Understanding/ Learning the Judging Strategy

[BJW]

I come from an area that has a strong dance following, but not too many people that dance much higher than the intermediate/ advanced level. With that lack of experience I am interested in gaining a stronger understanding of how judging is done. I understand that there are classes/ seminars for this sort of thing. However, for those of us that have very shallow pockets, is there a way to study the judging practice without attending those events?

Is there any literature that might help us understand how we can make our humble local competitions more similar to national ones? If nothing else I feel this would help our local community understand how things are run nationally, be more equipted for national events, and feel like we are part of the national community as a whole.

[BJW]

How about this... I would love to hear some stories about how or where you learned to judge, some judging experiences, and maybe somthing that you learned through the process that really surprised you.

Anything that might help those of us with minimal judging experience further understand what's up.

Techniques... Strategies... Processes...

Much thanks to all you experts out there.

[whipdancer]

For me judging started at the local level. I grew up in a system that promoted a hierarchy of City, State, and Regionals contests. Through the member clubs you could participate in the contests. Part of that participation was that the clubs were responsible for providing judges for the contests. At the judges meeting, in a round robin fashion, each club would be asked for a name to judge the given category, until all categories for the weekend were covered. This included overall performance judges, penalty point judges, and time keepers.

Initially, each club would simply be asked to submit names. However, enough unqualified people were put up as judges that we started requiring basic judging qualifications. We started holding Judging seminars 2 to 4 times per year, that - if you wanted to judge - you had to attend. Initially you had to attend 2 or 3 in the first year, but after that you only had to attend once per year to maintain your eligibility to judge.

Our club would pay for us to attend (it was typically a nominal fee of $10 or something - basically it was to cover the cost of the room we held the seminar in), so I attended all of them. As my involvement in our dance community progressed, I eventually conducted judging seminars (which were often accompanied by tally room seminars).

We typically would have clips of dancers from our various contests that we would use for demonstration. We would go over our rules and use the clips as the discussion points. In our case, we didn't simply look for the 3 T's (timing, technique, teamwork - I think). Our rules were far more literal than that.

We were taught to consider:
Characteristic Style of the Dance; Style of Music; Music BPM; Timing; Rhythm; Pattern Difficulty; Ease of Execution; Pattern variety; Apart dancing; Entrances & Exits; Continuity of Patterns; Teamwork; Lead & Follow; Conformity of Partners; Presentation; Choreography (impromptu or planned); Lifts/Drops/Aerials; Facial Expression; Attuned to partner; Starting Position;

After attending the judging seminars, people could apprentice judge if they didn't feel they were ready to judge. They sat at the judges panel, filled out their notes and submitted them to the tally room. After all that, they would then sit down with their mentor and discuss the contest.

I was lucky. I had built in examples to learn from. My mother was an active judge and teacher and frequently traveled around the country to do workshops with Mario. I can't count the number of times we had "lessons" at our house. A group of dancers just hanging out at the house discussing the dance, new moves, techniques, etc.

I will never forget my mother constantly asking, "What did you see? Was that good or bad? Why?"

It's really too bad that the system is rather rapidly disappearing. Our hierarchy of competitions has largely been superseded by the various national comps. People don't really want to go unless they get points or it qualifies them for something bigger. As a result, they also miss out on the opportunity to learn more about the other aspects of the dance.

[heatherleigh]

For me judging started at the local level. I grew up in a system that promoted a hierarchy of City, State, and Regionals contests. Through the member clubs you could participate in the contests. Part of that participation was that the clubs were responsible for providing judges for the contests. At the judges meeting, in a round robin fashion, each club would be asked for a name to judge the given category, until all categories for the weekend were covered. This included overall performance judges, penalty point judges, and time keepers.

Initially, each club would simply be asked to submit names. However, enough unqualified people were put up as judges that we started requiring basic judging qualifications. We started holding Judging seminars 2 to 4 times per year, that - if you wanted to judge - you had to attend. Initially you had to attend 2 or 3 in the first year, but after that you only had to attend once per year to maintain your eligibility to judge.

Our club would pay for us to attend (it was typically a nominal fee of $10 or something - basically it was to cover the cost of the room we held the seminar in), so I attended all of them. As my involvement in our dance community progressed, I eventually conducted judging seminars (which were often accompanied by tally room seminars).

We typically would have clips of dancers from our various contests that we would use for demonstration. We would go over our rules and use the clips as the discussion points. In our case, we didn't simply look for the 3 T's (timing, technique, teamwork - I think). Our rules were far more literal than that.

We were taught to consider:
Characteristic Style of the Dance; Style of Music; Music BPM; Timing; Rhythm; Pattern Difficulty; Ease of Execution; Pattern variety; Apart dancing; Entrances & Exits; Continuity of Patterns; Teamwork; Lead & Follow; Conformity of Partners; Presentation; Choreography (impromptu or planned); Lifts/Drops/Aerials; Facial Expression; Attuned to partner; Starting Position;

After attending the judging seminars, people could apprentice judge if they didn't feel they were ready to judge. They sat at the judges panel, filled out their notes and submitted them to the tally room. After all that, they would then sit down with their mentor and discuss the contest.

I was lucky. I had built in examples to learn from. My mother was an active judge and teacher and frequently traveled around the country to do workshops with Mario. I can't count the number of times we had "lessons" at our house. A group of dancers just hanging out at the house discussing the dance, new moves, techniques, etc.

I will never forget my mother constantly asking, "What did you see? Was that good or bad? Why?"

It's really too bad that the system is rather rapidly disappearing. Our hierarchy of competitions has largely been superseded by the various national comps. People don't really want to go unless they get points or it qualifies them for something bigger. As a result, they also miss out on the opportunity to learn more about the other aspects of the dance.
I wish this was more of the standard. That there were set judging seminars as well as qualified individuals leading these. That the basic judging criteria was addressed and that there was also a mentoring program in place for for upcoming judges.

I've been pretty consistent in watching the scores from events that I have gone too, and some of the events have a very low standard deviation... which is awesome. That means that the judges are all judging on the same criteria, that all of their individual scores met up with each other overall. Super great.

Other events(national and local alike) are all over the place. Some of the events are scored more by local people and and some by pros. This tells me that they aren't judging on the same criteria. If they were, it wouldn't be as big of a sread.

I think if there were a more standardized way of training judges across the country, as well as mentoring them, there would be more consistency at events overall.

Our club still abides by the rule of making two judges training seminars and getting some mentoring in where event directors will let you before you placed in a judges chair as a club rep. Slowwhipper is part of that club. I enjoy this arrangement by realize most places do not take it as seriously, which unfortunately means that unqualified persons end up in the chair, which in the long run, gives the competitor no try picture of where they are in relation to the rest of their competition.