- last note

My first choreo post was logically enough about an early part of your program, your first jump. Now though I leap all the way to the very end of your program: the last note, actually, at the very very end. I don't know if folks deliberately plan this out, as it seems to be more an artifact of the music you selected for your routine. One might easily though recalibrate the music to address this issue that leaves the last impression.

In an earlier post I chatted about how to allow yourself enough slack time to ensure you finish your final movements in time to the music. It seems the more I watch particular skaters though the less coincidental their endings appear. Some skaters can simply always nail the timing while others cannot.

If you are one of those lucky souls who has the rhythm in her bones then you can make a dynamite impression by choosing a musical piece with an abrupt and spectacular ending. Nail it and everyone goes Whoa.

But if you're like most skaters who can at best time it to within a couple of seconds, it would seem to me you should cut your music to end on a holding chord. That way if you're a tiny bit early you can melt into your final pose. If you made it just in time then you'll look like you planned it that way.

- scratch spin

I decided it's probably time to explore way down into the weeds, spinning out my detailed thoughts about all the possibilities of each individual element. Maybe I'll interleaf these posts with the thread I've started on choreo, just for a bit of variety.

When you are coming up to speed through the beginning levels of skating, most of your initial lessons are for moves you will later grow out of, and never perform again once you're a serious competitor. A couple of the early moves though are suave enough that you actually can use them in your mature programs, with just a bit of polish and embellishment. One of these is the scratch spin.

I don't see this much mid-program -- it must be terribly disorienting to exit a scratch spin and proceed to your next element. Maybe once or twice in a competition though I'll see a gal end her program on a scratch spin, and when done to perfection it's an arresting finish. The risk: it is easy to blemish the spin when you're tired, and if you get remotely dizzy you'll fall out of your final pose.

I like to see unexpected entrances to the scratch spin. Sometimes a gal will enter it standing from a sit or a camel spin. Sometimes you'll get a nice three-turn entry. I like to see the speed anticipation build up in a slow straight perfectly gradual progression: as your off-ice thigh gradually lowers and your arms curl in, it's fun to watch your revolutions quicken. Of course I want to see your contact foot in such a tight non-precessed circle that you're pretty much drilling a hole into the ice. If I'm fortunate enough to be alone with you in a freestyle I want to hear the smoothly louder swashily as the blade reaches resonance.

I want you to get so fast you become a blur.

Arms and hands should have some planned sensibility to them -- I've seen scratch spins with one hand in front and one in back, with fingers gently suggestive (maybe a two finger scout salute). Also nice is if you can do fancy positioning higher up near your face or overhead -- of course the higher your arms rise the more challenging the physics of pinning your center of gravity.  Your head should remain dead centered and fully upright. I've seen some head tilted back scratch spins but frankly watching them makes ME dizzy.

The end of the spin can be either gradual or checked-out. Smile!

- variance

In an earlier post I detailed how arm dynamics should be ballet slow, whereas your legs need to be dynamic and fast. There's a tad more to a well-rounded and enthralling program than that though. To stay interesting and not appear to be frozen in a mood, to show that you have moxie and can relate to your program's music, both arm and leg dynamics need to vary across time. Not randomly though, but rather softly and thematically matched to the changes in your music's tempo or intonation.

When the music is bold and sweeping your arms can be more directive and your leg movements can be longer, more rhythmic strokes. If your music is soft and gentle, your arms can by lyrical and your legs and feet can move to a more eclectic pattern. When the music is staccato your footwork should be precise and demonstrative, but your arms should be ballet (we are watching your footwork, don't distract us with your arms).

Getting into the flow of the music without being imprisoned by it is a gentile art all its own. Your motion and dynamic changes should coincide with the timepoints where your music's theme changes, but you don't have to match a stroke to every downbeat, or accent an arm movement on every bar.

- score waits

Certainly I'm aware the pregnant scorekeeping pause between each program is as much a tradition of the sport as the soakers and the hair buns. It's not such a bother for the skaters themselves or for a parent who is only sitting through one flight. If you're an aficionado like myself though and plan to watch all of the junior Group A and Group B freeskates, it can be quite the frozen hardbutt hassle. Thirty skaters might take, what, around two hours if they skated end to end? Just about the perfect sitting time, like enjoying a feature length movie.

But given the scorekeeping and the ice cuts it takes more like five hours.  Come on, even standing up to stretch between flights and grabbing a bite between groups, nobody looks forward to five hours at the rink. I'm sorry, there must be a better way to tally the scores in between skaters that won't take so long.

Yeah, I have a couple of suggestions. The first is, why do the skaters have to wait for the judges to finish? Suppose we split the judges into two adjacent panels to judge alternating skaters? Judge panel A could judge the even numbered skaters, judge panel B the odd numbered. That way skater number two could start their program while panel A is still tallying up the scores for the first skater.  Yeah that complicates the "announcement" of the scores I suppose, but geesh with modern technology you could just have an inexpensive electronic signboard flash the name and score, and then send it over the rink's wi-fi to some sort of app. Simple enough.

Or here's another idea. Install smart image processing software with an AI attached to the technical camera and offload most of the scorekeeping to a computer. The judges can still override parts of it that look wonky and should still judge the aesthetic components.  It should take about 45 seconds to determine the score, seriously.

- first jump

There's so much to say about choreography, a half dozen blog posts at least, but to begin I'd like to chat about something near the start of your routine: your first jump. I tend to witness two philosophical approaches to the first jump: either hit 'em with a big bang, or ease in easy. I guess each has its pros and cons.

If you've got some tough jumps to land it might make sense to tackle them first for a couple of reasons. One being that you are fresh and full of energy at the beginning, so you'll likely get more height on your jumps earlier rather than later in your program. The second is emotionally strategic: if you miss your tough jump early then you know immediately where you stand with respect to a chance for a high score. In other words planning your worst elements topmost takes the pressure off, as you get to find out bright and early how your program is faring.

The ease in easy approach also has its rationale though. By starting out with a less stressful jump you can get a general impression of how you feel, how your balance, blades, muscles, and energy are all gelling together. After that you can determine whether you'll go full tilt and attack the rest of your program at maximum or perhaps ease off a bit. If you plan the complexity of your jumps more like the shape of a mountain -- with the peak difficulty toward the middle of your program -- you can gradually reappraise and adjust to match your capabilities for today.

Both of these thought trains make imminent logical sense. In the hot reality of an actual competition though both of them prove dead wrong. When you step on the ice in front of the audience and judges loaded with jitters and energy, you are overcharged. Almost all the skaters I watch who choose big bang are so psyched about landing their toughest move that they put too much energy into it and overrotate.

The skaters who are easing in easy seem to have a more commodious beginning, but then you can watch them overthink each successive jump as they spend too much time repeatedly assessing their capabilities. The problem was that the easy jump, although relaxing and smooth enough to take some of the nerves off, was too easy to get a fair appraisal.

I'm wondering therefore if a blended hybrid approach might work better psychologically under pressure. It seems to me the most successful programs do a 50% jump first (something that is around your halfway most difficult), followed by an easy jump to relax and regroup, and then going full out with your big bang on your third jump. This way you get both the benefits of a fair judgement under pressure along with the relief, after you land your third jump (or not) whether you'll have a chance of setting foot on the podium. Comments welcome.