Can judging ever be objective? Part 1

In my usual butterfly manner I am dipping in and out of matters somewhat haphazardly, without looking at individual areas in too much depth. This is partly because I lack concentration at the times I come to write this blog, but also because I tend to like to see a whole picture, even if slightly out of focus, rather than part of a picture in intense focus. Inter-relationships between different phenomena interest me more than single ideas. Also, my passion is for gymnastics and what lies behind its creative and expressive development, rather than a particular set of theories.

Gymnastics is not something I observe coldly from the outside; I live each new and old routine, and my judgement of them comes from within me, and is preceded and shaded by many previous experiences. I am an armchair admirer of the sport; my main gymnastic achievement ever was to execute a forward roll without breaking my neck, and yet my recollection of my ‘favourite’ routines is always tinged with emotion and memories that go beyond mere intellectual recollection. This can work in reverse, accidentally and suddenly, as well as when deliberately recalling the detail of a competition. So when I hear a particular piece of music, it can remind me of a floor exercise. Natalia Ilienko’s 1981 floor exercise regularly pops up when I am listening to Classic FM. Swallows diving over a swimming pool in Crete reminded me of Comaneci’s graceful Hecht dismount off bars at the Montreal Olympics. Gymnastics trips me up from time to time in my everyday life and appears in places it never should, but it is always a welcome visitor.

So my view of gymnastics is completely subjective and personal. When I see a routine I feel for the grace rather than recognise and evaluate it as something that has particular characteristics. I respond to the large and spectacular and invest performances with emotion. These feelings most probably do not match the way others perceive the routine, and many of the features of the performance that I will enjoy will be intangible. It is the involuntary, unplanned beauty of gymnastics as opposed to the deliberate artistry. The Code of Points tries to quantify both, but fails.

If my perceptions are wholly personal, influenced by a host of personal experiences unique to me, and something that comes from within myself, there must be significant problems involved in using my sensory evidence to assign creative value to work. Yet who is to say that my personal assessment is of more or less value than another’s? In acknowledging sport as art and accepting gymnastics as a sport within which both the artistic and aesthetic are important, do we not need to acknowledge the critical role of subjective judgement? Can judging ever be objective?