Does PSA create standards?

[Query]

Some USFSA coaches and judges say that they get most of their info about the standards by which skating is judged from the PSA. (I presume this means that the PSA has worked to make it more efficient to get the information from PSA publications and classes than from USFSA publications and ISU communications.)

But are USFSA and ISU standards sufficiently ambiguous that PSA classes and publications actually help create the standards by which skaters are judged within the U.S.?

What about for tests and competition within the ISI, and for outside the U.S.?

[phoenix]

No, I would say it's really the USFSA who creates the standards, & then they work together. PSA puts on instructional seminars, but we are all working from the USFSA rulebook which lays out the guidelines/standards for testing and low level competition within the US.

I don't know anything about ISI.

For international and higher level qualifying competition, the ISU sets the standards.

[Clarice]

I agree with Phoenix.  USFS sets the standards, then works with PSA to communicate those standards through seminars, workshops, email notifications, etc.  Coaches who are PSA members like to utilize PSA seminars because it helps them earn the continuing education credits they need to maintain their ratings.

[sarahspins]

I think PSA acts more as a centralized source of information/education than actually having any role in creating standards.

[Query]

Take a specific example: jumps. As far as I can tell they are not fully described in any USFSA documents.

E.g., http://www.usfigureskating.org/New_Judging.asp?id=361 has online copies of the USFSA Rulebook. The Rulebook's "List of Jumps" table says which edges and rotation directions are involved, and the Glossary at http://www.usfsa.org/About.asp?id=60 (neat link) says whether the jump and landing are on the same foot or not, but nothing is said about body positions and motions, or about what must be done before the jump edge, or after the landing edge, if there are such requirements.

(The UFSA Basic Skills Instructors Manual describes a number of half-rotation jumps, as executed at Basic Skills test levels. It is not said that these are to be extrapolated to higher rotation jumps, to be used as test and competition standards. In any event, little is said about body positions and motions.)

Various USFSA pages have general comments for judging jumps in general, but don't describe individual jumps.

Or are the jumps are instead fully described in ISU documents (where?), and the USFSA accepts those standards unmodified, for both tests and competitions?

Or has the USFSA indeed relied on the PSA to describe things they consider too basic to explain, which would mean they effectively let the PSA set some of the USFSA test and competition standards?

[phoenix]

Let's look at it this way: any coach who needs to refer to the rule book to figure out how to do a particular jump shouldn't be coaching! You are not the intended audience, as someone pointed out the other day. And, the rulebook is not an instruction manual on how to skate.

The coaches who are teaching don't need to look up correct take off edges, body positions, etc--they already know all that. The rulebook is for RULES--of testing & competition, and required elements, finer points of certain things, and steps / pattern placements for dances & moves in the field. Not too much else.

Coaches carry most of the info in our heads--and it's what we've learned from years & years of training. We don't need to look up how to do a toeloop.

[Query]

I understand why the USFSA and ISU don't specify how to do moves, from the skaters' perspective. Presumably, standards only cover that which is visible and audible to judges.

But, there must somewhere be a source of reference so judges can uniformly apply the same standards on body positions and motions.

Otherwise, judges would steadily diverge further and further from each other over the generations in how they evaluate form and motion - just as different coaches have diverged from each other substantially on how to do specific moves. I've been told that one of the major points of judge training and certification is for judges to learn how to rate skaters about the same way as their peers. That would be very hard to do, district to district, country to country, if there were no official clear written standards.

The USFSA provides SOME standards in the GOE documents (e.g., http://www.usfigureskating.org/content/2009-10%20Establishing%20GOE%20in%20Singles%20Short%20Program%20and%20Free%20Skate%20(Includes%20Positive%20Aspects).pdf [may be out of date].)  But you see descriptions there like "good position", without a specification of what that might be. ISU documents like http://www.isu.org/vsite/vfile/page/fileurl/0,11040,4844-202745-219968-166758-0-file,00.pdf are equally non-specific about many such things.

There are many non-official sources of info, in terms of books and videos, some of which are well respected by many coaches, but none are officially endorsed by the USFSA or ISU, AFAIK, so I assume they presumably don't matter.

Since judges must attend seminars before judging - did the people who wrote the ISU seminar notes and/or videos effectively choose the standards on what good form and motion are, and how far a skater's can depart from those ideals before GOE is reduced? It doesn't seem plausible that the rules committees would give the authors and directors that much power.