The hands should be parallel on each step or take a deduction for skew.
I asked Canadian Head Coach Tony Smith his opinion on skew deduction in 2013. He feels most gymnast are getting deducted. But that those with a very high start score get deducted less than the rest.
Mitigation.
If possible, use other (less deductible) D elements instead.
The new Gym Geek blog summarizes recent discussion on artistry in gymnastics, comparing wildly different types of routines:
β’ Viktoria Komova vs. Lloimincia Hall β floor routines
β’ Nastia Liukin vs. Shawn Johnson β Beijing beam
β¦ I for one find it very interesting that many fans mis-label elegance as artistry.
As elegance is a more quantifiable and narrower subset of artistry, it would seem that it would be easier to judge and reward within the code.
However, is this really a goal to strive for?
In the case of Simone Biles or Shawn Johnson, their artistry may very well lie in their power and execution of tremendous tumbling and their ability to sell a routine to the crowd. β¦