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.