The competitor decides his routine and fills his judging sheet.
He makes up his own routine (with some limitations), But
once he turns it in, he must do the skills on the exact order
that he wrote down in the judging sheet, Each skill has a value
according to the difficulty. the sum of this values + 200 is his
potentially highest score. There are two ways that he might lose
points.
1)Did not do the trick, did not complete it, or did it when he was
not supposed to do it.
2)Made mistakes. Minor mistakes (0.5 deduction) include waving
of arms, incorrect hand position, etc. A bad fall will be a 3.0
deduction.
The floor marks the distances. They are circles. The outside lines
are 8 meters in diameter which is the distance you must do the
riding skills when you choose the on a line option. When you
choose to do the skill on a circle you must keep outside the
middle circle which has a 4 meters diameter and inside the 8
meters circle. When doing figure 8 and when doing the lines you
must go thru the small circle in the center.
You must choose up to 18 skills that you must perform in 3
minutes. Only up to 6 of those skills can be mounts and/or
transitions.
There are many tips on putting together a routine. Make sure it
flows, practice it often, memorize it. Check your stamina level.
If you are not sure if you will have time to finish it, make sure
the skills that will be left out are not a high proportion of your
total value.
Freestyle is a show. But the judging is totally subjective. Other
sports like boxing, figure skating, gymnastics, etc., which has
many more resources than we do, have not been able to solve it.
Standard skill has a more just & objective scoring. I like both.
I see freestyle like art, which is not meant to be judged by people
other than the artist. Standard is more like a competitive sport.
You really take away from his creativity, but structure it so that
you can measure it.
Hope that I was able to help you. You really ought to buy the
booklet. Do try to put up a standard skill routine for the NUC.
You might have some difficulties, but you will be able to put
together a much better routine the second time around.
Alberto Ruiz Ruizb@aol.com
Member IUF Rules Committee