Judge's input please...

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emacmommy

This question/issue is multi-facetted.

First... can someone evaluate the start value of this routine for Level 8 Floor routine. Execution in leaps was passable for 180* on both leaps, deduction for amplitude I'm sure.

-Front Tuck r/o Back Tuck (A, A; two salto SR) (also two of three different saltos SR)
-Wolf Half (B)
-Schushanova (B)
-Tuck Press to HS 1/2 Pirouette (A)
-r/o Layout Step Out (A) (third of three different saltos SR)
-1/1 turn (A) (turn on toe SR)
-switch leap, immediate chasse 1/1 turn, to step-chasse switch leap (chasse 1/1 turn in book as Group 1 element, satisfying two different dance elements one with 180* split) (B, A, B)
-r/o BHS Layout (slightly too hollowed to land) (A) (Last Salto at least an 'A' SR)

Now with that laid as ground work... can you judges out there, or senior coaches to our USAG program, help me with what I can do to help our state & surrounding states and judges with an issue. I'm not here to point fingers... just want to know what I can do to continue to improve the quality/consistency of gymnastics in our area. Where do I start to bring this to the attention of "whoever the powers that be" are. Sorry if this gets lengthy.

As my location states we are a large state with small population... Wyoming. This has been my 4th season here, moving from Ohio. We are continuously building our program from the grass roots up, and have produced our first L8 athlete who won her age group at state and qualified and competed at Regionals.

Issue I would like to work on as our program continues to produce: JUDGING INCONSISTENCY & KNOWLEDGE BASE. I'm appealing to our knowledgable judges out there on chalkbucket.

Again this is not a witch-hunt, or blame session. As women/men of integrity I truly feel our judges are doing the best they know how and have the best interest of the gymnasts they judge at heart. The issue is this, they are not getting out there enough! Just like an athlete the more they practice, see, and experience the better and sharper their skills become. The more they sit beside more senior/experienced judges the more consistent they are. However, they are seeing the same small percentage of gymnasts over and over and over again in our state... occasionally heading over to a different small percentage of gymnasts to our neighbor state, S.Dakota. Colorado has a large pool of judges so they don't ever ask our judges to come down to judge.

This year whoever assigns judges to Regional competitions completely ignored, or weren't aware of, the needs of the smaller states in our Region and had no judge's representation for Wyoming, Arkansas or New Mexico at any of our Leveled Regional Championships, at least L8 for sure. I'm sure they were thinking that it is best to have our most consistent and sharp judges at these competitions, but don't realize that that thought process continues to hurt the programs of these smaller states. Even if our judges are assigned to input scores or be line judge, they would be gaining valuable experience not normally seen just within their own state/neighbor state. What do I have the power to do to change this and advocate for the smaller states?

I have these concerns from past and even recent experiences. In the past we have had huge score ranges between competitions in-state/S. Dakota to competitions in Colorado. These were always so hard to explain to parents who just don't have the gymnastic worldliness to understand. In defense of our Wyo juges they have made HUGE strides to improve this issue this past season.

However, as we climb through the levels judging consistency brings on a different meaning with optional judging. Being able to consistenly evaluate the start value of L8-10. This is my most current issue. Not getting out of our own reach of judges is an issue we are battling with our gym parents, finances and fundraising efforts are huge concerns within our current gym culture. Some things could be fixed by going abroad more often as a team, but that is cost prohibitive for some families and we shouldn't have to leave our area to get consistent judging.

My current Level 8 gymnast pretty much has been evaluated by the same 4 judges all season long, even with going out of state into S. Dakota two times. None of the Wyo judges who judged her caught a compositional error until State when she was judged by two Colorado judges. If the judges don't catch it... I don't know we made a mistake. We even had one of our Level 8 judges come into practice and evaluate routines the weekend before Regionals and we STILL had a compositional-SV error. These are our own interpretation mistakes as coaches, but again, if someone doesn't catch them we don't know we've made them.

So if anybody has any ideas to improve our state's situation. Please, give me input! Oh, don't forget to evaluate the start value above!
 
Yikes! I can't believe judges all season missed this. Yes, she meets the 4 SR's and has at least 4 A's and 4 B's, but here is directly from the code of points the deductions she would get for this routine:
Lack of balance between acro & dance VP ↑.20 - (because she gets all her B's from dance)
Acro not up to competitive level ↑.20 - (because no B tumbling)
Lack of turn on 1 foot, min. B 0.20 - (no B value turn)
Lack of min. of B salto (Level 8 & 9) .30 - (yet another available deduction for having no B tumbling)

Here is the link to the judges cheat sheet posted on the USAG website which lists all the composition deductions:
http://www.usa-gymnastics.org/PDFs/Women/Rules/J.O.%20Code%20of%20Points/2009-13cheatsheetappndix12-2009revAug2010.pdf

Not sure if I have any suggestions for how to solve your overall judges experience problem. But if I were you I would try to take my team down to Colorado at least twice a season - once early in the season and once closer to regionals. Sounds like you would get judging closer to what you will get at regionals there.
 
Just another input, we have a level 8 who is an excellent dancer but not as advanced a tumbler. So she only does 2 tumbling passes - punch front pike/front tuck and ro/bhs/layout half - it is about the easiest tumbling you can do without getting a compositional deduction at level 8. She gets in her 2 acro B's, 2 flip pass and 3 differnent saltos and has been scoring in the 9.4-9.6 range all season.
 

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