What is more important, technique or difficulty?

What do you think is more important in our sport, technique or difficulty?

This is a question I struggle with all the time. I want to say technique, and although I know that this is the right answer I am not always sure that this is what is appreciated by the viewing public or indeed the scoring judges.

Therefore, I think you definately need some balance between the two. Even the world champions have technical flaws (well most of them, not sure that Seishi does). We need to keep pushing and exceeding the boundaries in terms of difficulty, but if this becomes too much at the expense of technique then we will never succeed in our aspiration to be an olympic sport.

It is my opinion that the weight of responsibility lies with the coaches. If they insist that their athletes are only permitted to perform a skill in competition if it is technically competent (it doesn't need to be perfect) then we begin to see a more beautiful sport. Of course the judges must also take some responsibility and only reward those athletes who are technically correct, and who are performing what they have mastered, not what they are still trying to accomplish in the training gym.

Keisuke KOMADA: now he may just have perfect technique!

Let me know what you think?