Judging in PS - proposal

In my previous post I considered how PS can be judged in a competitive setting. Is there a more definitive way of considering PS that divides its elements in a more logical fashion?

In my post on approaching technical PS, I mentioned that spinning can be considered at various depths - on a basic level as core parameters and superficially as what tricks were done, with increasing depth of consideration as to how links complement each other to create effect, and how the ideas shown in the combo relate to other existing combos, and so on. What happens if we try this approach for the 3 ‘main’ concrete criteria - execution, difficulty, and originality? 

The first idea I had was a direct application of this to the combo itself - i.e. considering on ‘micro’ scale i.e. trick technique/separate trick and link scale, and ‘macro’ scale i.e. what each link contributes to the combo, and how the combo contributes to the other combos that spinner made, the other combos in that tournament, and all existing combos. Personally, I found this way of considering PS to be extremely useful in evolving my spinning from 2016 to 2021 when I was training seriously, and allowed me to join the dots of the abstract vision in my head to create actual combos that progressed along the path I dreamt of. The problem with this combo-based depth division for practical judging is that it obscures some basic things like ‘is the overall hardness of the combo micro or macro?’ 

The solution to this problem is to use the depth consideration on the 3 ‘main’ criteria themselves, rather than on the links in the combo. What do we end up with then?

Execution-related

Superficial: Technique perfection - whether the tricks are performed properly (in regards to the mod’s rotations, its position to the fingers, whether the accelerations and decelerations are performed well). Of course, technique level is a lot more nuanced than this: think of Hash, Noel, Dary as aesthetic-based examples; or specific ways of performing hard tricks like doing PD fl around rev with minimal hand movement, pen spinning parallel to the ground as a technical-based example. To accommodate higher level technique, higher scores can be given for exceptional mastery in this subcriteria.

Deep: Effect - how visual elements come together to create the overall impressions of the combo. Note visual elements are not necessarily what one finds subjectively appealing (or even about whether the technique in performance is better). For example, Nine's WC22 R2 and Saltient's WT21 R4 have distinct impactful use of visual elements while not necessarily having the most perfect technique. Depending on the event, less intuitive evolution of effects like Dary or Noel's JEB Spinfest 2019 that require more specific thought to implement may be considered over more intuitive evolution of effects that require less specific experimentation.

Difficulty-related

Superficial: Hardness - how hard the breakdown is. Consider the mechanics shown and the precision required (whether it be margins of error over rotation speed, position of the mod etc) or specific movements in tight timeframes (links that require control over ¼ rotations like moonwalk inverse side sonic with minimal change in palm orientation, or the fast hold-release transitions in palm down 1p2h twirl fall). Since this subcriteria only considers how hard the breakdown is, it does not penalise a combo made of filler - short hard sequence compared to a combo with same overall hardness but even distribution.

Deep: Density - how the various mechanics interact with each other and their arrangement throughout the entire combo. Are there any filler moments where the chain of rising difficulty is broken? The range of skill sets mastered and whether there are different interactions beyond those required in learning the separate tricks are also considered (e.g. pinky bust cardioid - seasick - curled pinky bak 1.5 in my WT21 R3 requires learning different mechanics beyond the separate tricks). I considered renaming this subcriteria due to the confusion and arguments ‘density’ created in the past, but regardless of what name is chosen, it still makes sense to consider the deeper elements of difficulty like this.

Originality-related

Superficial: Novelty - whether the material, or similar material, has been done before and how often it was done before. While this has a risk of judges forgetting old videos, and has theoretical risks of encouraging people to hide material, delete old content, or send subpar collab submissions etc, as the most basic way of considering originality it makes sense. The considerations in releasing material are something people of many artforms and professions deal with on a daily basis.

Deep: Conception - whether there are deeper overarching abstract ideas explored or conveyed. This is potentially the most nebulous criteria, because it deals with perceived intent, which can vary depending on the audience, the competitor’s posted explanations, previous combos. In theory, it’s possible a very experienced judge may see a deeper significance behind the combo that the competitor missed. While very few spinners or combos step into this territory (as such, the majority of submissions will score quite low in this area), the works that reach it can create new paths or new ways of considering PS - e.g. OhYeah's WPSAL 2017 1p2h for 1p2h interactions, or Saltient's WT21 combos for visual structures and alien impressions, or RPD's PSO20 multipen for creating 1p1h-like flow with 2p1h mechanics.

Some of the combos I put most work into - my WT21 R5 for exploiting the properties of power and timing-based difficulty, my WT19 R5 as a condensation of complex mechanics aimed to step into this territory. Another combo of mine that touches on conception, albeit at shallower depth, is my 2p2h combo in tag with Supawit which explored a new form of transfers. Initially, I only saw these transfers as cool visual effects rather than as a generalisable solution for ‘how do I make transfer of each pen to different hand without mods leaving contact of the hand’.

Presentation will remain as before i.e. depending on how detrimental the presentation is to understanding what’s going on in the video, up to -2 points. Of course, choice of background colour, lighting, mod colour, filming angle play a huge role in the final effects and impressions - worth far more than 0-2 points. A larger variety of material requires an appropriate choice of an ever increasing range of setups. It is worth considering whether the detrimental aspects of presentation can be the ‘superficial’ consideration, with the ‘deep’ consideration being how setup relates to choice and performance of the material. The problem with putting more weight into presentation is that out of all the subcriteria, it is likely the most prone to excusable arbitrary exploitation.

If you have read up to here, then I’m very grateful. While it’s unlikely you will agree with everything said here (it would be strange if you did), I hope my thoughts will leave an impression on you and provoke some thinking of your own.

To finish off, I'll give what is probably my favourite quote - a reply by ZUN (the creator of the Touhou project series, who is self-taught in both music composition and computer programming) when asked what made Super Mario Brothers and Street Fighter 2 notable when they released:

“Those games were revolutionary because they had things like different systems from games before them, creating new atmospheres within themselves. Later, people would say stuff like "that game engine was revolutionary" or "the characters had a lot of appeal", but at the time, no one really thought about the individual aspects because they were too busy playing. Games don't become hits because of those kinds of reasons. The systems in those games weren't just the pinnacle of all the games made up to that point, there was also a decisive difference. If I had to put it into words, I would say they "created a new world". Though it's a little different from the usual meaning, let's just go with that.” - ZUN.

Will your spinning create a new world? It's up to you.

Judging in PS - considerations

Hello everyone, it’s been a while. While I don’t train that seriously nowadays, I still pick up the mod pretty often and think about PS quite a lot, and gained some interesting insights from reading about medical education as well. This is the first post about PS judging in this 'series', an attempt at addressing many of the questions raised is in the second post.

So PSO22 is coming around and it will try yet again a slightly different way of judging. Anyone who’s been around the competitive PS scene for a few years will know the countless discussions (in worse cases - drama, arguments, salt, grudges) surrounding any attempt to assess our artform.

One can ask whether PS (or arts in general) should be competitive, or have criteria, or have numerical scores - unfortunately, human nature dictates that humans are competitive, and competitions, criteria, and scoring exist in PS and other arts, for better or worse. So let’s move onto more practical questions.

The most important question is ‘what purpose does PS competition serve?’ This is the most important question because PS competitions exist to address this.

Q: Is it to award a title to someone? 

A: We will never agree who the #1 is, because different people prioritise different elements of PS (be it finesse of technique, technical skill, innovation or other things). A title in itself has reduced meaning if it has been awarded through unreliable/invalid methods of assessment, or if competitors are not all ‘serious’ about preparation. Unlike professional sports or arts, a title in PS is not related to one’s primary income. Nonetheless, because competition exists, communities have been trying different ways of assessing PS for competing. 

Q: Is it to define what makes a better spinner or a better combo?

A: On a general level, it’s easy to define a ‘good combo’ - all its elements contribute to visuals and mechanics: combos that don’t do this will have wasteful or detrimental material. Of course, individuals may disagree on whether certain elements contribute in a positive way. It follows that a ‘good spinner’ is someone who makes many ‘good combos’. Do competitions exist merely to be satisfied with attaining ‘good’ rather than ‘exceptional’ or ‘groundbreaking’?

Q: Is it to promote activity and progression in the hobby?

A: I feel this is getting closer than the previous 2 questions. Direct competition fuels improvement and drives people to experiment outside of their comfort zones, in a way that PS collabs do not seem to. While there have been many historic CV combos in the aesthetic sense, the majority of groundbreaking combos in more technical (i.e. material and theory-based) aspects have been in tournaments. A perfectly disciplined human would continue pushing themselves in the same way regardless of whether an easily tangible goal like CV/tourney/solo exists, but there are no perfect humans. The excitement and discussions about tournament submissions and results also increase activity.

If we summarise the above, we end up with ‘competition should reward different aspects of PS in the many ways one can make a good combo, while giving further rewards to people who push the boundaries’. Perhaps personal projects like solo videos are more suited to experimental revolutionary material, but it is illogical if the highest level competitive event of our artform does not differentiate revolutionary combos or revolutionary spinners.

Before I discuss the system I want to try in the themes I’m judging for PSO22 (which can be generalised for themeless battles like WT), I will discuss what has been tried or suggested before, but didn’t work that well.

Q: Why can’t we just use comments only, no subcriteria?

A: In a world with great judges, PS competitions would produce reasonable winners with comments only. We don’t live in a perfect world. While numbered scores are arbitrary in their divisions and judges may not follow the example videos for what a certain score represents, a comments-only system will change those 5-7 arbitrary numbers into 1 large arbitrary result (i.e. the vote towards who wins). This works if we trust that the judges represent the views we desire for that competition.

It’s easier to think about a recent example - it’s justifiable to vote Mond over Saltient in WT21 R3 by prioritising execution. On a personal level, it is equally valid to prioritise basic control, or finesse of technique, or technical difficulty, or novel material. But how well does this align with what international PS competitions aim to do? Would voting Mond in a comments-only judgment promote spinners to continue pushing boundaries, or does it encourage spinners to stay in their comfort zones? While subcriteria cannot stop this (and should not explicitly stop specific judgments), judges should be held accountable for considering the specified elements. Comments-only does not address disagreements about judges overly prioritising certain aspects of spinning, nor does it address different understandings of elements like ‘structure’ or ‘creativity’. Having no subcriteria would make criticisms harder to specify, since the judge can just brush it off with ‘my general impression was this, I already explained myself, I define this element differently to how you do’ etc.

There have been events with comments only judging, where judges provide examples of combos they prefer (which may work for smaller events and was done in one JEB tournament before), but for an international event this risks suggesting spinners should try to replicate existing impressions rather than create more evolved versions of their own paths. In past arguments over numbered scores, disagreement was often about the outcome rather than the scores (as in, even when reasonable detailed justifications above and beyond the initially submitted comments were given, people still had complaints) - comments-only would not fix the fact people get annoyed over their friend or favourite not winning, since this is an issue of sportsmanship and maturity. 

Q: What if we make judges assess some varied, tough combos before they are allowed to judge the real event?

A: This was tried in WT21 judge selections. It didn’t work as well as expected. From previous events e.g. WT17 and WT19, as the tournament progresses (i.e. judges get more experience judging the spinners in the event, there are less combos sent = more time spent assessing each combo, more detailed comments), judging appears to improve in quality. Humans pay more attention to their performance when they know they are being assessed. While making sample judgments helps exclude some blatantly ‘off’ judgments, it isn’t that great at stopping strange judgments in the first half of a WT. Judge selection is surely more influential in determining results than the fine details of the criteria itself, but is harder to deal with. Judgments in previous events are the best determiner. Sample judgments still have a role in assessing new candidates, while allowing discussion before the actual event.

Q: Assuming one concedes the above and agrees to using subcriteria, why should they be given numerical scores? Numbers are annoying, introduce more variability and create strange inconsistencies.

A: Judges could be instructed to consider and comment specifically on various subcriteria in their comments-only judgments. However, it would be impossible to know whether the final win/loss vote appropriately accounted for those elements; or the judge could make a final vote contrary to what the tone of their comments indicates.

A system where the judge votes which spinner did better in a given subcriteria e.g. spinner A is better in exec, spinner B is better in difficulty etc, then totals those votes (perhaps with weighting for whatever aspects the tournament or theme wants to prioritise) could be tried. However, this would not account for large gaps in respective elements. This was tried in SCT18 and worked well since the competitors who passed the qualification round were all solid, but for a larger event with more varied submissions, I doubt it would work well. It’s strange if someone submits a barely landed combo, or an extremely easy combo, or an extremely uncreative combo (e.g. 2/10 vs 8/10 in current scoring), while suffering the same penalty as someone who sends something that is just slightly worse (7/10 vs 8/10). 

If we are to use numbers, it may be helpful to have less subcriteria, with more unified score weightings (e.g. all subcriteria scored out of 5, rather than having some be out of 10, some be out of 5, some be out of 3. If certain elements are to be prioritised, it’s easier to just put in a separate multiplier afterwards). In a talk about how communication and professionalism can be assessed in medical students (given to my uni’s medicine faculty by a professor of medical education), using more detailed subcriteria served to annoy the examiners while making the results less reliable on statistical analysis. WT19 criteria had too many subcriteria (with some unintuitive definitions that overlapped in some regards).

Q: Why don’t we try to get consensus about the criteria by asking a lot of representatives from different countries?

A: This approach works in established fields with established theories and established experts (who usually conduct such discussions in a mutually understood language), and has been done for many curriculum, guidelines and regulations in professional fields. Even if we could overcome the language barriers between countries, PS still struggles to explain many foundational concepts in any given language - e.g. the English-speaking community is still struggling to express ‘good structure’ or ‘good pacing’ in words. While there are many established 'good' spinners, they may not be able to express their understanding in words, they probably do not agree with each other (and may never agree with certain other established spinners in the discussion), nor may their views align with what the tournament aims to prioritise.

There are many ways to describe important elements, which in turn have varying overlap, which then have varied practicality when being used as subcriteria. Fortunately, the discussions stemming from previous competitions serve as a good proxy for this topic. Unfortunately, these past discussions tell us that we are unlikely to achieve a consensus. There have been arguments for years that come up again every time we have a world event about: weight of execution-related elements, how one assesses difficulty, what degree or kinds of repetition are bad structure, what the penalty for reusing identical or similar linkages should be (and where the material was previously shown), what constitutes good flow, and so on. More discussion is a good thing, but the impression I got is that we’ve ended up repeating old points without introducing any new helpful ideas.

Q: I feel [insert element here] is important. Why shouldn’t it be a subcriteria?

A: There are many ways to break up the puzzle pieces of what a ‘good combo’ consists of. However, just because a certain way of grouping certain elements is a good term e.g. ‘pacing’, ‘tension’, ‘structure’, ‘coherence’, or ‘refinement’, does not mean it is good as a division of subcriteria. To elaborate, ‘structure’ can be considered as arrangement of mechanics (like ‘density’), arrangement of visual impressions (like ‘effect’), arrangement of new ideas (like ‘integration’). While ‘structure’ is a useful way of considering PS, it is hard to use as a subcriteria. A similar point can be made about ‘density’, ‘integration’, ‘effect’, which were part of the WT19 subcriteria under ‘effectiveness’. Similarly, ‘coherence’ overlaps with ‘structure’ and is influenced by ‘pacing’ and ‘tension’. ‘Pacing’ can be considered as use of speed, effect of movements of hand, wrist and mod, visual effect of the mod during the tricks performed, which in turn is influenced by the angle chosen and background/mod colours etc. While many abstract terms are useful for general discussion, is there a more practical way of dividing things for judging purposes? 

Q: So you’ve raised all these criticisms but what’s your constructive proposal? If you are only criticising but not making active suggestions, what’s the point?

A: If you’ve read up to here, congratulations! Now we can move onto my suggestions for addressing a lot of these things: judging proposals. I won’t claim there is any definitive ‘solution’ since there surely isn’t one, and there won’t be a way to satisfy everyone, but at least I can offer what is (probably) a more practical way of breaking things down.

WT filming strategy

I'll probably discuss this stuff more later since it covers a lot of different ideas, but I'll start with my thoughts on material difficulty (in terms of how hard it is for the spinner doing the combo).

I'll discuss more about WT meta in some other posts, but remember this for now - execution, difficulty and originality are worth same points, so there's no real reason prioritise any criteria over others.

Anyway, from conversations I've had with experienced WT/WC participants in past, there seems to be a lot of last-minute filming (10 hours or more) on night before deadline, to land breakdown that needs stars to align to be performed. Naturally, this leads to frustration, physical strain on hand, and often compromises execution. Also, since material was prepared and trained for a short time only, there's recycling.

Basically, this last-minute 10 hour filming is detrimental in every regard, and often makes spinners tired from competitions due to stress. So, I want to promote an alternative approach to making 'serious combo' (which is a pretty obvious and logical approach to take, but few people seem to do it), which is similar to what I used in WT17 - sample video below:

You could spend 10 hours on 1 night, but it's preferable to spend 1 hour each on 10 separate days spread out over 2-3 weeks, with breakdown planned a few weeks in advance with easier material. Each time you filmed and landed a few successful takes, upgrade the difficulty and/or originality a little bit (in 1 or 2 places in combo). This would keep breakdown at a manageable difficulty - i.e. you can land it once every 20-40 minutes. You can have 'ultimate hard breakdown' as final goal to reach, while starting with easier versions; or you may naturally think of harder variations to use as time goes on.

This gives several benefits:

• More time to develop ideas and higher chance to get interesting ideas with different material
• Better execution due to more drafts and more practice because brain uses sleep to integrate motor skill learning
• Better idea of what combo's impression and visual effect of various linkages are, since you get to see more drafts done - which allows you to adjust accordingly
• Less frustration from drops
• Less pressure since you'd prepare earlier and know you have backup drafts to fall back on 
• Less RSI and strain issues

Assuming you'd get 2 or 3 drafts every filming session of ~ 1 hr each, you'll have 20-30 drafts of gradually improving breakdown/difficulty/execution over a 2-3 week period, which will have material developed over a longer period. In WT17 I found that 20 drafts wasn't enough to get level I wanted typically (usually needed 30 or so). Of course, this would require more discipline in regularly taking a short period out of each day to plan and record, even if the actual number of hours used is similar.

I'll probably discuss material distribution (in terms of how to arrange combos which give different impression for multiple rounds of competition) in future when I propose possible adjustments to WT criteria's wording.

WT17 R5 combo

I wanted to show a wider range of skills this time, and I think very few people expected me to use 1p2h or fingercross (fc). I filmed more drafts for this round than previous ones, still wish I could do it better. Setting up angle for 1p2h is hard, first person (headcam?) is probably better but not really practical for WT-grade breakdown since my head moves .-.


DL: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uwI9t4009h1v4zvtVBcT-Jo2OqjnMBqZ/view?usp=sharing

Better angle of 0:01-0:07:

Alternate angle of 0:15-0:22 1p2h:

0:01 - 0:07 (slomo 0:26 - 0:38): flush sonic > fc21 IA rev, sonic 34-24 ~> thumb-pushed MA rev to 13, fc21 pass 12-23 (pen goes under index), fc23 ma ~> bust, square pass + fc23 inv tpass 123. I can't cross to usable level on right hand, so I trained fc on LH for quite a while. It's very fun doing stuff that I thought I'd never be able to do.

0:07 - 0:12 (slomo 0:39 - 0:48): inv side flush sonic + 0.5 rev spin on index PU to PD, kagami's +0.5 spin rev thing ~ pinky spread rev to LH. Could've made this part harder, but my consistency wasn't good enough.

0:12 - 0:15 (slomo 0:48 - 0:53): mirr raimo bak rev (interrupted start) 23-12 - is not a shadow. fl ma ring ss - fl ta ext - fl ma ring ss. Haven't used fl ta ext - fl ma ring ss in combo before, having hand go from PD to PU gives different effect to usual ss stuff that's always PU.

0:15 - 0:22 (slomo 0:53 - 1:09): demo vid above, powerpass - twirl rise T'3 - 1'2 - T'1. LH uses thumb, index, then thumb; RH uses ring, mid, then index. Not as smooth as I wanted, oh well. It's surprisingly hard trying to get consistent rotation speed as normal spinning for this part.

Next - some LH transfer > RH inv tpass rev index+pinky over thumb.

Ending - twirl rev rise 1'3 - 1'2 - 1'1. LH uses index, RH uses ring, mid, then index. Gives very different effect to the previous 1p2h twirl section. Followed by t-powerpass T1-T4.

My aim when making this combo was to show greater diversity of skill, especially in families of tricks I did not show before and that people did not expect. I feel diversity is important for WT, because it makes sense to pass someone who'll show interesting different stuff in next round over someone who'll just recycle similar stuff as before.

WT17 R4 combo

tl;dr read bolded parts

Previously, I intended to use R3's clip for R4, but things turned out differently. I didn't expect my R3 to score so well (thanks judges! I'm happy my efforts were appreciated). Anyway, I wanted to show some different type of material for this combo, which is critical for late rounds of WT.

Most subtle part - ending has [fl ia - index ss] x 3 (one-finger cont ss variation), and also hardest part of the combo - I'm still not sure how I managed to get this trick so cleanly for this draft, I prayed hard.

This combo is based around fingerslots 24 and uncommon variations of thumbcross (TC). As basic TC IA and MA rev are overused, I tried to find different harder ways to apply TC.

0:01 - 0:04 (slomo 0:27 - 0:32): square pass 'rev' aerial and wrist bounce. Was annoying to control the square pass 'rev' after the wrist bounce.

0:04 - 0:07 (slomo 0:32 - 0:39): pass behind thumb (thumb-index cross, easy, but fits linkage theme). PP rev ~ palmspin rev - mirr PP ~ palmspin rev continues 'rev power' effect. I wanted to transition to midraimobak instead of midbak, but wasn't consistent enough.

0:08 - 0:10 (slomo 0:39 - 0:44): slight slowdown between midbak and PD IMA ugh. I thought of refilming it, but any drafts with that part done better would probably have other parts worse. PD IMA to 24 (ring up) > pass rev 24-13 - annoying linkage. Continuing with 24 use, PD fl PA rev 24 (ring down) - 24 (ring up), with changing position of ring increasing difficulty and rarity a lot. Inv sonic 24 and thumb-index cross T4 wiper (the TC doesn't really do much for difficulty of the trick, but it fits into theme).

0:10 - 0:13 (slomo 0:44 - 0:51): TC linkage part - diagonal plane-ish around rev T4 thumb-index cross and T2 thumb-mid cross > thumb-mid cross pd TA ~ fl sonic rev to 14. Getting the transition between the second diagonal around rev and TC pd ta without fatal error and then to fl sonic rev took a lot more practice than I'd expected, I was training this part for past month or more daily (still not as good as I want). I tried doing this linkage with completely PD TC around rev, but I wasn't skilled enough.

0:13 - 0:16 (slomo 0:51 - 0:58): some pass variation with T4 on ring. T1 cross direction change after it, I wanted to do this part better too .-. Subtle thumb-mid cross after the sonic rev 12-23, doesn't add much difficulty but contributes to linkage theme.

0:17 - 0:23 (slomo 0:58 - 1:10): swuck > square pass ~ usual fl ta index ss - [fl ia index ss] x 3. While the usual fl ta index/mid/ring ss are not hard, changing one finger makes a huge difference, as my personal record for fl ta index ss is 97, whereas I struggle to get past 5 fl ia index ss. Thumb-mid cross aerial/spread-like trick with T4 to continue theme of TC use.

Compared to R3's 'hard trick' focus, this combo is more of based on linkages with difficulty spread throughout. The margin of error for fl ia index ss cont is really small, and doing it with decent technique was very hard for me (especially at end of combo without easy setup spam linkage before it).

I'd be happy if people picked up their mods and tried some of the 24 and TC linkages, and I'd have achieved my goal if spinners are inspired to experiment with different applications of existing ideas in their own combos.

WT17 R3 combo

tl;dr - skip to the two slomo vids and bolded parts in the 'highlights' section

There needs to be distinction between 'tricks which look hard but can be done in a few days/weeks' and 'tricks that don't look that different, but need many months/years'. e.g. dual pass T4 to x12 - 30 minutes on 1 day - i.e. not hard; fl ma ring ss to x10 - 1 hr a day for a year. The power highlights used in R3 are a lot more difficult than fl ma ring ss, as I kept practising power daily for 2016 and early 2017.

Naturally, I'd get quite annoyed if people dismissed the tricks I spent so long practising as 'just commonplace power stuff'. Before you say 'oh he recycled a bit', please read below (especially bolded parts). I don't have 120 fps vids yet, but I'll try to get them in the coming week.

DL link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4V5qSRN2Zi-Y25sRlJPczF6TDQ/view

Highlights:

0:06 - 0:08 (0:40 - 0:44): Mirr pp rev - pinky ss ~ mirr pp rev ring - ss. The highlight idea is mirr pp rev - pinky ss (which is far harder than the ring ss version and has not been used in any combos before); with the ring ss variant added to contribute to visual effect and raise difficulty.

0:20 - 0:25 (1:09 - 1:19): Fl ma ring ss aerial 1.0 (not fl ta rel, the aerial is fl ma - hit by curled ring finger, with difficulty incomparably higher than if fl ta rel was used instead). Pinky DIP spread (fist spread?) - fist spread x 2 - curled pinky/knuckle 'handbust' (fist bust?).

No simple setup before finisher. Fl ma ring ss aerial 1.0 represents past 2 1/2 years of power trick training condensed into a few seconds, it's first time I've used it in normal combo.

Controlling fl ta rel to enter pinky DIP spread was hard, because the previous fl ma ring ss has to be restricted to limited range of rotation angle.The force/angle of previous fist bounce and exact pen position have to be far more precise for the curled pinky 'handbust' to be done.

Fist spread - curled pinky 'handbust' failed a lot even when I thought I had it down. For other high level power, I could easily distinguish between decent control and mistakes. Curled pinky 'handbust' is probably the first trick whose margin of error between success and fail is so fine that sometimes I can't perceive it. Linking it in the way I did was incredibly traumatic, although doing a separate x1 of it probably isn't *too* difficult. When I was upgrading previous breakdown from normal handbust to the curled pinky variation, I thought they would not be that different - I found out how wrong I was while filming OTL


Fl difficulty discussion:

Estimation of my practice time after mastering basic fl:

• Low level - index pun new, fl ta ss - under 1 year to get to solid usable level
• Mid level - fl ta ring ss, fl ta index ss, fl ia ss (my R2 finisher) - extra 1 1/2 years
• High level - fl ma ring ss, fl ma ring ss aerial 1.0 (not fl ta rel, uses different method to pun new rel), mirr pp rev ring ss, mirr pp rev pinky ss (my R3) - additional 2-3 years in addition to previous mastery of mid-level

From meeting and talking with experienced spinners who tried these tricks - menowa, supawit, katts, ppm, sekai, zo.xoa, airgear, P - all agree that there is a huge gap between high level power and mid/low level group, which is reflected in the number of spinners who can do them.


Rest of material:

0:01 - 0:06 (0:29 - 0:40): Rev fl using mirr pp, kagami's +0.5 rotation fl ia rev, back hand spin, +0.5 rotation fl ma rev and dual pass rev T1 variation. Usually, kagami (and his copiers) give the  +0.5 rotation rev spin tricks a 'linkage effect'; so I tried giving them 'power trick effect' instead.

0:11 - 0:14 (0:48 - 0:54): Could've done the PU thumb raimo bak (PU fl ta rev ~ east sonic rev?) variation at better angle, effect isn't exactly what I wanted. West sonic rev > thumb-pushed ss rev to 23 > inv sonic rev 24 ~ PD fl pa.

0:14 - 0:17 (0:54 - 1:01): PD fl pa > pinky fxxk, COP has to be in different position between these tricks, which increases hand movement. Pinky fxxk caught at end of pen for wiper 23-24 ~ perpendicular plane fl ra to 14. I wanted to combine common fxxk and pd around in a harder and unusual way using 24 and 14, unfortunately effect of perpendicular fl ra isn't really what I wanted.

0:17 - 0:20 (1:01 - 1:08): T1 cross rex trick, T2 cross devil's shadow > pd around rev T4 - some less common uses of thumbcross. PD around rev should leave hand less.

Thoughts when creating this combo:

I made this breakdown to display hard trick skill through use of (at the time) the hardest variations I could manage. Structure could be improved, but having a lot of difficult highlight effect sequences tends to do that. As usual, there's many parts which I wish I could do better.

In WT17, a lot of people are trying to spin like their opponent when they'd fare better if they'd spun like themselves. There's also a lot of easy or ineffective fingercrosses, overuse of fxxk and levers, and other 'obvious tricks' to get attention from audience and judges; despite these things being neither difficult nor unusual. Flexibility does not equate to skill.


Current WT meta seems to be 'get attention with obvious tricks, but too lazy to practice genuinely hard stuff or think of more creative applications'. Grinding for years to use absurdly hard esoteric sequences which last 5 seconds (but look very similar to common tricks and are rarely appreciated) seems to be against this cheap attention-grabbing mindset.

I want to break the boundaries of what people imagine human skill to be for PS - because of this, my R3 is far more like myself than my R2 is (or my R1, to a lesser extent). Making something that represents your dedication and love of spinning is a lot more satisfying than copying someone else.

If this combo stays in your memories for some time or left an impression on you, I'll be happy ^^

WT17 R1 combo

Hello everyone, haven't posted here in a while. Anyway, this post will discuss my r1 combo, and I'll cover WT17 combos throughout the tournament as they come out in future posts.

DL: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4V5qSRN2Zi-dmhNOF9GdzgtaFE/view clip is cropped to 1200 x 900p, so the Google Drive player has it on 360p; it has proper resolution when you download it.

The selected draft with (comparatively) less bad control turned out to be the one I filmed at hospital accommodation instead of at home where I am used to recording, so I didn't get chance to adjust setup much. As a result, the lighting or exposure is not ideal -._-. The parts below are from rejected drafts which turned out clearer.

Starting (0:00 - 0:03 of actual combo): basically pinky fxxk idea translated into 14 slot, I still need to work on making this more like an around rather than an aerial. Added ring spiderspin (ss) rev 0.5 before the mirr powerpass too.

0:04 - 0:06 of actual: raimo bak 12-34 (over middle and under ring finger), a bit like bak and east sonic combined (?), which is fairly uncommon. Kept previous finger positions for inv sonic 34-14 ~> mid ss rev 0.5 to add to the effect of the ring ss rev earlier; the catch in 24 ring up was pretty annoying because pen kept getting stuck or there was excess wrist motion.

0:06 - 0:10: east sonic 12-34 > extended spiderspin rise (mirr powerpass rev on mid+ring ~ pinky ss → index+mid ~ ring ss → fl ta ~ fl ia ~ mid+ring ss). Wanted to try less common way of linking into power sequence; ext ss rise is also quite hard. 

For comparison, mid+ring ~ pinky ss is far harder than index+mid ~ ring ss (about 3x difference in records). Index+mid ~ ring ss is a bit harder than fl middlearound ~ ring ss, which is far far harder than fl indexaround ~ mid+ring ss (entirely different levels of practice and margin of error). Doubt anyone except powertrick addicts will really appreciate this as actual experience, but trivialising power sequences as 'just same power tricks' is quite stupid.

Next clips from random webcam filming of another draft, not from actual WT video.

 0:11 -  0:13: aerial hai tua and ss on different fingers. Different effect with aerials; and counter used for unexpected transition to non-power stuff.

0:14 - 0:16: middle fxxk - powerpass rev. fxxk in simple linkages is overused, so I tried linking it so something harder and more unusual; needs to work on control for this sequence, hand motion is less than earlier drafts but still way too much. Putting difficult tricks right after each other with no filler is fun, but quite annoying to record (especially late in combo).

0:17 - 0:20: pinky fxxk ~ index fxxk - pd ta ~ pd fl ia x 3. Definitely the least consistent part of the combo which I put as ending to maximise the difficulty, hand went out of frame when recording in so many drafts because it tends to move up during pd fl ia cont. Not satisfied with the index fxxk - pd ta transition in the actual combo, guess I'll work on that type of linkage.

Anyway, I wanted each part of the combo to show a variety of unusual hard tricks and harder variations of different linkages with less common structure, while having no filler material or easy links. Should definitely work on control, but this draft is probably best overall out of the over 20 drafts I filmed for it, for my current level.

Good luck Group H members and rest of participants!

Judging system idea (credits to Bula)

Bula's suggestion: To have separate judges for each criteria aspect, rather than each judge judging all criteria. For example, taichi and HAL would judge only execution, I would judge only difficulty, fel2fram or RPD would judge only creativity.

For effectiveness and presentation: it is probably fine if all judges graded them, as they do not require as specialised focus/knowledge/high skill level to evaluate, and are not weighted as highly as exec/diff/crea.

Whereas specialisation is old idea applied to many areas of life (medicine, manufacturing etc), this is probably first time I recall it mentioned to me (but I would not be surprised if it was discussed in passing by other spinners before). Nonetheless, credit goes to Bula for stating this idea, when I write this post.

Note: this post discusses his suggestion and related aspects rather than judging in PS in general (as applicability of number scoring to artform like spinning or whether PS can/should even be judged, the deficiencies in judging criteria regarding finesse and fine finger movements for execution, how strictly the original vs creative borderline should be applied, what difficulty is considered 'unbelievable', more than enough for pages and pages etc).

As skill levels in PS (in refinement, technical material, trick/linkage range, difficulty and variations) have increased hugely since typical judging allocations of 'each judge scores all categories' method, which has been used since WT07, specialisation is definitely needed to ensure proper evaluation of various aspects of spinning. Whereas most arts (performance types like music, ice skating etc) or sports do not use specialised judges for different criteria areas, it is quite clear in current PS environment (and has been so since around 2009) that level gap between good spinners' areas of focus compared to areas they do not focus on has increased, and that existing materials shown in PS have also increased enormously.

As spinners focused on creativity probably have better idea of existing concepts, they will have better assessments of creativity and be less likely to think old variations are new. Similarly, spinners who are very focused on technical material aspects probably underestimate the weight of errors in execution or deficiencies in finger positioning/finger movements; whereas spinners who do not focus on using unusual/hard variations are unlikely to be able to separate something that is truly difficult from something that is just a bit hard.

Of course, Bula's system also means each judge has less work to do (as they do not have to judge in all categories), which reduces workload and should increase consistency in scoring within each judge due to lower mental fatigue. As judges selected for each category are specialists/focus on those aspects, there will probably also be less variability in scoring and higher accuracy (i.e. no more menowa WT15 R3 9/10 execution from PSH judge saying combo was dynamic so score was justified, or something like that).

Largest 'problem' with this system is that it ends up narrowing perceptions (reducing open-minded approach to exec/diff/crea) to what the selected group of specialists think, which may decrease innovation. However, I feel small group of specialists in each area should give a better result than having -coughcough- 'strange ideas' contributed from large group of non-specialists.

Another issue with this system is determining which spinners are specialised enough to judge each category (but I feel spinners generally have good idea of who has good control, who is creative, who has hard material - because while individual preferences may be different, community gravitates towards admiring small group of a few dozen or so good spinners who are great at their respective focuses).

There's some spinners who will make combos that will confuse everyone, like fel2fram (who no doubt has top level creativity and difficulty, but his execution is hard to evaluate because we do not really have 'ideal image' that his direction of spinning should appear like), but such out-of-the-box geniuses will always go beyond existing logic.