During and after Naucc 08 discussion thread

just to clear things up if anyone cares... the long jump was only 9'2"
but like jerrick said, on a few attempts Joe got well over that. He was
pushing 11' for sure. But i guess he was just getting tired toward the
end or somthing.

the judgeing was alittle screwy.. i think the street comp was hard
because, other then dallas, there where no street riders or people that
knew street judging.

i think that the flat was judged much better being as a bunch more of
us who have seen a lot of flat got to judge that comp. it was a little
unnerving to hear some of the judges ask me and jerrick what the
difference between freestyle and flat was.

but i gotta say... pele's spin was the sickest trick at the comp...
it was ridiculous to see when you landed it on your second try

next time ..... flaming flat


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bobousse wrote:
when i hear that, i'm just really scared about the judging of the
flatland comp at unicon.... battles resolves these problems, but anyway
nobody in the organisation want to listen to our opinions...

anyway great run spencer, can't wait to see the vid of pele and jon

and can't wait to ride with you all at unicon

-- bobousse




Yeah man. Battles are way better.


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haha, so young, yet so angry, damn that rap music.
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'jon's flatland run' (http://vimeo.com/1339826)
sorry brian


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Phil_on_uni wrote:
just to clear things up if anyone cares... the long jump was only 9'2"
but like jerrick said, on a few attempts Joe got well over that. He was
pushing 11' for sure. But i guess he was just getting tired toward the
end or somthing.




Yeah he cleared 9'2" then decided to move it up straight to 9'8" and go
for the record. He barely missed that and used up both his official
attempts.


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forrestunifreak

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christ*


Joe "Hodgekins" wrote:
Oh... they don't kick bricks, do they?
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hobo_chuck wrote:
'jon's flatland run' (http://vimeo.com/1339826)
sorry brian



Sweet.

To be honest though. I think you guys do too many rolls lol.


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unicycledood

The.Mars.Volta wrote:
haha, so young, yet so angry, damn that rap music.
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hobo_chuck wrote:
'jon's flatland run' (http://vimeo.com/1339826)
sorry brian


Its okay, it was still converting the last time I checked and I can't
be looking to often because I'm at work.

For people who missed the link he gave and were waiting to see a post
from me, heres Jon's flatland run: http://vimeo.com/1339826


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(http://www.projectuni.com)

'Not fond of benches.'
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Brian O. wrote:
Its okay, it was still converting the last time I checked and I can't be
looking to often because I'm at work.

For people who missed the link he gave and were waiting to see a post
from me, heres Jon's flatland run: http://vimeo.com/1339826




hmm not very fond of my run but ill take it i guess. haha its funny
cause most of the combos i was planning to hit in warm up i didnt even
think of them when i was out there.


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{Many complaints about Street/Flat judging}
I have my issues with it as well. Most importantly, it takes way too
long, which made the Street comp nearly unwatchable. I hope something
faster can be devised, as long as it can still be accurate.


bobousse wrote:
...i'm just really scared about the judging of the flatland comp at
unicon....

It will be judged using the exact same rules. I missed most of the Flat
comp at NAUCC but I remember seeing Street/Flat riders at the judges
table so not sure if the perceived problem is with judge knowledge or
the system itself. Maybe there will be better judges at Unicon?


bobousse wrote:
but anyway nobody in the organisation want to listen to our opinions...

Have you actually asked? I'm on the Rules Committee for both, and don't
remember hearing from you. Then again, I don't know what your real name
is... Speak directly to the IUF or USA board, or better yet to the
Rules Committees so you are heard by the people who make/edit/change
the rules.

This applies to everyone else who wants to see changes. If we waited
for Street/Flat riders to make competition rules, we still wouldn't
have any competitions at the USA or IUF level yet. Somebody had to
propose a set of rules so they could be added to the rulebooks, but
those people weren't necessarily the best-equipped to do it. And they
(we) knew it. We're waiting to hear from you with your concrete
suggestions for improvements.


Brian O. wrote:
Rider Shaun made a lot of awesome suggestions as far as judging but they
said they wouldn't be able to change anything for this NAUCC. They
almost wanted us to hand in planned out routines before our runs! Thats
all fine and great in something like freestyle where theres next to no
possible progression left but in something like street that would only
hold back the sport.

The USA (and IUF) believe that you can't go into a competition on a
national or international level and change the rules the night before.
This allows everyone to plan ahead and be prepared including, in
theory, judges as well as riders. The judging system was known to
anyone who took the time to read it, and shouldn't have mattered to
anyone who didn't. Again I agree it needs improvement.

As for Freestyle, apparently you aren't real clear on what it is. As
long as there's progression in other areas of doing tricks, those areas
can apply to Freestyle. It has been evolving very nicely over the years
and I don't see any signs of it slowing down. It just doesn't get the
same good press or interest that Street and other "extreme" forms of
unicycling do. Poor Freestyle is still the hardest unicycling
discipline to master, but the press hardly ever (at USA conventions)
gets to see the top riders. We have to schedule them better, or make
sure the press understands when to see them...


Brian O. wrote:
The judges did as well as they could but they still know know nothing of
blind of switch tricks, it would be impossible for them to spot those
and tricks done blind or switch are magnitudes more difficult.


Impossible to spot due to lack of knowledge? Then the problem is having
the wrong people for judges. Were there enough experienced riders
available? Were the experienced people asked to judge? If they weren't
willing you have to take what you can get. If there weren't any/enough
experienced riders to judge, this is a factor that must be considered
in the judging. If necessary, it may be better to have competitors
judge each other (or allow for this), with a way to knock out the
highest and lowest scores, or otherwise keep everyone honest.


Brian O. wrote:
They also had no idea of relative trick difficulty, some tricks may look
easy but can be much more difficult. I guarantee those judges (aside
from Dallas) wouldn't be able to spot the different between a body
varial and sex change, let alone the different between tricks like hick
flips and hick doubles.

We have the same problems in Freestyle. Some judges have very detailed
knowledge of relative trick difficulty but others not so much.
Fortunately the tricks are a smaller percentage of the Freestyle score.

But I think most, if not all of the judges that were there could tell
the difference between a body varial and sex change. They just might
not know them by name. I sure don't. Is there an official list of these
tricks with their descriptions somewhere?

Anyway, these are issues that need to be discussed and dealt with.
Thanks for providing the quotes; my replies are aimed at everyone, not
just the two of you. Currently the IUF and USA Rules Committees are not
active, but both will probably be started up again this fall. Contact
the organization's presidents or previous Rules Committee Chairpersons
to get in on the ground floor.


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John Foss
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johnfoss wrote:
{Many complaints about Street/Flat judging}Have you actually asked? I'm
on the Rules Committee for both, and don't remember hearing from you.
Then again, I don't know what your real name is... Speak directly
to the IUF or USA board, or better yet to the Rules Committees so you
are heard by the people who make/edit/change the rules.

This applies to everyone else who wants to see changes. If we waited
for Street/Flat riders to make competition rules, we still wouldn't
have any competitions at the USA or IUF level yet. Somebody had to
propose a set of rules so they could be added to the rulebooks, but
those people weren't necessarily the best-equipped to do it. And they
(we) knew it. We're waiting to hear from you with your concrete
suggestions for improvements.

The USA (and IUF) believe that you can't go into a competition on a
national or international level and change the rules the night before.
This allows everyone to plan ahead and be prepared including, in
theory, judges as well as riders. The judging system was known to
anyone who took the time to read it, and shouldn't have mattered to
anyone who didn't. Again I agree it needs improvement.



thanks for your answer, my real name won't tell you something cause in
the unicycling world everyone know by my nickname (bobousse), anyway i
wasn't there (i'm french) i based my comments due to the other comment
i read below...
for the rules changes, the best way is to use battle rules from yoggi,
i mailed connie about that some days ago for unicon
i know i'm not the only one who did it, and i know that olarf mailed
her about that after wuko (im' not sure about that)
anyway i think writing rules without thinking how they can work is just
stupid

at unicon i'm going to participate to the flat comp even if the rules
won't be battles

-- bobousse


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bobousse wrote:
anyway i think writing rules without thinking how they can work is just
stupid

Now *that's* a great way to get the Rules Committee people on your side.
We think a lot about how rules will work. We think that having
rules is better than not having rules. That's version 1.0, ready for
improvements.


bobousse wrote:
at unicon i'm going to participate to the flat comp even if the rules
won't be battles

It is highly unlikely the rules will differ from what's in the IUF
rulebook (same as at NAUCC). The only fair way to change the rules last
minute (this is the last minute) would be to get all participants to
agree to it. This is hard enough to do at NAUCC where everyone speaks
the same language, and nearly impossible to do at Unicon and be sure
everyone understands what's going on. If someone trains to one set of
rules for a year, you can't change things at the last minute unless
they're on board.

How does a battle work, exactly? Are there written rules somewhere?
Spencer and Jon did some "show" battles during gaps in the Public Show.
Jacquie liked watching that better than the Speed Trials and most other
things. But I don't think it was a straight battle, and more about
entertaining the audience.


Phil_on_uni wrote:
does everyone like that they used the same song for every competitor in
the flat comp? ya thats 2 people that dont know how to use an ipod for
ya......

Not sure exactly what was going on there. At the Street comp it was a CD
player, but I think the DJ was eliminating CDs one by one because we
were in a church parking lot and song after song had "issues" with
what's appropriate for a church parking lot in SD. If you're
playing your music from an iPod it's hard for competitors to supply
their own, which I assume should be possible. Maybe that's all the
music they had? Seems silly if it was an iPod though...

If you haven't gotten it yet, Connie's email is listed on the USA web
site (along with all the other board members):
http://unicyclingusa.org/about/officers/
For those that aren't aware of this, you never want to spell out an
email address in an online forum. It will remain online (and
searchable) forever, and lead to spam for the address owner, hence the
cryptic ways of communicating them.


forrestunifreak wrote:
I think there miiiiight have been some sort of mistake with the expert
trials awards.

Not sure about those, but I know there was an error in the calculation
of the combined track (not MUni) awards. The Slow Races used to be
counted in the overall points, but in the last round of updates we
(finally) got them removed, so it's the same list of events as the IUF.
But they forgot to update the database software so Slow Races were
calculated in. I know that upped my own track score some, because I did
those but missed three of the six "real" events that are counted.

Sorry about your lost images, Forrest. Apparently that is sometimes a
problem with memory cards. Beware of anything Microsoft that say it's
going to "fix" something for you. In that case "fix" means format, and
screw your data.

Overall NAUCC 2008 was an excellent experience. I loved all the
innovation in the MUni events, even if the weather was trying to ruin
everything (nearly all courses had to be changed the day-of due to
rains). The Trials comp was excellent and fun to watch, the addition of
Flat was a first for the USA, and the cash prizes in the Speed Trials
comp should start lots of discussion and controversy, which I think
will be a positive thing for the sport. Also Jacquie and I did more
sightseeing at this NAUCC than I think any other I've been to. What a
cool area! I hope the Black Hills Unicycle Club had a positive
experience hosting, and that they'll want to do it again in the
not-too-far future!


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John Foss
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