Other Freeskate Moves


Besides jumps and spins, other freeskating moves includes spirals, spread-eagles, pivots, lunges, turns, and footwork. These elements allows the skaters to demonstrate their flexibilities.

Spirals
An arabesque position ("aeroplane" position in layman's term) skated on a forward outside edge, forward inside edge, backward outside or backward inside. A variation on the spiral is the Bobek spiral, named after Nicole Bobek.


  paulwylie-spiral   Michellekwan-spiral

Luchen-spiral.   Kristiyamaguchi-spiral



Spread Eagle
A fairly easy move. Both feet straight, turned out and skated on outside edges or inside edges. A variation to the spread eagle is the Ina Bauer, spread eagle with a bent leg.


BrianBoitano-spreadeagle           Iliakulik-inabauer
                                                          Ina Bauer - a variation to the spread eagle.


Pivots
There are four kinds of pivots, ie. BO pivot, BI pivot, FI pivot and FO pivot. It is done by a skating leg skating around a pivot. The pivot is done by fixeing the toe-pick of the other foot on the ice.


ElenaLiashenko-pivot



Lunges
Skating on both feet, one foot reaches back, turned out. The skater then lowers his body by giving a full bend on the skating foot. Some skaters lunge with the back leg straight while others do it with a bent leg. There are forward lunges and backward lunges.

paulwylie-lunge




Turns
For the skater to switch from forward skating to backward skating and vice versa, the skaters will use turns. There are four main turns available, ie. 3-turn, Mohawk, Rocker and Counter.



Footwork
Footwork is the combination of steps weaved creatively. Although foot work is often left unnoticed in performances they can sometimes be interesting. Barrel Roll is a kind of footwork by doing turns consecutively. Scott Hamilton and Yuka Sato are both well known for their fast footwork.




Photo by J. Barry Mittan


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Updated 12-26-96
HL Matthew Lee
paulsen@oocities.com