Many of you have asked what are the benefits of attending the IPDSC Congress. To answer this question , it all depends on you, asking that question. Are you asking as a Dance athlete or are you asking as a Dance Coach , a Teacher or a potential Adjudicator.MPDC advise and encourages dance athletes to attend the Congress, for at the Congress they will be touching on dance technique, and in particular what adjudicators must look out for in a dance couple on the floor. Is the execution of the technique correct and if it is wrong why is it wrong. In a Congress, I noticed that Natasha Ambroz, got Seko and his sister dance the samba twice once the correct technique and the other the incorrect technique, and the participants were asked to decide which is the right technique. Seko and the sister are the Asian Top Lain couple in the ADSF ranking in 2007.
From the above, it is obvious and it is important for coaches, trainers and adjudicators to keep on updating their techniques and the latest so call dance "fashion" or flavour. MPDC have domestically decided to start a pool of local adjudicators and they must attend Congress and workshop organised by MPDC or MDSB. MPDC has decided to broadly catagorise them in Category A and Category B adjudicators. Category B adjudicators are eligible to grade all class except GRADE A athletes. Category A adjudicator are eligible to adjudicate all categories, domestically.
Once you are a category A adjudicator, you are already on your way to apply to be admitted as an IDSF international adjudicator. Once you have all your technical and professional qualification in place, MPDC will vet through your records and the MPDC technical committee will decide whether you will be ready to be recommended to be an IDSF international adjudicator.
Those of you who have seen the latest IDSF adjudicators form, you will notice that now IDSF demands that you must have professional qualification in both Latin American and Standard , with a minimum Licentiate level.
To those of you who will be attending the Congress at Batu Pahat, you may be asked to declare whether you intend to be an MPDC adjudicator, you will be given a form to fill . The information will be captured in our book of records and will be perused by the technical committee to decide on your eligibility. I can off hand tell you that if you are still dancing and actively competing you can forget about applying to be a Category A adjudicator. At most the technical committee will allow you to be an Category B adjudicator.
Now a question was asked whether a physically challenged non dancer can technically be an adjudicator. The quick answer is no, he cannot be an adjudicator. He may be able to demonstrate that he may know the theory and that he understand the full technique of the Dance but in the Professional examination, you are required to dance out the step. However a dancer who has never competed in his life can however be able to apply to be an adjudicator and have all the prerequisite qualifications.
To me an adjudicator is akin to a judge. We all assume that judges are fair but this is not really the case because judges are human beings and as humans they have their failing and their weaknesses. From the MPDC perspective these are mere excuses, and if you cannot be fair then you have no business being a judge. To judge unfairly in my opinion is a sin that is so heinous for it perverts the law of nature. Here the rules of natural justice apply in that " No man must be a judge in his own cause."
Can anyone of you tell me whether it is correct for a teacher to judge his own couple on the floor against other couples. He may claims to be the fairest person in the world, for if he does so he would have gone against the Rules of Natural Justice.
With MPDC coming into the picture we will endeavor to do our best, we may have our short comings here and there. MPDC is new we are only registered in April 2008. However as Sports Director I want to assure you that fair play in our competitions is not an option, it cannot be compromised. You the athletes must know that when you walk on the Dance floor in an MPDC competition, we will not only want you to know that it is fair, you can see with your own eyes that it is fair. Have you not heard , "Justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done".
6 comments:
*Could u post the results of the batu pahat comp.
Would like to, but I think the web master of the MPDC web site will kill me by taking away his thunder. Okay I will chase him. I think what you want is not only the results but the detail markings too, so you know how each judge mark you. Am I correct? The Pro dance program have a different language and I am sure the web master knows how to do the needful. Thank you.
I read article above with great amusement. The commentary is sharp and spot on.
Where I come from we have similar issues where by judges consistently mark down good competitors for no apparent reason.I am sure you know what I mean if you compare all the results of the jugdes over a period of time.
It becomes so obvious after a while its embrassing. All I can say is that its totally disgusting and such judges have no right judging.
The issue of fairness is many a time not due to the level of skill of the adjudicators but more so to the level of professionalism and personal intregety.
You can teach all sorts of judging skills but you can never fix the mentality.Which is why the skating system is in place. An untrained unbais judge is better than a bias professionally trained judge any day.
Thats why sometimes its important to compete overseas sometimes to get a true feel of your performance. Malaysia is lucky in this sense since this does not happen much.
In general I believe the skating systems works well from what I could see from the results on the Malaysian Standard closed event. Not my outcome by the way but very crediable by any accessment. Kudos to the judges who marked without fear or favor. As for the others go for more adjudicator workshops.
outspoken, I always love your views and you speak frankly and without hesitation and that is good. Judges are human and as human they have their failings. I cannot agree with your views that an unbias and untrained judge is better than a professionally trained one. Yes an unbias judge is what we look for, but an untrained person cannot be a judge and this can be dangerous for the sport.
You must make it a point to attend the adjudicators congress, At the Congress the judges wanna be are taught to look at the couples, the lines , their musicality and many more. How many times have you look at a couple and say that they will and yet unplaced.
It may be subjective in judging but there must be set criteria and this criteria must be understood.
It is difficult to be totally unbias, but we in MPDC will try our level best to reduce bias.
In every competition we have stupid judges or blind judges. I know of a result where 6 judges gave the couple 1 or 2 or 3 but this judge marked that couple 6. In a case a couple had 1 & 2 by a particular Italian judge but on a particular dance he marked that competitor 6. Now why the gap, it so happens at that time , he slipped and went out of timing and it caught the judges eyes.
The heart of any dance sport competition are the judges, you do not have fair judges, you will kill the competition.
U know your right of course. In a perfect world an unbias well train judge would be outstanding. In a less than perfect world, many I think will still choose the other fellow. hahaha...
Just as the judging is subjective so is my response. Not many would agree to it but that's the beauty of it everyones view is different. I guess the system can only be such that the best effort is extended to patch the holes. For example I feel random numbering of the participants would be nice or based upon who registers first.
The skating system is fantastic, on the spot posting of the markings would be nice. though I do agree that would result in undue pressure. Anyways it really quite good at present.All I can say really is to respect the sport and the participants will respect you.
The system of adjudication of dancesport as it is now serves its purpose and objectives but there is no denying that there can always be improvements.
The disparity/variance of positioning/scores as pointed out by Skydancer that happens quite often, shows that the level of subjectivity is too wide. Other subjective sports such as diving, gymnastics, etc have progressed along the way to reducing such glaring variances.
Spot on posting of scores as suggested by Outspoken has its merits. Apart from the other pros and cons that may consume time and more paragraphs, this procedure eliminates any error in tabulating of scores. It has happened before and by then the results are already out. Is there any jury of appeal in dancesport?
But then again, the argument may go, this is dancesport so do not compare marking/judging systems with another sport.
Nevertheless, within dancesport, the dancers have the right to expect more adjudicators/officials who are qualified, competent, conscientious and fair.
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