Perhaps “artistry” is not the word I meant. Certainly I did not mean “dance”.

But I don’t want only tumbling, either. I’ll watch Acrobatic Tumbling for that.

A routine can still be of high quality with very few “corner moves” and transitions. If the line, form, toe point, rhythm, acceleration, etc. is nice to watch.

I guess what I like are some of the interesting A/B moves on floor. Stuff that used to be in the compulsories. I don’t like the stretched facing movements and the like so much.

If artistry only means danciness, then I think that’s inaccurate. Floor is in a unique situation for that very reason; there’s simply more room and time and ability to add extra “things.” For example, there are no dance elements on rings. You’re either doing a skill, or you’re falling. There are no pauses on HB, no gap-fillers on vault. Every other event is a string of skills, each one, by the nature of the skill itself, must connect to the next skill (of course, the women occasionally get the pike-on-jump to HB on UB, but they also have beam, so I’m really only talking about the men here). But it’s different in floor, and maybe for that reason, we tend to confuse “artistry” with dancefulness. Maybe *we* don’t, maybe I’m the only one perceiving that mix-up. But surely we wouldn’t look at a great rings routine and say it didn’t have artistry, just because there were no dance elements would we? Isn’t there artistry in a PB routine, even though there’s no leap or jump or wavy arm?

I don’t mind dance. Dance can be great. But I don’t think it fits in, especially in those fragmented amounts, with the rest of the floor routine. Possibly just because when I see dance, I immediately want to interpret it, want to associate a mood or emotion with it, and that just doesn’t seem to fit with men’s routines, where they tumble-tumble-tumble with flat expressions, and then hop into a corner with an emotionless, flat expression, and don’t crack a smile until maybe, maybe at the end when they salute. The best women’s routines tell some kind of story with their choreography, (helped by the music of course) but that isn’t what’s going on in the men’s routines.

Sans dance, I still think it would have artistry, just the same as all their other events. The quality of movements, combinations and arragements, etc. would all demonstrate artistry. As a bad example, maybe 4 years ago I was at a men’s meet, (well, really boys’ meet) and saw a kid who, at that time (no idea if it’s still set up like this or not) was what was being called an “open 8,” and his HB routine had 11 giants in a row, nothing else beside a mount and dismount, just 11 giants in a row, each one getting him some additional tenths of a point until he could meet the start value necessary to compete level 8, or whatever the reason was. 11 giants in a row would, in my opinion, constitute terrible artistry, regardless of how well the giants were executed. Not because it lacked dance-like elements, but because it was absolutely not engaging.

I sometimes think that, 30 years from now, maybe we’ll look back at the little corner moves in the same way we look back at bar-beats now and other stuff we no longer do. I wasn’t around in this sport 30 years ago, so I don’t know if bar-beats were laughed at then, too, and if they were, my comparison is off.

I think the little stag leaps so many guys today do on fx to get into position are so cheesy. Or the little shuffle steps while awkwardly looking for the corner. Eeeew. One of the worst offenders in my opinion is Justin Spring. Zero artistry…

Even the greats Nemov and Xiaoshuang had no artistry, but at least they pointed their toes?!?

::Falls over!:: What?!!!! !!! I thought you hated artistry.