort of a favor. Could you please write sort of a score spectre on difficulty judging, so I could understand it better. For instance how many points would you give to a conseq. combination of with the spin pulls, a tipping combo and etc. And what would generally get 1 point, 2 and up to 10. I know everyone has a different way of judging diff, but thats why im asking )
18 Replies to “Difficulty gradation”
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Ciao Alex,I think your question is very difficult to answer. Even more difficult writing it down. The difficult judging is "difficult" 😀
Let’s assume we are judging together a combo:
-Delay to UTL* pull, to BTB** pull, to Flamingo catch.
*Under The Leg
**Behind the Back
Ok, it seems like a quite simple combination, so we give it a 3/4.
But…let’s change a bit that combo:
-Delay to UTL pull, to control delay, BTB pull, center control again, then Flamingo.
If we gave 3/4 to the first one this should receive 2/3, the difficulty score could totally change if the combination is consecutive or not.
Let’s change the combo:
-Delay to flamingitis pull, to chair pull, to arvand pull, to spinning scarecrow catch. (everything consecutive)
The pulls are restricted and their diff is:hard,medium,medium.Then there is a spinning scarecrow so blind catch…I would give this a 6-7 probably.
Let’s change a few things:
-Delay to flamingitis pull, to spinning chair pull, to spinning arvand pull, to spinning scarecrow catch.
The combo is harder now, from pull to pull you always have a spin, and maintaining the focus for 3 pulls with spin and a final spinning blind catch is not easy, so let’s give it an 8.
Let’s change again:
-Delay to spinning flamingitis pull, to double spinning chair pull, to double spinning arvand pull, to double spinning scarecrow catch…
Ok, only the first passage is really hard, the spinning flamingitis pull has a VERY restricted window and if you miss that part you compromise the whole combo!It’s a risky start and only for that it should have a higher score. Then you have 2 spins chair, 2 spins arvand…these restricted pulls come after you went almost upside down with your head, and it’s very hard to keep the mind focused to get the rithm without missing the disc. After these pulls you have the 2 spins and scare…pretty scary having such a finale with a blind catch. What should we give to this combo? 9? 9.5? Let’s keep the 9, thinking that we are lowering a bit the scale right now if before this we got an 8 to the last combo.
Ok, let’s change again the combo, adding more difficulty:
-Delay to triple spinning flamingitis pull (I’m no kiddin’, I’ve seen Tommy doing it), to double spinning chair pull, to triple spinning arvand pull to 4 spins scarecrow.
There’s a total of 12 spins from the delay and the catch…keeping the mind focused the whole time and going for a blind 4 spins catch is pretty unreal, but let’s assume there is a frisbee god out there who can pull out this huge combo in an FPA format tournament. If last combo was 9 this is more than 10…for me it’s a 12 so all the considerations we had from the beginning of this is futile, because the scale is broken. The difficulty judging is hard to evaluate, and in my honest point of view, it has a lot of bugs in it. To understand this you could just go in the judging tent during an FPA format competition and look how the scores of the judges are different from judge to judge.
Some pros says: to judge difficulty, you should be able to do those moves in order to know their difficulty…do we want to judge a Paul Kenny machine gun?Or a Tempest by Pipo?Or a brushing run from Tommy?A third world combo by Randy Silvey?How much do we evaluate that?Well I don’t know! 😀
To finish this I will say three things:
1. Judging Difficulty is VERY HARD with the actual method, but it’s the only we have, then we should use this 😉
2. Judging Artistic Impression is EVEN MORE HARD to me, it’s too much individual taste in it…and I will add no more.
3. You don’t have to judge jams and parties, so go and fully enjoy your jammin’ and parties after, during and before the tournaments!
Keep practicin’ B.S.A.A.
Fabiosis
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” FLY HIGH AS A DISC IN THE SKY ! ”
Oh, great answers Fabio and Arthur. This is exactly what I wanted to hear. This makes the whole process seem a little bit easier and clearer now! Ill Copy-Paste this to the FPA forums if you dont mind )
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No jump, no catch!
I am glad there is this discussion about difficulty, because there are so many things wrong with the concept, but we have to keep evolving the guidelines. I like what Skippy did in Santa Cruz for the Masters/Juniors. Instead of an artificial 15 sec mark segments, which takes the difficulty judge’s attention away from what he/she is supposed to be doing, he asked us to score during the natural pauses. This is during a throw or pass or break in connectivity. So as a judge we missed very little of the substance of the routine. The concept of difficulty is relative and influences what a judge scores subconsciously.
If a judge sees a player do something that the judge also does maybe he/she doesn’t give as high a score as when they see something they don’t do or thought of.
What bothers me the most is that when you go back over the score sheets at let’s say the World Championships how many 10’s were given? Nines? Eights? very few, well who is going to do these hypothetical 10’s , are aliens supposed to come down? I urge all who are interested to raise your difficulty scores.
The last point is about quick catch. Quick catch is hard to pull off in competition , but is not rewarded. So under the current situation why do quick catch? I would hate to see this part of the freestyle game eliminated because of the judging system. Tommy L has made a good suggestion that
quick catch be judge separately. While this might work in the short term, the real solution is to raise your scores for quick catch to reflect the difficulty involved.
Let’s keep the discussion going so that our sport can evolve. Ice skating adopted a new system this year which is accumulative instead of taking away from 10. This is positive and will provide an increasing number that will be memorable.
Fabio gave some great examples there. A few thoughts to summarize some
of my difficulty judging approach:
1. Consecutivity: Fabio’s first example is a good one. Linking tricks
together
makes the combination much, much more difficult. Markus Hein described
consecutivity well in the Berling freestyle camp by describing consecutivity as
“every move is the set for the next move.”
2. Avoid Reputation Judging: When I judge a top player, I try to
imagine what I
would give a lower-ranked player if they did the same move. When judging a
lower-ranked player, I try to imagine what I would give a legend if they did
the same move. Like it or not, we are influenced by expectations. If we
expect the world champ to do a great combo, we might give a high score
even for basic moves. Likewise, if a lower-ranked player does an amazing
combo, we might downgrade it unconsciously because we only expect that
calibre of play from the champs.
3. Drops. Don’t let a drop nullify great moves that came before.
Yes,
completing the combo is important, but it’s really only one move of several.
if someone does an incredibly technical sequence of moves, imagine what the
score would be if that was all they did. Don’t go below that score if they
drop.
4. Keep a running score. When judging, I try to keep a realtime
tally of the
score. I think “ok, that’s a 4. Oooh! now it’s a 5. Still a 5. Oh, I can’t
believe they caught that. It’s a 7.” Or, “oh, that’s promising, this could lead
to a big score. Yikes, that was not so good, now they’re really only at a 4.
Simple catch. Yeah, a 4.”
As you can imagine, there is much, much more to say about this.
Well, about the high scores (10,9,8) Look at like this Z, in figure skating a 6 is also given very rarely. Tho they have a wider scale of course.
Then again leaving the 10 and 9 for extreme heinousness make sense, since you can never tell what move smb will pull off, when as figure skating has much less variety and unpredicability than freestyle ))
Also, Fabio: your examples are great, but i really would like to see some score sheets for different players with different styles. (You speak mainly of spinning pulls and catches, but that is only one way of increasing diff). There is a ton of tricks that most players dont do and they have to be judged in some way.
What would be a good idea is posting score sheets for routines which are available on video, so people who havent judged a certain category can learn about it. Make sort of a judging tutorial with practical material, not just general guidelines.
Jump High, Fall Slow ))
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No jump, no catch!
Well, I just made a few examples..if I had to explain every single move from brushing combos, to tipping, to control, to ground work or contronatural…well my friend, I would go on writing for more than a month probably. I just took out of the hat a sort of style-moves to analyze together.
If we want to do it more difficult, we can try to judge two different combos:
-Psycho brush, to BTB brush, to BTL brush, to Learbs Brush, to Phlaud.
-10Tipping combos with both hands, to UTL control, to Grapevine control, to Bad Attitude control, to Oliver catch.
Let’s imagine you should figure out what’s the highest scored from the two.The styles are so different…and then so difficult to apply the same judging scale…
Fabiosis
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” FLY HIGH AS A DISC IN THE SKY ! ”
Sorry if i made it sound that your answer wasnt full enough Fabio, I just meant that seeing scoring sheets would make it easier rather than explaining, because of the reason you just said. Since it is difficult to judge diff between styles of play.
Is there a sort of FPA record for scoring sheets (i saw them being put into a computer, so there probably must be (tho the judges calculate scores, which means not all the info from the score sheet gets to the head judge, right?)
If there is such a record, it would be a good task of finding good vids of routines and putting a few score sheets near them, with some commentary on why the judge assigned such and such a score. That would a task for a new FPA board member )) Id do it, but i havent judged the hard categories ((
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No jump, no catch!
I think our sport is one of the cleanest around, and I think your idea of putting out the exact judging sheets would be great to let it remain this way.
And analyzing mistakes in the sheets (for example: 8 drops instead of 10), or some weird scoring (2 judges scoring higher a team instead of another and one scoring lower).
This would help a lot for future judging… new judges would know better difficulty and A.I. values, veteran judges could improve their judging measure (the second hardest move in freestyle is judging to me).
And this clean vision of the sport could fall on new players who approach freestyle.
I think the problem of some veteran players is "this is how I always have been judge and I’m not gonna change, I have THE right scale"…well, that’s sometime a problem, people who judge should be OPEN-MINDED, ready to get positive OR negative feedback and correct their methods.
When I started to freestyle I wondered why freestylers never put up a scoring book, as you just did, after 2 years I’ve understood that you can see on the field something you’ve never seen before, breaking every rule.
What it could be is having SOME fixed points for some movements (not combinations of moves, only one trick), example: spinning gitis. Still we have two problems:
1.The set: "how did he set the disc up for that gitis?" Horizontally? Vertically? Upside down? From the rim? From a Rings of Saturn pull? From a Twisto?
2.Catch position: How "extreme" was that gitis? Was it way up in air? Was it almost on the ground? Was it handstanding? Or gitis-rolling like Murph? …lol there are so many variations, and that’s also why there are no standards for scoring.
But I still think your idea of putting online judging sheets is a cool idea, that would help.
How to judge? Well, keep away your individual thoughts on the moves, on the tunes, on who’s on the field, just concentrate on WHAT’S GOING ON in front of you. Be open-minded 🙂
Fabiosis
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” FLY HIGH AS A DISC IN THE SKY ! ”
I would first like to thank everyone who replied so far. You really helped me understanding a bit more.
I thought of another way, which might not be practical. One can always give certain moves, a certain score ahead. Let’s say, for instance, that a UTL pass gets X points. And BTB pull gets Y points. So every time a player does a UTL pass+BTB pull (in a certain level), he should get a (X+Y)/2 (average of X and Y), plus a certain bonus for doing them together – one after the other. So actually, difficulty will be more objective than subjective, and the judges won’t have as much "place" as in the other two categories.
Of course, it can’t be done "plain", simply by how Fabio described the gitis – there are so many different variations. But I believe there should be some kind of guidance. Maybe a UTL pass can also get a scoree between X-Z, depends on all kinds of categories.
What do you think?
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“If the ball could choose, it would be a frisbee”
I like the transparency in the sport that Fabio suggests. Since I was involved
in administering tournaments early on, I was able to see the judging sheets
as I developed as a player, and they helped a lot…when I matched them up
with video. Without video, they are just numbers and there’s only so much
you can learn. But if you can match them up to a certain point in the routine
(easier with the 15 second blocks than with phrase judging), you can learn
what moves made an impact at the judging table.
I know there is some resistance to publishing the raw scores – resistance I
don’t share – so that judges can feel no pressure about the scores they give,
so they won’t get singled out after the competition if an athlete disagrees
with their opinion, etc. We have a brand new sport now. The old resistance
may just be irrelevent because the new generation needs all the info it can
get and sees the success of transparent operations in other fields.
Omerr, like Fabio said, a hard scale is very elusive, but if you want to give
some examples, I’m sure we could respond with the score we would give.
That way, you could have a start at your own scale for when you sit at the
judging table.
Ok, I’ll make a try on this method on the new website jamngo.com. I’m already working on last FPAW videos and I hope we’ll start posting next month after EFC in Rome. I would gladly put the judging sheets also (do you have them, right Arthur?). I won’t post all the videos, only finals and some top semis maybe, because it’s a long and hard work. Plus I’d love to put also minor torunaments videos online, to have different realities.
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” FLY HIGH AS A DISC IN THE SKY ! ”
I don’t have the judging sheets. I think Tommy had them.
Thanks, I’ll ask Tommy when I meet him in Rome then.
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” FLY HIGH AS A DISC IN THE SKY ! ”
Thanks so much for your reply, Arthur.
Well, I have a different question. How would you rate body-involving tricks? For instance, Double Over Down, or Cartwheel Pull (like Reto does) or a catch like a Cartwheel catch. I know, of course, it can’t get a rank of it’s own (since it’s only a part of the 15 seconds), but I’d definately like to know whether it makes a positive impact on the judges.
Thanks again.
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“If the ball could choose, it would be a frisbee”
One idea that could work is to set up a few classic combos on video then ask people to judge, them then discuss the differences. Something like that online would train judges and give us all some common ground. For the new move there will always be controversy on how to judge it, but how many new moves are there these days? Alot less than the past.
I posted the mixed pairs because I thought it would be a good example of the sport for all to see. I also have all the routines from semis and finals. So maybe Fabio and I can cut each others work in half. I am more interested in posting highlights than archiving, but I would like to see a few classic combos posted in video then we all get to judge difficulty then compare notes, train a judge today!
I really like that idea Z!In fact from now on I think I’ll post only full lenght routines of top teams, and maybe working a bit harder in these kind of video project, like "judge training", or highlights, or video magazine…etc
People out of the sport would get more involved if we put out highlights or well edited videos, but I think freestylers still need to see full routines from tournaments.
I think it would be cool to publish a .jpg file of the judge sheet next to the videos, for those who would like to see how was the judging process.
As Arthur said, it would be cool to have a Mark reference, but I don’t want to cut out the tune and editing the Mark voice on them, I’d prefer to suggest the download of the audio file from freestyledisc.org, and playing it on the background. With that you can see how the judges scored exactly every 15 secs.
Fabiosis
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” FLY HIGH AS A DISC IN THE SKY ! ”
Well Omer, FPA judging format is based on 15 secs so I couldn’t give a score to a cartwheel catch only. In the case you have only a cartwheel catch during the mark range because you loose time for some reason (ex: last throw was too long and you had to run for the disc and to throw again) you would get very few points, because in 15 secs you did only one catch. Maybe not an easy catch, but still only one move.
In other tournaments we have a different format in difficulty, we judge the combo, so if you do a combo of a double leg over down, then cartwheel pull to cartwheel catch, I would give a 6 or 7 depending on how difficult was the set and mantaining a good or bad rithm (Example: if you take much time from a move to the other the combo would be a bit easier than a no-breaks movement, I always think that mantaining a rithm or a flow in the combo is harder, because it requires much more focus.)
But I still think judging theorically is not good to have an idea of "how to judge". Z made a really cool suggestion to put little combos and judging them all together. I would suggest also to put 15 secs combos (it doesn’t have to be from a routine, everyone can post one, maybe of himself or of some friends), we don’t need HUGE combos, I’d prefer starting with simple ones.
Fabiosis
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” FLY HIGH AS A DISC IN THE SKY ! ”