From: "Russ Stiffler" To: Subject: trick format. Date: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 6:00 PM Hi Bob, It's been along time. I appreciate this forum and hope it is helpful. I would like to make one point before getting started: the rules are for all skiers in all age divisions. Sometimes its easy get forget about the non-elite skiers when talking about rules changes. With that in mind, lowering the point values of the beginning flips will hurt the efforts of non-elite trickers trying to join the ranks of flippers. I like the limit of 6 flips. It gives the better flippers the opportunity to improve their scores by doing more difficult flips. But it also gives others the incentive to learn a flip or two. In the beginning, flips are take a lot of time and are not as productive on a points per second basis as some other tricks. Also the name of the event is trick skiing or figures. It is not called the flip event. Allowing unlimited flips would turn tricks into a flip – body over or toe event. Personally I think we should encourage more variety instead of promoting a single dimensional event. Yes flips are exciting and belong in the event but as it stands now they can make up more than half of a run. That’s enough. As it is, stopovers have almost disappeared. Because of flips and BO’s, it is a waste of time to have put your foot into your back binding during a pass. It is also a waste of time to learn a few tricks that hopefully you will not have to use. If a tricker doesn’t have enough flips or BO’s, steps might be used as a filler. Steps are exciting with a lot of action, they also seem to be a bit more difficult to get very consistent. Let’s increase by maybe 50 points each the WLBB’s and the WL5’s except for the wrapped one skiers are already starting their runs with. To take steps a step further, now is the time to add some new steps. Steps where the ski goes over the rope like a stepover and not with both feet on the ski like BO’s. When the rules for BO’s were redefined the effect was to outlaw one of the most exciting tricks ever done in competition, the double-step FF. That should be reinstated into the rules at 400 or 450 points if you want to encourage more steps. Another trick that is very exciting to see is a ski step BB. It is a WLBB with the ski going over the rope instead of the free foot. All the stepover rules apply with the handle being between the legs at the finish of the stepover portion of the turn. If should have a point value of 400 or 450 also. I don’t imagine many skiers will do the work required to learn them, but a few might. It would give more options and increase the variety of the event. Besides there is no good reason why they should not be legal anyway. On another subject: judging. With the advent of video judging from the boat, judges are afforded a view of the ski they have never seen before in competition. The can see that a W360 is not really a W360. It never has been. Convention, forever, has been that a wake trick was counted as legal is if the skier jumped off an edging ski and landed either in line with the pull of the boat or on an edge cutting back to the wake. Wake tricks have never been a true 360, 540 or 720 degree turns. They have been considered single revolution, and one and a half or two revolution spins. Just because it is now possible to see the difference between tracking straight with the boat and edging to the wake should not change how the event is judged. If that requires redefining the rules, fine. If it can be handled by defining the interpretation of what a 360 turn is, fine. The other point is preturn. The convention has been that if the skier is coming up while turning off the edge that was a legal trick. If the ski is turning before the lift is starting, that was not a legal trick. If you watch a ski doing a historically legal wake trick in slow motion, you will see a ski edging to the wake, the lift and the turn begin at the same time. Because the lift and turn start at the same time, the ski will turn on the water, some, before it breaks free of the water. Wake tricks could be done by strict interpretation of the rules. That would require learning to ski to the wake without turning the ski towards the wake at all. Then it would require that the skier pop and get the ski out of the water before beginning to turn. In that way we could see actual 360, 540 and 720’s. But you wouldn’t see many 540’s and probably no 720’s, thy would be too difficult. But that is not what trick skiing has been. I don’t think anyone really wants to change the event to make it slower and less exciting. Accept the reality of the way trick skiing has always been done. A ski lifting off an edging ski is legal. A ski turning before lift is started is preturn and not legal. If the rules where defined along those lines, I think, the consistency of judging would improve. Russ Stiffler russ@IDesireSuccess.com