*418 - judging for gym comp

I am appalled and aghast. Big rant up ahead. Let's hope the sports council doesn't have my blog bookmarked in their favourites.

The Greatest Irony Of Today - "I wonder why every year I always receive so many complaints about unfair results at the gym competitions!"

I can very well tell Mr P the answer. It's because the judges don't know anything!!!

3 hours into the judging course and I felt like raising my hand and saying "Pardon me, I thought the course was supposed to start at 9. When are we beginning again?"

At least Amy and I have been gymnasts, we know what to look out for and we notice the little details. Even so, it's really quite scary to have to evaluate every single element in those few seconds, 90 seconds and it's all over, no rewind, slow motion, pause, to check angles and height and apparatus handling and expression etc. Definitely a tough job.

And now, look at all these inexperienced (in terms of gymnastics) teachers who have never seen a cabriole or cossack or illusion in their lives, and will probably never see them until the first routine that they judge because there are no pictures or videos or demonstrations to guide them. How are they supposed to know, as our "trainer" read straight from her sheet of paper, what "Split leap take off and half turn with leg switch, leg less than 90 degrees minus 0.5, turn less than 180 degrees minus 0.2, everybody ok? Ok." means?? I couldn't even figure out what the heck that move was until I imagined the routine in my head and realised what it was.

It's no wonder that the judging is so screwed up each year. And the sad thing is that we put our heart and soul into this sport, we train for days each week and sacrifice so much, we take it so seriously and if we don't get our gold medal our lives are in shambles - and ultimately when it all boils down to the 90 seconds in front of the panel, it doesn't actually matter very much, all the little things that we practised, the extra poise and the extra pointed toes, the smooth apparatus handling and the extra amplitude in our jumps, much of all that would probably go unnoticed as the judges struggle to even see if the pivot that you did was one full round our not.

She might be a qualified judge, no doubt a very good one at that, but she does not make a qualified trainer because noone knows what the heck is happening.

Ok I guess I'm just being overly cynical, there's a system where more experienced judges will make sure results aren't too absurd, and our scores are moderated in a way, and I'm sure there are always some sharp judges on the panel. But when that 0.05 points makes all the difference between champion and runner up, accuracy of judging becomes VERY important.

And if Mr P or the "trainer" starts talking about random things and spending hours telling us completely irrelevant stories and showing us completely useless and irrelevant videos again tomorrow, which they did for about 6 of the 7 hours that we spent in the room, I am going to stand up and tell them to shut up and get back on track. I hate wasting time like that, and yes your little Malaysian gymnasts are very cute and flexible but I do not care for watching a video of them do warm ups at the barre for one hour, and I especially do not care about your life story interesting as it may be to you, because I am here to learn how to judge and most of everyone else in the room is going to have no clue how to judge on the day of the competitions and that is SERIOUSLY worrying.

THIS ANNOYS ME TO DEATH.

I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M GOING BACK AGAIN TOMORROW OMG.