My take on the "spin to win" issue

weenox

weenox

Active member
alright, i really really cant stand the people that are all, "ugghhh, id soooo much rather see a smooth 3 than a semi-smooth 10." im really at a loss for words when i read something like that. sure, i love smooth tricks too, and i can agree that its much better to see someone style out a 3 or 5 or something along those lines than someone pencil spinning 10's. BUT, i also think that at proffesional level comps like the open, EVERYONE CAN THROW A SMOOTH 3/5/7. EVERYONE. if they couldnt throw a smooth 3/5/7, THEY WOULDNT BE COMPETING. therefore, if all the competitions turn into a bunch of pro's throwing easy ass tricks as smooth as they can, the sport is going to turn into something like aerials, where the judges fuckin zoom in on the athlete and make sure that he had his elbows at 90 degree angles and shit like that.

what happened to the difficulty factor? i have friends at my home mountain that can throw smooth ass 7's with nice grabs....where would the line be drawn between them and the pro's? why isnt it better that pro's can do something that is much more difficult while sacraficing a little bit of style? ISNT THIS SPORT ALL ABOUT PROGRESSION? where would freeskiing go if competitions turned into everyone doing the same exact tricks but competing for style points rather than difficulty ?

but thats my take....let the constructive criticism/arguing comence.
 
I completely agree with you. I can see how people are against pencil... but compare any 3 or 5 ever thrown in competition (or outside of it for that matter) to TJs styled 14. Bigger spins are progression... as long as they are steezed up its progression for the better
 
you bring up a really good point, although, i think it gets kinda repeditve watching a switch 10 mute, over and over in the X games, something smaller would have been cooler i think at that point, just because of the repitition
 
well I think that if it is on a small jump, like a 30 footer, and someone does a cab 9, then that would be spin to win. But if it is a larger jump like a 50 to 60 footer doing a cab 9 or 10 or even 1440 would be perfectly acceptable.
 
yes! this is what i've been thinking all along! it takes mad balls to throw a switch 10, and it takes mad mad skillz to be able to make said switch 10 not disgusting looking. Hucked doesn't necessarily mean bad. Hucked stuff can still have style.
 
yeah it you can't just look at the degree rotation and say o that shit must've been hucked all over the place, it has to be proportional to the size of the jump
 
and now everyone thinks spin to win is so cool just because tj schillah did a semi-hucked 1440 in US open. I dont know where newschool skiin is headin, but i dont like this.
 
exactly.. I agree totally.

my random thoughts on the matter:

But, to go back to the original post: If everyone is doing the same trick that the most technical trick of the year, and they make them look identical, then how do you distinguish which is better?? then it usually goes to who is more marketable - especially in the X-games. US open is different though cause the vast majority of viewers is in our little bubble.

the athelete that turns around and says "fuck all this spinning shit, i'll do something original and slower... i'm going to slide with 2 feet" is in fact making the other higher spinning tricks more technical and putting themselves in an almost guaranteed losing position, especially if the others are making the more technical tricks look easy.

I've seen a lot of 0's, 1's, 3's, 5's, and 7's thrown with smooth style, but everyone at a pro level can do those.
 
I like seeing stylie tricks along with everyone else on this site. TJ's 1440 was incredible, he had style with his gigantor spin. I like to see the sport progress everyway it can, rails and jumps. But spinning a switch 10 or above with only a little style shouldn't win a comp. stick to tricks with a ton of style and lower the spin if needed. that's my take on the spinning.
 
i know where newschool skiin is heading, its somewhere different. do you realize that tanner hall won his first x-games big-air with a swith rodeo 7? i saw gagnier's SLOPESTYLE run (not from the open, but from something else) and he threw a swith left side misty 9 like it was nothing. you have to realize that if everyone is going to keep doing the same trick the sport isnt going to anywhere, no matter how styled out that trick gets.

and for the record, i never thought spin to win was cool. i think "do the most difficult trick with as much style as possible to win" is cool.

a good point for discussion: when competitions become judged on style, isnt the judging based more on personal opinion? theres tons of people out there that dont like t hall's style- so maybe a judge wouldnt score him as high as someone who did the exact same trick, just with their own style that the judge like more than tanner's. while on the other hand, no judge can debate that a switch 10 is less difficult than a swith 3....
 
then you should quit skiing and take up curling, pussy.

Slow rotaing tricks are for massive jumps in video parts, which, if you haven't noticed, these same guys that you claim are "spinning to win" have in every one of their video segments.

Contests are about style and technical dificulty, and Its never been more stylish and technically difficult than TJ's winning jump. Period.
 
I fully agree.

That switch 1440 was styled out and thrown way better than I can throw fucking regular 3s and 7s.

I haven't ever given much thought to this topic, but this guy is right all the way.
 
I have no problem with "Spin to Win" in Big Air comps. But I think that slopestyle comps, the set up of the course has to be more creative so that it can lead to more interesting tricks. Not just rail, rail, rail, booter, booter, booter. If were harder to link together cab 7s and different rail combos, I think we'd have more interesting outcomes.
 
finally someone told it. yeah maybe some prefer to see cab 7s landed low, but if that's all you need to win the US Open, pretty much anyone could enter and have a chance to win.
 
Its a Big Air competition. TJ did just about all you could ask for in such an event. He went beyond what everyone else had done, threw in a nice grab, and landed in the parking lot.
 
I just would like to see more inverts, which seem to be out today. It's getting boring watching everyone do corked 10's, 12's, and 14's. Props to Gagnier for throwing the misty 12 for second place. Spinning on two axes is that much more interesting to watch.
 
i totally agree....but im interested in more off axis big spins, like a sweet corked 10 or 12 with a grab, i wanna see more off axis spins in comps.
 
14s are fine and all, but I want to see more variation. We should have a bunch of shifties and double grabs and combinations of everything. shifties look so dope and people should do them more.
 
how long was that big air jump, i mean, he had so much time in the air, and it really didnt looked all hucked, he kept is body in such nice form, and stomped the shit out of that landing too
 
dont say anything about that 1440 unless you were there cause in real life that thing was the most impressive display of airsense, style awareness and body strength i have ever seen.
 
a sw 1440 isnt repetitive at all, and it was smooth as hell. if you can't appreciate people advancing our sport was do you ski?
 
YES exactly we need ppl to start throwin rodeos mistys lincolns underflips etc with higher spins....way more difficult than regualr spins and they look cooler
 
That's exactly what people need to realize, not every big trick is ugly. Just because you're doing a 1080 or more doesn't mean you're required to flail your arms all over the place, if you know what you're doing you can have just as much control as you do in a 360.
 
at the us open big air it was not spin to win. Sure tj threw a 1440 which is ridiculous, but have you seen the video? it's sooo fucking steezy.
 
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