Skip to main content

Rewriting the Code of Points - the missing link

Image
By
There has been quite a discussion about the Code of Points going on at the Gymnastics Coaching blog - with particular reference to the safety angle - there have been 35 comments to date from all corners of the world, so it's an interesting read.

In the meantime, I have been looking back at the 1989 edition of the Code.   I found this introductory section:

'It is the responsibility of the judges, based upon the present Code of Points, to grasp in its totality:
  • the construction of the exercises as a whole
  • the difficulty value of elements and connections
  • the flow of the movements
  • the synchronization of the music with the floor exercise
while sufficiently considering, aside from the technical perfection of execution, the harmony and strength of expression as well as the aesthetics of presentation'   

Doesn't this somehow encapsulate so much of what is missing from the current, highly deconstructed, Code?

PS  I also did a little review of the current Code - a word count with the help of the search tool.  For what it's worth,  I found the following:

'Artistry' appears 16 times
'Deduction' 68 times
'Bonus' 0 times
'Originality' 2 times
'Harmony', 'Risk' 'Virtuosity' 0 times
'Amplitude' 5 times
'Choreography' 3 times
'Dance' 26 times
'Elements' 154 times

I make no claims as to the validity of this method in extracting the overwhelming focus (or lack thereof) of a text.

Labels:

Comments

  1. usa reel deal6 September 2011 at 07:19

    Agree to you girl, Personally, I thought Rebecca’s bad landing off Beam was extremely dangerous, too. She really did looked primed for injury at VISA Championships.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Queen Elizabeth6 September 2011 at 11:26

    Gymnasts' bodies will wear out when the Code demands quantity, not quality.

    Re-introducing a requirement to assess the whole routine and its appearance would reward time spent on choreography (body alignment, amplitude, etc) and integration of individual skills into a consummate routine (all four apparatus. We need to reward originality in such a way as to encourage the development of single moves of new difficulty. Such an emphasis on performance would help to mitigate the risk of injury and also make the sport better to watch.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

UPDATE 23/9 - Russian WAG team for Nanning confirmed

By
Daria Spiridonova will compete at her first World Championships this autumn.  Picture : RGF Natalia Kalugina has confirmed the Russian team for Nanning : Aliya Mustafina, Maria Kharenkova, Tatiana Nabieva,Ekaterina Kramarenko, Alla Sosnitskaya, Daria Spiridonova.  Reserve : Polina Fyodorova Here is a paraphrased translation of a comment by Natalia Kalugina on her Facebook page : 'Aliya has confidence in competition and she is, kind of, a coach to this team.  In Europe she succeeded in this role and she has told the coaches that she even liked it. The main fighting force will be Kharenkova, Sosnitskaya and Spiridonova.  Accordingly, the strongest apparatus will be beam (Marina Bulashenko With God!).  The Chinese women, of course, have been known to win that apparatus, but if one falls, they all fall.   Alla Sosnitskaya could compete in the vault final, and - in theory - on the floor. On bars, of course, Russia will probably lose to the Chinese women, but the...
57 comments
Read more

Andrei Rodionenko explains Russia's performance at Worlds - Lupitatranslates

By
Rodionenko with European Champion David Belyavski  Courtesy RGF/Elena Mikhailova This is the interview that many people on the internet have already commented on, regarding Andrei Rodionenko's alleged racism.  The original, Russian language version, appears on VTB Bank's website (VTB are sponsors of Russian gymnastics).  It takes cleverer people than me to decide what is racism, what is deliberately perjorative, and what is inferred in an interviewer's question.  For now, I will not comment on this, therefore, but I would ask you to read Lupita's translation carefully before you form your own opinion.   I am providing some links below which might help you to decide where you stand. Definition of racism Definition of sexism BBC Sport article by Matthew Syed : Is it wrong to note that 100m winners are always black?            Updated 24/10 CSKA Moscow: UEFA opens racist chants case         ...
48 comments
Read more

Tatiana Gutsu interview

By
1992 Olympic Champion, Tatiana Gutsu, is a Ukrainian gymnast (from the city of Odessa) who competed for both the USSR and Ukraine during her senior competitive career from 1990 to 1992.  She was the first in a new generation of gymnasts who brought an ultra high level of difficulty to their work; in fact some of Gutsu's innovations have yet to be repeated, in particular the split leg double layout tumble on floor which remains exclusively hers.  Vault was her least spectacular apparatus, but on bars, beam and floor, Gutsu led the field with fast, powerful and original work.  She flew recklessly through her bars routine, showed not an ounce of fear in a non stop beam routine.  Her 1991 floor work, full of intricate choreography and ultra powerful tumbling, was under-rated and is largely, and rather unfairly, overlooked in the history books of the sport.  She was the epitome of the Soviet ground-breaking gymnast, performing single skills of very great difficulty...
22 comments
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more