Does anyone here who is familiar with the scoring system know how body control is scored? I am reading up on the national yoyo league site, but it doesn’t give any examples of times where you would get extra points for it. I have scored low in this every time I’ve competed so far, so I want to try and figure out what I’m doing wrong.
this is the first ive heard of body control in a competition…
i doubt it is scored at all in contests but i may be wrong…
I do know that most of the scoring is off of the tricks now how your body performs. If that were the case then Zach Gormley wouldn’t need to use a yoyo…
Well it’s 60% how technical/difficult your tricks are and 40% performance (body control, music use, etc.) I’m just not too show how to be scoring higher in the body control part.
really 40% performance… i hadn’t seen that anywhere.
you learn a new thing everyday…
Body control (now I’m just gathering this from assumption and from seeing results of one or two freestyles) is basically how little you unintentionally move. So if you fall down because you’re yoyoing so fast that you throw yourself off balance… good bye to a good body control score.
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I think a lot of it is tied to stage presence, which can be kind of hard to pin down how exactly to improve because some people are just more comfortable or natural with that sort of thing, but some general things to consider:
-Acknowledge the audience during your performance. Not necessarily just waving between tricks or things like that, but remember to engage with the audience by looking up occasionally, smiling, etc. When you practice, keep in mind that you will be on stage performing and think about how you will look on stage, not just how well you are hitting the trick. The more you practice with the mindset that you are performing for an audience, the easier it will be to convey that once you actually get on stage.
-Along the same lines, think about your posture and facial expressions. Things like standing with your feet together hunched over the yoyo with your shoulders slumped or head down will hurt your body control score. Those problems can slip out especially during difficult or technical parts of your freestyle, so try to work on maintaining control of your posture and facial expression at all times. Of course, there is no getting around the fact that you’ll need to look at the yoyo throughout most of your tricks, but things like how your hands/arms are positioned, how you hold your shoulders, and how you position your feet can make a big difference to presenting a professional-looking posture during tricks. Something like holding your hands out a bit more and a bit higher can make a difference in where you are looking, for example. Filming yourself during practice can help identify places where you might have problems.
-Keep up a positive, confident attitude throughout the freestyle, including after it concludes until you leave the stage. Showing visible disappointment after missing a trick will hurt your body control score.
-You will probably be moving around the stage somewhat to improve your score for space use. When you practice your freestyle, plan out exactly how you will do this. You don’t want to appear to be moving around randomly just to use more of the space–you want your movements to look purposeful and relevant to your tricks, and to your music. The more your movements look rhythmic and well coordinated with your tricks and music, the more body control you are demonstrating to the judges.
-Try to avoid making exaggerated, jerky motions while focusing on landing a trick unless they are done deliberately as a way to present the trick. A good rule of thumb is that the more exaggerated a movement, the more important it is to have it match up with the rhythm of the music and/or the trick, and the more important it is for you to be aware that you are doing it and be doing it on purpose.
-One thing that can be a problem is when people miss a trick, especially in a technical or knotted string formation, there is a tendency to jerk the string/yoyo around trying to get the yoyo back in the mount or to get the string untangled. Untangling the string from a knotted formation after you miss a trick will never look like a smoothly planned part of your freestyle, but remember not to panic and lose focus on your movements, posture, etc just because you have to recover from a mistake. This can also be something to focus on during practice–how well do you keep your focus on body control while recovering from mistakes?
-If you have body tricks or tricks done while moving around, it is important to keep your balance, maintain your posture, etc. Like stuart was saying, stumbling or flailing around trying to keep your balance will hurt your score. Some behind-the-back tricks require somewhat awkward contortions, but if you can get into and out of them as smoothly and as naturally as possible, that will look better than if you appear to be straining to get into or hold the position.
Check the full results tables from some top contests and see who got the best body control scores, and then watch their freestyles to see what they do well. For example, Gentry had the top body control score for 1A at Nationals this year. Notice how he is constantly moving around with rhythm and purpose to accentuate his tricks, how he engages the audience well and always appears relaxed and in control, and how when he changes posture or moves around the stage, it always fits in with what he is doing in his freestyle and doesn’t just appear random. Anthony Rojas is a good example of someone who can get a good body control score while doing body tricks.
You can also check the freestyles with the lowest body control score to compare. At high level contests, most people who make the finals know what they are doing, so even the lower scores might be doing a lot of similar things, but with less purpose or rhythm, or less consistency throughout the freestyle.
Finally, try not to let this get in the way of actually landing your tricks. Stage presence doesn’t come naturally to everyone, and if focusing on your body control score too much makes it difficult for you to hit a clean freestyle, it may be worth just punting on the body control score so that you don’t lose points elsewhere trying to improve one category. Keep practicing to try to improve it for next time, but don’t feel like you have to perform a contest freestyle in a way you are not fully comfortable with.
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@wishiwasayoyoexpert, I was wondering this to.
Thank you, @Yossarian, that covers pretty much everything.
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