Personality?

[Camron Rust]

Originally posted by Back In The Saddle
In the past week I have had two different officials give me differing advice (no surprise, eh?). One partner suggested that I needed to work on things like having my arm straight up on fouls/violations. His general message was that if I want to go varsity, I need to focus on perfecting my mechanics.

So I fixed the arm thing, and a week later another official tells me that my partner and I looked too "robotic" and didn't exhibit any personality on the floor. He specifically mentioned that it looked liked I practiced everything in front of the mirror (which I do).

Funny enough, the first guy came here from Kansas and the second guy from Oregon. Perhaps their advice reflects a regional bias they brought with them. Neither of them is a varsity official.

I think the question is worth exploring. How much personality can we/should we display out there?

I think zebra hit the gist of this right on the head.

Straight arm is not equal to robotic. Having the arm straight is the ends. How it gets there is what makes it look robotic or not.

Consider two methods...
(1) Arm down at you side and straight. You raise it by keeping it straight and swinging it up (to the side or to the front).

(2) Arm down at you side and straight. You raise it by doing more of a shoulder press...bending it on the way up and pushing it to straight with a snap.

Both ways gets your arm straight at the end but look very different.

If you are going to bird dog, do it a second or two after the other arm goes up. Otherwise, it looks like you directing airplanes or cheerleading or one of the village people.