Ideas for a Freestyle Competition format.

Subject Ideas for a Freestyle Competition format.
From abw@cre.canon.co.uk (Andy Wardley)
Date Tue, 7 Apr 1998 12:22:43 GMT
Newsgroups rec.kites 
A long time ago in a thread far, far, away, Colin Douthwaite wrote
> Hmm...why not have it like music festival competitions where each
> competitor has to perform the identical test piece (same kite) and
> then perform a piece of their own choice (favourite kite).
> Adjudicators give a mark for each item and the combined total score is
> used for ranking.

[ Which started me thinking about flying with the same kite, flying to the same piece of music, flying freestyle and so on. Various thoughts on how one might organise a Freestyle Competition follow.... ]

I've thought about the "fly to the same music" approach but it suffers from the same problem as "fly with the same kite" approach. How do you decide which piece of music to fly to? Different people will know and like different pieces of music. Is it fair to make someone fly to a track he's never heard which may be another competitor's favourite piece of music? If Mark Reed and I are side-by-side in a competition, and the choices of kite are Box of Tricks or Illusion, then which one do we pick? I feel sorry for the other poor bastards who have to compete aginst Mark with an Illusion or me with a Box :-) (and, of course, ditto for all the other great fliers and their favourite kites...)

On the other hand, a panel of fliers and/or judges could put together a list of a dozen or so songs at the start of the season which will be used as the "set pieces" throughout the season. Event one is "Any kite, flown any way, to the same piece of music".

One piece is chosen on the day, either according to the conditions (say a slow number if the wind is down or a fast, furious number in stormy weather) or simply by random selection. Each flier must then perform a routine to the music. It may not be the flier's favourite piece of music, but at least (s)he's had a few months to get to know it. Truly diligent fliers might prepare routines for all pieces of music. Other people might get to know the songs well, prepare a few choice moves for certain parts of the track. Others yet might make the whole bloody thing up on the spot :-)

Scoring? Shall we say 50% technical, 50% artistic?

The second event would be a routine of the flier's choice. 30 days (min) before the event, the flier will be informed of 3 moves that must be incorporated into the routine. For example: a Cascade, 540 Flat Spin and a Tip Stab.

Let's score event two as:

The flier may perform the set pieces in any order and may repeat them (perhaps to improve on a set piece score but at the risk of boring the judges and looses artistic marks).

The final score is 50/50 from the two events.

So there's a few thoughts to mull over. This isn't a proposal or suggestion but just my ideas about how I might do it. Freestyle should have more emphasis on imagination and creativity ("on the spot" if you like) rather than relying on hours and hours of practice. Precision is good because it demonstrates the flier's control and mastery of the kite, but it's boring by itself. If you incorporate it into a routine you not only test the flier's skill but you also give them the chance to dazzle by combining the fixed element into the routine in the most creative way.

A 

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