Anz wrote:I heard it used to be - like ten years ago - that in footbag routines there were set certain amount of different concepts that you had to include in your routine. For example five flyers and three unusuals, etc.
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Can anybody tell why the system was outcluded form the rules in the first place?
Anz,
I'm pretty sure that you're refering to what is still known as the "Formula-Based Judging System", which you can still read the important details of at footbag dot org:
http://www.footbag.org/rules/chapter/500#505
The forumula did not really have Compulsory elements. However, the formula scored the "Composition" of a routine (variety) by counting every ADD element of every trick. There was a maximum Composition score. Composition was 1/3 of a routines score. Performance was 1/3, and the Drop Count score and Difficulty together added up to another 1/3. Competitors could earn 10 points in total for their composition, 10 points in total for their presentation, 5 points in total for going dropless (you start with 5 points and lose 1/4 point for each drop, so 2 drops equals 4.50, ten drops = 2.50, and 20 drops = 0.0), and a maximum of 5 points for difficulty (ADD ratio + 1/100 of raw ADDs -- nobody ever maxed-out the difficulty of the difficulty score, or exceeded it, until Ryan Mulroney. This was one very small factor leading to the demise of the Forumula-Based system), for a total maximum of 30 points.
The Composition portion of the score worked basically like this: every unique trick earns 1/10 point to your score for each ADD-category represented in the trick, but there were Maximum amounts you could earn for each of the 5 ADD-categories. Those max scores were: 3 Points for delays, 2 points for Dex, 2 for Body, 2 for Cross-Body, and 1 for Unusual Surfaces. So, each unique trick earned 1/10 point towards the total for each ADD-category that was represented in a given trick. So, 20 unique tricks that each have some sort of Dexterity move in them all add 1/10 point more to your Dex score (regardless of how many Dexes are actually present in the move - so, a Butterfly earns 1/10 towards the Dex portion of your score, and a Barfly also earns you just 1/10, not 2/10, and a Paradon Swirl will also get you another 1/10 point towards the Dex portion of your Composition score, not 3/10 points), in addition to whatever Delay, Body, Cross Body, or Unusual ADDs might also happen to be represented in those tricks. After you've done 20 unique moves with Dexes in them, you don't earn any more points in the Dex category towards your score, though the ADDs continue to count towards your Difficulty score and whatever other ADD-categories are represented in those tricks and you haven't Maxed-Out yet.
So, there were not exactly compulsory elements, BUT, dexterity moves, for instance, stop contributing to your score after you've done a certain amount of them. Thus, in order to continue increasing your score, you need to incorporate some variety of different elements in your routine because lots and lots of moves from just one ADD-category cannot result in anything like a maximum Composition score. However, you did not absolutely NEED to do any particular kinds of tricks. For instance, Flyers, Spins, Ducks, Paradox, and Symposium all contributed to the 2 points of Composition score that you could earn for doing Body ADDs. So, you can earn those 2 points without doing any flyers and ducks (for example) if you don't like those moves but you've got plenty of spins and paradox moves in your routine. Not really that hard considering that Osis technically has a "spin" element in it, earning a Body-ADD, thus Blender and Torque will each get you a 1/10-point for their Body ADDs (in addition to a 1/10-point for Dex, Cross-body, and Delay elements present in those moves) and Spinning Osis will also earn you 1/10 points for being a unique trick with a Body element in the move (2 body ADDs, in fact, but still worth just 1/10 more points, not 2/10).
If you read about the Presentation scoring, though, you will see that 2 points of the 10 total points for presentation come from the presentation category called "Floor: Planes and Travel", meaning that deliberately moving around the competion floor can earn you points, AND doing tricks at different PLANES relative to the floor (different heights above the floor) can earn you points. So, flyers can obviously improve your performance score by contributing to your use of space.
So, flyers were never compulsory, but could contribute a little to your score in more than one way.
Anz wrote:Can anybody tell why the system was outcluded form the rules in the first place?
A few reasons: for one, it required MORE judges (one person each must be assigned to count tricks for EACH ADD-category, plus somebody to count total contacts and drops, plus somebody to count total ADDs, plus several judges for presentation. And then somebody has to add all those scores together...) , and had a reputation for being very slow: once one competitor finished, it might take a few minutes for the judges to finish their counting before the next competitor was allowed to start. The system was replaced in an effort to make a system that required less judges and took less time.
Personally, I saw many virtues to the old Formula-Based System, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Even a few years after replacing that judging system at Worlds, when the judging pool was being organized for later Worlds, Steve Goldberg would request volunteers "who were familiar with the old Formula-Based System" even though we weren't using it anymore, and Steve Goldberg was one of the people who did the most to get rid of the Formula System. One among many of its virtues was that it represented a fairly broad way of thinking about Trick-Variety in competition. It informed people that Dexes alone, even lots and lots of different kinds of Dexes, were not enough alone to constitute a high level of variety. One could do pixies AND fairies... atomics AND quantums, stepping AND double-downs, whirls AND swirls, and still not be considered to have a very high variety, because, after all, those are all just dexes, dexes, and more dexes.
I liked that old system alot. It was that formula system that encouraged me to learn more Unusual Surface tricks -- mostly because it was pretty common for top players to Max-Out their Dex, Delay, and Cross-Body scores, and Maxing-Out the Body score was not uncommon either (and this was before EVERYBODY learned Ducks and Dives -- back then there were still only a VERY few people who were really good at them), but, almost nobody even came close to Maxing-Out the Unusual Surface score (Greg Nelson was the only guy to regularly have, like, an unusual score of 0.8 [8 unique unusual surface tricks], and almost everybody else had scores like 0.1 or 0.2 in that category), and I saw it as a way to gain some scoring advantage over other competitors. I have never regretted going down that path, and the Formula-Based system was one of the main things that started me down that way. I learned some other good things because of it too.
