Okay, my DD is a judge. She does the lower levels, thus, she's dealing with the younger skaters (or late starters, or adults). She hates giving a retry (not a fail, they call it a retry). She is a skater herself. She still tests and competes, and, darnit, she's gotten a lot of retries over the years. She also thought that some judges were "out to get her" or "just weren't fair" - and, to be fair, some are harsher than others. Older, wiser, she now knows that the judges that were "tough" were trying to get her to be solid at the lower level so that the higher levels would come easier. She's not a good tester: she always skates "down" in a test situation, and she certainly is not a natural dancer.
Now, as a judge, she goes quite a distance to accommodate test days, often at a loss of income. She is in an arena for many cold hours, for no pay, and hopefully a decent hot meal in the process. For that, she has to deal with coaches, small children, test chairs, and tons of paperwork. At the end of it, she gets a small gratuity (say, $25 in value). She does it because she wants to give back to the sport, and she has a huge commitment to building young skaters and giving them a solid test experience. When skaters go out on the ice bright and shiny and excited, it's very hard to give them a retry, but, she has to if the test isn't ready because, otherwise, the skater will have the wrong knowledge of their skating level.
I can certainly tell you that she has a solid knowledge of which coaches prepare their skaters well; which ones test "just to try"; and which ones do exactly what the blog describes, which is pushing the kid thru before they are ready so that parents are excited about how fast their kid is progressing. She can't tell a skater any of this. All she can do is give solid feedback about, say, "the wide-step on the mohawk needs to be addressed" or "edges are not strong enough", "more flow needed", "jump is cheated, needs more rotation, tighter air position". She doesn't want to take the shine off a kid's day, but, it is heartbreaking to see so much effort and realizing that the skater honestly doesn't know that they are not ready for the test. She also judges at comps, and she sees the same kids struggling in competitions as they are punching above their weight. And, sadly, she often sees the same kids hanging up their skates because they're tired of being unsuccessful.
She's wiped teary eyes, cleaned up snotty noses, and given encouragement to persevere to small skaters who have not been successful in a test. She meets with coaches and skaters to give them feedback when they ask (and has had some nasty experiences, but, most are nice). Years ago, one judge told her that if she was going to get into this, that she'd better have a thick skin, and a real passion for the sport, because, it certainly is not a job for the faint or heart or for anyone who doesn't believe that volunteering is it's own reward.
Topic: The Judge's Perspective (Read 11977 times)