There’s already an Artistic Performance division, where there’s no clicks and only the performative aspects are judged. The question is why is it so unpopular compared to the #A divisions.
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I think tech scores are normalized, not averaged. Some judges click more than others and my understanding is that process helps account for that disparity. Not sure if this is still how TE is calculated, but for 2014 (the first IYYF worlds) this was how it was done:
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To the main point of the thread, I actually agree, I think the scoring is good as is. I really enjoy this short video essay by Jamie of Spiral
That said, I’ve also really enjoyed how Scales has been iterating their scoring system each contest they hold, and each contest they hold seems to get better as they learn and adapt from it.
Also, this is third-hand information from what I’ve read on the forum (link below) but Takeshi reportedly stopped competing after 2018 because he didn’t like how the current scoring system worked w.r.t. hard technical tricks. I’d be really interested to see what his ideal ruleset would be or see how more contests run like his “Chain Reaction” event would turn out.
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The hardest thing for me is that there is a lack of cohesion among judges when it comes to scoring a freestyle.
The current system allows for too much subjectivity in both evaluation and tech scores making it difficult for individuals who are isolated from other competitive yoyo players to understand what would be necessary to do well in a competition.
Having judges explain in advance what specific things they are looking for in a competition would be very helpful. I believe the judges tasked with scoring evaluations should explain in great detail how they will be awarding points for each category. I also believe that judges who score tech should share their overall philosophy for scoring tricks so that competitors could have a little more guidance.
Another thing that I have noticed is that judges sometimes neglect to factor in the effect of large variations in evaluation scores to an overall score. I have seen contests where individuals were receiving 15 points in a category where others were receiving 3. This large gap made the evaluation score extremely heavily weighted when the expectations were not specific enough to warrant the huge gaps in scoring. Allowing for smaller gaps in scores would make things less weighted. Scoring from 1 to 5 would be more effective in providing a more accurate and less subjective scoring system, and giving scores of 2s and 1s should be reserved for special circumstances where it is clear that an individual is completely disregarding a category. For higher level contests it may be necessary to provide larger scoring scales, but in most competition environments, the smaller the number the less subjectivity can influence the end score.
Also, I understand that hooks are difficult, but I am tired of seeing repeated hooks only for the purpose of scoring a higher tech score. I feel like hooks should only be scored if they are done in a different context rather than just being a more difficult version of a previously completed trick.
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In a lot of judging competitions where its difficult to put a number on something… ie how far or high you can jump… there are multiple judges who score for different items.
So for example- we have 5 judges
2 judges score points as in clicks
1 judge for style
1 judge for difficulty of tricks
1 judge for overall creativeness/ use of area
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shoe voting (a la fixed axle championship of all the world).
in that system, all competitors have 2 shoes to vote with and they place them at the feet of the entries who most inspired them and whose tricks best expressed the criteria. they can choose to allocate one shoe each to two competitors or give both shoes to one if they were really moved. (you can’t give yourself shoes.)
most shoes wins the round. in FACOAtW, the rounds are based on randomly drawn elements/criteria (“big air”, “hands must touch”, “flip trick”, etc) and the bottom half of competitors (or some pre-arranged number, based on how many entrants) are eliminated in each round. it could also be applied to 30s combos or something, but it might not be as weird/cool.
while i don’t think people would actually “prefer” this in a typical contest, because it’s not “serious” enough, i would 100% love to watch it go down on stage in the more mainstream styles.
shoe voting and “pink slip” (where you go through head to head rounds based solely on applause and win the loser’s yo-yo for keeps) constitute my favorite “contest” models.
yo-yo is really fun and whimsical and i def prefer contests which treat it as such as opposed to trying to cram it into some wannabe olympic format.
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I just want to drop this in here as an example of why I don’t think scoring really needs to change that much from how it currently is for 1A. This is the performance that won OWYYC and I don’t know how you’d argue that this isn’t a super fun and creative performance. Obviously there’s a lot of meta elements in it, but the way they’re all tied together into this performance is really great. This is so much more than just fast yoyoing for clicks.
I didn’t realize there actually was an artistic performance division that already existed, but I think it goes to show how much it’s ignored that I didn’t even know it already was a thing.
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yeah, it’s a shame AP doesn’t seem to get as much recognition as it used to; it was always one of my favorite divisions to watch, both live when had the chance to go to worlds and in videos afterwards. Searching for these videos is kind of hard if you don’t know who actually won each year! I put together a playlist of all the performances I could find:
These are some of my favorites from it, I haven’t seen a lot of the ones post 2011 so I’ll be watching them today:
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Do you have example vids of tech 5a? I wonder what that looks like.
Tech 5A is mostly just having the yoyo in a static position while focusing on counterweight movement to change the formation, which is why they don’t score. People are sometimes against it, saying it’s not real 5A. But I think the thing detractors miss is that they assume tech 5A is just playing 1A while just holding a counterweight, but really a lot of it is that the yoyo is the static part and the counterweight is what you’re actively manipulating.
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Interesting! Thank you so much for sharing.
I have been a firm believer that yoyo contest should adapt a “dance battle” style bracket system that I’ve seen in the world of dance as well as Kendama competition as well.
The DXL battle contest that lasted for a few years were exactly this and I feel were perfect.
Panel of judges, each player gets a minute before switching back and forth twice, then the judges vote on the count of 3 who moves on.
It’s fun, keeps up the hype, is very competitive, and is quickly paced. To me this was the ideal way to have a yoyo contest.
Would love to see it more in the future.
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