Library of skating moves: videos and tracings for choreography software

[Query]

Since I'll never be a great skater, maybe I can do for skating what I know - write software.

There is already professional grade software to choreograph figure skating routines (for singles, couples, groups). I'm sure it is wonderful, and deals with all sorts of things beyond my ken like difficulty, skating standards, and scoring. All of which a coach should know, so I would ignore. But licenses start at a few hundred dollars / per year. I hope that is a bit steep for some coaches, but that a $10-$20 purchase price would be reasonable.

A coach would create a routine, and send pattern(s) and animated stick figure(s) to the skater(s), possibly timed to music. Animations won't be realistic enough to fool anyone, nor will you be able to get feedback on your own attempts or implant a chip in your brain to make it happen, but you could send friends a stick figure animation, with your face, doing something you "can" do.

It's a very ambitious software project (maybe too ambitious), but it would be fun, and I would learn a few things along the way.

SO: Do you folks know any free or reasonably priced good resources on all the common moves (individual and team - e.g., freestyle, Dance, Free Dance, Synchro, Precision, Production, Show)?

ALSO: Does anything cheap along these lines already exist?

One of the hardest parts is going to be finding a lists of all common moves in all the disciplines. Once I have that, I can look on-line for videos.

I don't care how to do the moves, or what the standards are. Just more or less what they look like (e.g., videos), so I can create moving stick figures and blade tracings.

As mentioned in another thread, I know about the ISI Test Standards DVD and Handbook, and the USFSA Basic Skills DVD and Instructor's Manual (mine is old), though I have to be careful about copyrights and use restrictions. But there are many common moves they don't cover.

[jjane45]

Wow this is ambitious. ISU Figure Skating Elements videos (~$50) have all jumps / major spins and very few moves like 3-turn.

Figure Skating: Championship Techniques by John Misha Petkevich has tracings for all jumps and some moves like brackets.

[Query]

Thanks! What about synchro, production, etc. formations, and couple and pair interactions?

---

I am scaling back  my goals a bit.

For several reasons.

It has always annoyed me that the dance patterns did not show actual blade tracings. E.g., to meet USFSA standards, forward progressive tracings must cross each other and perhaps partly overlay each other. This failure has created a lot of confusion, for me and I assume others. (E.g., a recently released set of ice dance DVDs shows two of the dancers performing progressives in a way judges have said would fail to pass USFSA tests.) So I wanted my software to show actual tracings.

But there are good reasons for the way diagrams are currently drawn. The exact way in which skaters move, and track with each other, differs a lot from skater to skater, coach to coach, couple to couple, and team to team. It is still more controversial if you pay attention to body positions. So actual blade tracings and body animations would inevitably create customer controversy and, the ultimate evil,   customer unhappiness  .

So it is better to draw simplified, roughly body centered, patterns, ignoring all subtleties - as current Dance patterns do - and to animate moving symbols or images, Pac-Man style, not to do full body animation.

It is also much easier to create the scaled back software, and requires much less knowledge on my part. In other words, a more achievable goal.

[FigureSpins]

Before you get too far into this, have you done any market research to see if there's a need and a paying population for this product?  Who are your competitors?  What are they doing and how much investment will this take?

These are basic business questions that you should really look into rather than trawling with a big net for other people's productions and knowledge.

[Query]

FigureSpins:

You are right of course.

So: Are there folks here who would likely pay $10-$20 for a utility that just draws skating patterns, and can create videos in which markers or non-moving images representing skaters move around on the screen, in time with music, but which can not do the full blown CGI animation the several hundred dollar / year software packages can do? Do you know anyone who probably would, or who you would likely buy my utility as a present?

Professional market research costs more money than I have. What I have is lots of free time, and experience writing software.

I should ask more coaches.

I've asked 3 coaches so far.

One was interested. He is a full time coach who does choreography by moving skaters around on the ice until he likes what he sees. But he may buy the several hundred dollar/year off-the-shelf software package, whose existence - sigh - I pointed out to him.

The other two do choreography on paper, and are satisfied with that for what they do.

I've also been looking at the selection of DVDs at skatetape.com, and DVDs and books at rainbo, but there are so many it is hard to guess what might be useful.

[fsk8r]

I've heard that in Abu Dhabi the coaching technique is that the skaters choreograph their own programs or if they do have a coach helping them, it is declared on the competition entry form. I asked a mom how the kids can choreograph programs when they're just starting freestyle and the response was that they copy programs from youtube.
Perhaps there's a market for the skaters there to use this sort of software to choreograph their own programs.

[jjane45]

Did you check out this website? Still not complete but well...
http://www.sk8stuff.com/m_recognize.htm

I do not know how choreographers manage to time skating moves to music BASED ON the skater's specific speed on stroking and each element. If your software handles it OK there may be market. Disclaimer: I know minimal about choreography and competitions.

[Query]

jjane45:

A lot of skaters I know do their own choreography, in conjunction with their coach.

Moving pattern diagrams synced to music can't solve all problems, but it can help skaters who don't memorize easily, or who have no musical background.

But I think the most obvious application is to Synchro, Production and Theatric Show skating. For some reason, these skating disciplines have suddenly become more popular over the last several years.

From personal experience, it is frustrating to understand what is going on when choreographers improvise on the ice, without giving skaters something to study in advance or afterwards. Especially where rink acoustics are poor, and you can't hear them.

[Isk8NYC]

The synchro suggestion is right on.  Because of the geometric nature of their skating elements, it does lend itself to an automated approach, especially to judge the angle of rotation for IJS events.  I found that being able to "see" what a pivoting line was supposed to do/look like really helped.

[Query]

This is a lot further than I intend to go, but wouldn't it be neat if you could wear virtual reality goggles, and see cues as to where you are supposed to be, where you are supposed to go next (e.g., you follow [shadow] or skate inside a virtual semi-transparent skater), and where the other skaters in the routine are?

Do it in a crowded public session!   (Remember: the other skaters on the session don't really exist.)

Or set up the entire skating session in virtual reality. Virtual rink, virtual avatars for the real skaters and choreographer, yourself and maybe the others "skating" in their homes. You go through the motions on the floor, following those of skater that overlays you, and the group doesn't have to rent ice as often.

You could also have fun with virtual routines, a neat video game. And artificial intelligence judges, to give you a virtual IJS score.

Dartfish, move over. You don't just compare yourself to the good skater after the fact - you skate inside their image while you do the move.
 
OK, I took this too far off my own topic. I have to confine my ideas to what I know I can do.

[fsk8r]

The synchro suggestion is right on.  Because of the geometric nature of their skating elements, it does lend itself to an automated approach, especially to judge the angle of rotation for IJS events.  I found that being able to "see" what a pivoting line was supposed to do/look like really helped.

I fully agree. Synchro can to an extent just be marked out on the ice with crossovers and then the twiddly bits (steps) filled in afterwards. A program drawing out the geometry (using the IJS element levels etc) and possibly even indicating how many counts of 8 there are before the transition to the next element.

I know my team have in the past resorted to drawing out pictures of the rink marking where everyone is. (No one ever remembers who they skate next to!). Having a way to automate that would be helpful.

[jjane45]

I ran into Jeff Goldsmith's java scripts on dances
http://www.jeff-goldsmith.org/#skating

Are you already familiar with them? Just thought it could be a reference.

[Query]

>are you familiar with them

I'll look at it.

At first look it is a bit different from producing snapshot and moving diagrams for synchro.