There are a lot of other things I want to talk about, but this is on my chest, so to speak, and I'm going to get it off of it for the time being.

The results for the Junior USA's were posted late last night, and one photographer who posted them made a statement along the lines of: "The harder girls were left on the outside looking in." I glanced through the provided pictures and honestly could not see a huge difference in conditioning between girls who made top five and girls who didn't. Granted, these are pictures I'm looking at and not all the pictures from all the angles of the quarter turns have been presented, but still.

Let me make a sidenote here and preface this by saying that I am not implying in any way shape or form my opinion of the actual physiques of the competitors in this show. I will say this. Shoulders are in. Just like orange is in the color for women this spring and summer, and velvet suits are the trend for this fall for men as are patterned pants during the warm months (I didn't make the trends; I'm just reporting them), thick shoulders are doing the trick for the proverbial runway of the figure scene.

Let me continue with the point at hand.

So I responded to him with a query and a homework assignment. I'm actually being serious here and not just playing upon my history as a teacher. I asked again why there isn't a system in place that divulges categories in which the women are being judged in figure and the percentages that display the weight for each category. It only makes sense, wouldn't you say? Who knows. Maybe I'm just being too logical and making things too simple here, but every other sport or organized activity that people either pay to watch or pay to play seems to have a rule book, a guide book, or something along those lines, right? I mean we don't step foot on a football field and not know the first thing of how our skill level is about to be judged. And we don't step into a standardized test with only a number two pencil and prayer in hand (okay, maybe we do, but hopefully something or someone somewhere told us what was to be tested and where the points were coming from before we bubbled in our first answer).

But with figure in the NPC (and the IFBB), we literally step on stage wondering if we have too many veins, too many striations, too few cuts in the quads, too many cuts in the quads, too hard of an abdomen, too soft of an abdomen. Is our back wide enough, are our legs too big...too little? I think Goldilocks had an easier time finding the right bowl of porridge than figure competitors do in finding the right stage and the right judge who will provide the right response to her physique.

Consistency should be the name of the game. Fairness should be as well. Okay, okay. That's asking for a lot. Life isn't fair, but why make it even harder by not establishing any ground rules for an organization that requires you pay $90 a year just to have the right to step on stage. (By the way, it's about $200 a year for the IFBB competitors...did ya know that? And those are the pros, boys and girls. Pros. Pros paying to stand on stage and be confused about the criteria just like us lowly amateurs.)

I guess I'm just wondering if I'm a minority in my desire to know beforehand what I'm being judged on and what the expectations are for the coming competitive year. I shouldn't have to wait for the first national show of the year and the assumptions that piggyback it to then figure out what I need to do for my physique. Or is that what my $90 a year affords me (this doesn't include the $50 to $75 fee for each show I choose to register for)?

I really think there is a simple solution to this overwhelming problem in the NPC. Create a computer system that has a database of the competitors. Within that computer system devise a point system that a committee has agreed upon (I would hope that my $90 a year membership would afford me the right to vote for who is on that committe so I have a voice somehow of what goes into the critera...again, that may be asking a bit much). Print out a copy of that point system with an explanation sheet or booklet that discusses each category and how it is weighed. Provide pictures or drawings of specific examples of how each body part is expected to look and what the ideal figure physique would be. Do this for suits, hair, make up, presentation details. This might need to be different depending upon body type and height class. Then do a mass mail out to your database of competitors. A competitor gets added to the database once she has paid her dues. She then goes into the contest prep and the show itself knowing exactly what is expected. The judges then have laptops in front of them during the judging process; they type in their points which get weighed according to the percentages provided, and they have room to quickly and briefly type in comments. The sheet then gets mailed to the competitor after the show or printed out and handed to her after the show (there's been an excellent invention as of late...the laser print. Awesome tool!). The computer does all the math, spits out the numbers, and voila! Human mathematical error (awhile back, I discussed the math mistakes at the 2004 Emerald Cup) is effaced, time is saved, and all questions are answered publicly and openly.

Take it a step further and put the sheets in PDF files on the NPC website, and the whole fanbase and fellow competitors/trainers can compare results and photos and see exactly what the judges are expecting for the competitive season. Ooh...ooh...one more thing. By publicly displaying such an open and informative judging tool, the rumors about politics in this industry are also dispelled. Imagine that!

Now, why can I figure this out and the NPC can't...or won't? I'm sure I have just blackballed myself out of a pro card, though my twelfth place finish at last year's Junior Nationals was foreboding enough, I'd say. But seriously, folks. Am I asking too much? Am I making things too complicated here? Should I just shut up and continue building my shoulders and hope for the best? Should I just grin and bear it?

My answer is no to those questions, but then again, I'm biased. After all, these are my ideas out of my little brain, and I'm kind of partial to things that come out of my brain. Lol!

On that note, I'm taking my brain to the grocery store for brain food (and muscle food). I have a show to prepare for this summer, and I may not know exactly how lean to get, how big is too big for my back, how hard is too hard for my glutes, or how small is too small for my arms, but I do know that it's time to eat, and my refrigerator seems to be devoid of any chicken today. Major crisis!

Jodi