I find it interesting hearing the feedback from each SYCLD and the scoring system. The controversy surrounding judging of freestyle makes me kind of happy though, because it shows how much the sport has evolved.
I feel as though, and this is my personal opinion, that the general trend of reactions is concerned that dancing isn't as heavily scored, with freestyle judging having more emphasis. And I can see why, dancing is hard to judge, can be subjective compared to freestyle which has somewhat more defined techniques that can be easier to rank in difficulty and consequently, judging.
But I do feel a dance/freestyle competition should look at the incorporation and balance of both elements, but that balance is being upset by the advances in freestyle. I don't think longboard skating should/needs any impositions or limitations, because that decreases creativity of the line/combo. Instead, I think the problem lies with the inherent subjectivity of dance, and the scoring system.
What I think would be interesting as an alternative would be having 1V1 dance-offs where riders would pit their best dance/freestyle lines (with music ofc), and have the audience/group judge who's interpretation (of rhythm, of D/FS balance, flow, etc) was better. Sure that potentially brings in bias, but that way community scoring better reflects everyone's interpretation.
Admittedly my dance style is extremely wonky and chaotic, so I'm kinda worried to see how it'd fare against ILDFF scoring but f it we ball.
