US Open 2014 Update #10 – Penalties, Violations, and Errors!

Someone said on Facebook, “It is utterly fascinating to see the judges’ scores.”

I said, “Yes I agree, I love scores. They are both utterly meaningless, and utterly fascinating, at the same time.”

But here’s a question. What the heck are those violations and penalties?!?

How many placements are you dropped if you get one of those things?!?

First …

Here is the list of this year’s judges:

Debbie Ramsey Boz (Ryan’s mom!)
Chuck Brown
Dani Canziani
Jessica Cox
Michael Cross (Cameo’s dad!)
John Festa
Barry Jones
John Lindo
Jim Minty
Mary Ann Nunez
Martin Parker
Carmen Passi
Mark Scheuffle
Sonny Watson
John Wheaton

Stan Jaquish – Referee
Yvonne Antonacci – Chief Judge
Jim Tigges – Chief Judge Assistant

Here’s what the judges are supposed to do:*

Judges Responsibilities

To determine placements using the following criteria:

TIMING – “How your body connects to the music”

TECHNIQUE – “How well you so what you do”

TEAMWORK – “How well you work together”

CONTENT/CHOREOGRAPHY – “What you do”

SHOWMANSHIP/PRESENTATION – “How well you sell what you do”

2. To determine Swing Content.**

A Swing Warning is given (the judge will check the “SW” box on his/her scoresheet) when a judge feels there may not be enough swing content for the division. The score will not be lowered.

A Swing Violation is given (the judge will check the “SV” box on his/her scoresheet) when a judge feels that there is not enough swing content for the division. The score will be lowered.

So what happens if a couple breaks the rules?

How are infractions handled?

That’s where the Referee comes in.

Referee Responsibilities:

To identify infractions in a routine which could include:

Length of the routine

Costuming requirements

Move restrictions

Move requirements

Length of breakaways

Unapproved props

Referee responsibilities do not include Swing Content

If the Referee flags a routine for an infraction:

He will review the routine a second time privately.

If he decides that an infraction exists, he will the advise the Chief Judge and the infraction will then go to the Review Panel (unless it is a “length of time” infraction, in which case it will skip the Review Panel, go directly to the Chief Judge to be verified, and then considered a Violation, with the drop in placement to the bottom.)

The “Review Panel” comprises three judges: the Chief Judge, and two other judges selected by the Chief Judge, for a total of three votes. Majority rules.

If, after hearing the case presented by the Referee, the Review Panel decides that an infraction does in fact exist, they will then decide if the infraction is:

An Error

A Penalty, or

A Violation

And then what?

How many placements are you dropped?
First, let me explain Violations, cause that’s easier.

What is a Violation?

Violations are easy to explain.

A “Violation” is basically an infraction of the rules.**

Historically, at the Open, if you receive a Violation you drop to the bottom. Why?

Well, it’s about fairness. The thinking is that in order to be fair to all the other couples who followed the rules — if you break the rules — you should be dropped to last place.

So if, for instance, your Classic choreography included six very cool partner weight-supported drops – well, that constitutes a Violation. Because you are only allowed five partner weight-supported moves. This is only fair to all the other couples who would have loved to include more of those cool drops, too, but didn’t — because they followed the rules.

In other words, a Violation is an infraction of the rules which was built into your choreography. Of course you probably did this by mistake. Nobody plans to go out to the Open, break rules, receive a Violation, and be dropped to last place. At least I don’t think they do, but you never know.

But whether by mistake or not, your choreography did not adhere to the rules of your division.

What is an “Error?”

Errors are easy to explain, too.

An error is just a mistake. A stumble, a missing of hands, a fall – all those things with which we are, every one of us, overly familiar.

You didn’t plan the mistake into your routine, it just happened out there on the floor, the way mistakes love to do.

Hence, an Error is not a rule infraction and doesn’t receive any special adjustment in score. It is just a mistake in technique, counting against you as would any mistake in teamwork, presentation, timing, or other aspect of your performance.

What is a “Penalty?”

This is the hard one.

A Penalty — which, if I’m right (which would be new for me, please correct me if I’m wrong) — if I’m right no penalties have ever actually been given — at least in the last five years of the Open. Certainly none this year.

A Penalty is that difficult gray area where subjectivity comes in, fuzziness of our rules, and where the judges are caught between not wanting to hurt the couple in question, but wanting at the same time to not hurt all the other couples in the division.

For instance.

A couple does a breakaway ending in a turn, and then misses hands on the turn, extending the breakaway into nine, or nine and a half, or ten counts – instead of the allowed eight. Is this a Violation? Well no, you watched it happen, it was an obvious mistake, they hadn’t intended to be apart for more than eight counts. Your heart goes out for them – you don’t want to drop them all the way to the bottom because they missed hands.

On the other hand it is a serious mistake, if you look at it from the perspective of the other competitors in the division. And you do have the rule.

So you’re the judge, what do you do?

You might give them a Penalty. With a possible single drop in placement.

Another example – a timing violation. Was it due to equipment malfunction? Systems often play music too fast or slow, not the dancers’ fault. So, though the rule is very clear that a routine must be between 2 and 3 minutes (or in the case of teams, 3 to 4 minutes,) the Review Panel will often give a pass if it’s five seconds too short or too long.

Or, to use an example from this year — Ronnie and Brandi’s jeans.

First of all, costumes are not required by NASDE rules.

Costumes are “encouraged,” but not required. So you could do your routine in jeans and TOMS and not be breaking NASDE rules.

However.

At the Open jeans are specifically mentioned. At the Open jeans are not allowed.

Ronnie and Brandi, seasoned competitors, were of course thoughtful about this, and called Yvonne beforehand to make sure their costume would be acceptable.

And because the music, the choreography — the entire story of this routine — is about jeans, Yvonne decided that their costume is acceptable; that jeans in this case do not constitute an infraction.

But what if a couple were not as thoughtful as Ronnie and Brandi? Didn’t know to call beforehand? What if Yvonne were not the Chief Judge? Maybe someone new at judging who didn’t understand that this costume choice was a critical part of the choreography?

What if a new couple — from outside of the United States — who don’t know the ropes — don’t know that contacting Yvonne is what should be done?

And don’t know that we have a confusing system of rules which negate other rules and supersede some rules and don’t apply at some events but not others and are not really rules but suggestions …

What if that couple had choreographed a jeans routine?

Our rules are fuzzy. To put it mildly.

NASDE rules might have been written by Robin Thicke.

Penalties exist to handle the blurred lines.

In the end all the decisions, all the blurred lines — all the hard stuff — all falls on the Chief Judge.

Meaning Yvonne Antonacci, where “the buck stops.”

Yvonne has a much better attitude than I would – I’d be eating a lot of ice cream and squirming to make anybody else take the heat. Yvonne doesn’t shrink from the responsibility, she takes full blame for all the difficult decisions, all the stress and heartache. Not easy.

This year they reviewed many, many infractions. Over and over – countless hours of reviews. The majority were passed, allowed through without violation, penalty, or mention.

Some difficult ones were not passed.

It’s important to know, and remember, that the Judges, and Yvonne who is ultimately the final voice, are always always on the side of the dancer, always trying to place each couple as high as they can manage, and so end up erring on the side of Errors — rather than Violations or Penalties requiring drops in placement.

And by the way – to make our life more interesting – NASDE rules are not standardized, and by that I mean that because they are “guidelines” and “recommendations” instead of “rules” they are subject to interpretation by each event.

The result of which is that there are different rules for each NASDE event. Not to mention non-NASDE events, who stray even farther. So if you, reading this, are a routine couple hoping to travel the circuit this year, all I can say is read the rules for each event. Because they are all different.

Why is this?

Well, it tells you something about our circuit and our community.

NASDE is an American creation. And here in the United States we are in the midst of a “Red State vs Blue State” philosophical debate which is largely to do with what we call “States’ Rights.” Meaning the freedom individual states have to make their own rules.

NASDE was created when the west coast community was, in my opinion, more a “Red State” culture, and we are now leaning a bit “Blue-ish,” it feels to me.

In any case, NASDE event directors have traditionally wanted the freedom to run their events they way they wanted, each with their own rules. So as a competitor you’ve had your routine penalized at one event and rewarded at another.

This might change. I’ve heard mention from Phil, Yvonne, and other NASDE event directors, that discussions are planned to address this issue.

For those of you still reading all the down here at the bottom of this long post – here is my attempt at a layman’s explanation of Relative Placement, from last year’s great lecture by Lance (may he rest in peace) and Jim Tigges. It’s short, don’t worry.

* Bullet points taken from Chief Judge Yvonne Antonacci’s Judging lecture, presented on Wednesday of this year’s 2014 Open

** CLASSIC RULES

Performance time is a minimum of 2 minutes and maximum of 3 minutes. The clock begins when the performance starts as determined by the chief judge.

Competitors select their own music.

Costumes are allowed and encouraged.

Time and judging starts at first movement of performance with or without music.

Separate entrances are permitted but the couple must physically join together within 32 beats of music.

Couples must maintain physical contact except for spins, turns, short break-a-ways, and recoveries.

Break-away in Classic Division to be no more than 8 beats effective January 1, 2009.

Dancers must maintain their own physical contact with the floor during partner weight support moves.

At most five partner weight support moves are permitted.

*** NASDE Statement of Swing to be used to identify the presence of swing in the NASDE competition divisions. Swing is an American Rhythm Dance based on a foundation of 6-beat and 8-beat patterns that incorporate a wide variety of rhythms built on 2-beat single, delayed, double, triple, and blank rhythm units. The 6-beat patterns include, but are not limited to, passes, underarm turns, push-breaks, open-to closed, and closed-to-open position patterns. The 8-beat patterns include, but are not limited to, whips, swing-outs, Lindy circles, and Shag pivots. Although they are not part of the foundation of the dance as stated above, 2- beat and 4-beat extension rhythm breaks may be incorporated to extend a pattern, to phrase the music, and/or to accent breaks.”