From Axels to Toe Picks

Many people ice skate, but few have the equipment needed to figure skate. The most important and given piece of equipment someone would need would be ice skates. Ice skates are the main function of the sport and with them you can jump, spin, and glide across the ice. Another piece of important equipment would be costumes for performances. Women normally wear skirts and dresses, but have the option to wear pants. Men are required to wear pants. With the skirts, women are required to wear opaque or skin-tone tights. The costumes are often very theatrical and heavily beaded. They can cost up to thousands of dollars. Although flesh-colored fabric is used to make a costume a bit more revealing, there have been repeated attempts to ban costume that give an impression of “excessive nudity”.

Although many people know figure skating is an Olympic sport few know its background. Figure skating originated in the mid-19th century by the American skater Jackson Haines. It became popular in Europe, but wasn’t in the US until after his death in 1875. The International Skating Union, also known as ISU, was founded in 1892. The first European Championship was held in 1891 and the first World championship following in 1869. The first woman to compete, Madge Syers, won second in 1902. The ISU then banned woman from competing against men and established a separate “ladies” competition in 1906. Pairs skating was introduced to the World Championships along with figure skating being introduced to the Olympics in 1908. In the twenties and thirties Sonja Henie dominated woman’s figure skating and also made the trend of female skaters wearing short skirts and white skates. World War 2 interrupted skating competitions. After the war the US and Canada beg...

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... and edge, but not foot. The three turn involves a change in direction and edge, but not foot. The rocker is similar to the entry of a three turn combined with the exit of a bracket. The counter turn is the exact opposite of the rocker turn. The mohawk is very similar to the three turn except you switch feet and don’t go from an inside to an outside edge or vice versa. The choctaw turn is the two-footed form of the rocker and the counter turns. A twizzle is like a slalom on ice instead of on the ski slope.

Hopefully this essay informed you more about figure skating and told you information you didn’t know before. There is still so much more to figure skating but not even in the smallest font would it even fit on ten pages of paper.

Works Cited

"Figure Skating." Wikipedia. N.p., 20 June 2010. Web. 29 June 2010.

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