Abstract
The vast range of gymnastics exercise elements must be clearly distinguished from one another by name for use in judging and training. In recent years, as specific terms including those coined by performers themselves have been used to designate gymnastic skills, it has become very important to examine the criteria for establishing scores and for naming of skills. Current regulations for scoring of gymnastic skills written in Japanese have focused on the requirements for establishment of such skills, with the understanding that “all skills with circle elements start and finish with front support”. However, the problem with this type of regulation is typified by the pommel horse skill known as Russian Circles, or “roshian” in Japanese. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the problems associated with regulation of new pommel horse skills by conducting systematic analysis using phenomenological-morphological methodology to confirm the problems associated with pommel horse Russian Circles.
This study revealed the following 2 points:
1. Since 1985, the German term “Russenwendeschwung” or “Russenwende” has been employed to score skills that are not agreed upon, and its role as an agreement term has collapsed. “Roshian” is a Japanese translated word allocated to the above skill, but has lost its function for distinguishing such skill.
2. The requirement for establishing skills, “all skills with circle elements start and finish with front support”, has been shown to lead to inconsistency, creating difficulty with skills and scoring. Moreover, this requirement destroys the concept of skill type, so that tasks unrelated to turning, such as “putting both feet in” and “taking both feet out”, are not be regulated as a requirement for turning skills or turn travel-type elements.
