Is it a Figure Skaters Competition review or is it CSI with your PDF?
So, you’ve finished your Figure Skating competition. Whether you’ve come home with a medal or not, it’s a good idea to look back over your event and take notes of what went well and areas for improvement. But how do the Top Figure Skaters boost their scores? It’s team work. Skater and Coach together, breaking it down to build it back up!
On the Day! – If you skate early in your event, it’s possible to gain some perspective by watching the skaters that follow you. Noticing which qualities the judges are rewarding for skaters in your age/standard category. Is speed and attack in the basic skating skills getting their favour or is it vibrant presentation? Do you notice differences in the quality of the elements of the top ranked skaters? Use a note pad and jot down one or two of the best qualities you see in each skater and one or two things that let them down, then note their score. What do the top scorers have in common?
Top Figure Skaters use this to boost their scores tactically…
Play Sherlock Holmes with Numbers
Getting more detailed Technical info for your performance review can start as soon as the Referee has signed the results and the PDFs are released. If it’s your first time competing you may need help understanding what all the numbers on your PDF score sheet are. So here’s an info-graphic to help get you started.
Unexpected surprise in your element levels? – Ask the Panel. Did you know, if you have queries about why an element got an unexpected level, that your Coach can ask the Technical Controller about it once the competition is concluded?
Timing is everything – It’s important to know the etiquette around this process so as not to break any of the rules around correct conduct of skaters, coaches or officials. For Events with a Short and a Long Programme, your Coach must wait until after the Long event has concluded. Only then can they gain these valuable insights that could be hard to second guess. For example, which spin or twizzle positions/features got called in your combination spin or twizzle sequence?
*Get to know more about your Grades of Execution and Components
Grades of Execution (or GOE for short) are the positive and negative numbers in the big green box under your total score. Components are in the big box at the bottom of your score sheet (highlighted in orange). Each number the Judges have awarded you has a correlating description in words. Those words let you know what the Judges observed about your performance. They are also giving you a message on how to improve for next time. Find the latest Grade of Execution document by visiting the ISU website and typing “Grade of Execution” into their search bar.
Let your feedback guide your training
Top Figure Skaters know that their Coach can help to identify strengths to build upon to boost scores to the max. Get to know any areas you may need to improve for your next event. Asking your Coach for 3 things to focus on for your next event can help. Already in the habit of using a training diary? Great! You and your Coach can write your performance review goals there to motivate you for each training session.
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Struggle with competition nerves? Have a read of our article about this here