I just wanted to let everyone know that I have a copy of the US Figure Skating Figures Rules which includes drawings and classifications of all of the figures in the USFS test structure. I can send them to you if you are interested - just PM me with your email address and I will be happy to oblige!

Being that a Figures competition is being offered at Pacific Coast Adult Sectionals this year, it seems that more people are getting interested in possibly doing/testing and competing figures - but a lot of the materials are buried... so I am happy to send this out if people want it.

Happy Skating New Year everyone!!!

Moderator Note:
The USFSA site has the Compulsory Figures document available in pdf format (along with the other Rulebooks)
http://www.usfigureskating.org/Content/Compulsory%20Figures%20Rules.pdf

__________________
Is Portland the only city with it's own ice-dance website? http://www.pdxicedance.net/

I put online the old(ish) rulebook and the figures manual sometime ago...

(see this post)

Is this the one you have?

__________________
--renatele

Yes - it is the second one- the one with the regulations for Figures.

Same deal. Great - now everyone just go over to renatele's post and click on the link - it will open up two more link - click on the 2nd one for the Figures Regulations.

Thanks! Glad someone was able to post it to this forum!

__________________
Is Portland the only city with it's own ice-dance website? http://www.pdxicedance.net/

Thank you! I had saved pages 12-19, but not the rest.

How sad that someone here had this, but when I called USFS last week all they could direct me to were the judge's sheets. They don't have the diagrams available online anymore.

Not that they need to, since figures are rarely done. But it would be nice.

__________________
Listen to my Figure Skating Podcast!

Rogue Element, Inc

There is obviously a need for a figures website! I am highly tempted to do it. What would you guys like to see on there? Diagrams, rulebook stuff, videos, photos, etc.

Yes. All of it.

How said that US Figure Skating doesn't even have those materials! I got it on the CD that was sent with my 2003-2004 Rulebook - the whole Rulebook was on the CD plus the separate link for the pdf for Figures. Doesn't US Figure Skating still have copies of those CDs?

I was a little hesitant about "publishing" anything since the CD states that it is copyrighted... but since they don't even have it I figured, "Why not?" - Plus I'm all for promoting figures and I'm interested to see how our figures competition at Pacific Coast Adult Sectionals works out...

The funniest thing I ever heard someone say was at our rink a couple of years ago - we had a patch session before the dance session and one of the dancers said to me as I was getting off the patch, "Do they even do figures anymore? I don't think they do!" like it wasn't allowed or something... I thought, "What am I, chopped liver?"

I was also wondering if there had been an email campaign back in the days when figures were eliminated from the test and competition structures if they would have stuck around a little longer? Of course there was no such thing as email back then... and "Institutional Memory" is very short these days...

__________________
Is Portland the only city with it's own ice-dance website? http://www.pdxicedance.net/

I had read a note on the OLD USFSA board some time ago that the PDF was available if you sent an email to dgreenlee@usfsa.org. I followed Laura Fawcett's directions and received a copy right away via email.

Skatingforums doesn't allow uploading of documents or files; Renatele is very kindly hosting the documents on her own site.
(Thanks, Renata!)

__________________

Cool. Added the link to my links page. It will be a valuable resource, as would a figures-specific site if someone decided to create one.

Thanks!

Kay

__________________
Visit my figure skating journal
http://www.skatejournal.com/

That was not the person I contacted. I was directed to someone else in Publications. They claimed not to have anything else available. Perhaps they just didn't know any better.

Vesperholly: do it! I think it would be a terrific resource. Some things to consider including:

1) the diagrams
2) judges sheets
3) lisitin of competitions still offering it
4) an overview on how people can actually still do them, if interested
5) video (of amateurs, and the old stuff, like Trixie Schuba)
6) if they agree to it, a list of people who have recently passed figure tests
7) tips and tricks
8) resources for blades/scribes
9) rulebook stuff

Perhaps you can get a cool URL, like www.bringfiguresback.com, or www.figuresrock.com, or www.figuresfans.com! I'd do it if I had the time. I have enough on my plate with the podcasts!

And icedancer2: I once had a woman tell me to my face: " you still do figures? What a waste of time and money." It's my time and money to "waste" so what do you care?

__________________
Listen to my Figure Skating Podcast!

Rogue Element, Inc

If anyone cares, I have video of me taking the first half of my 8th in 2002. I failed this one -- I did pass it a month later, and the 2nd half in 2004 (!) -- but unfortunately I got the "retry" version on video. (Talk about amateur! hahaha!) It's on VHS, but I'm sure I can get someone to figure out how to upload it.

OMG!!! What an idiot! Obviously someone who knows nothing about skating.

Show 'em a video of daisies skating an interp program... after they're done going "Ooooh!!!" and "Ahhhh" on her gorgeous edges, tell 'em that she passed all her figures tests and then we'll see if they still think that figures is a waste of time then!!!

__________________
Cheers,
jazzpants

11-04-2006: Shredded "Pre-Bronze FS for Life" Club Membership card!!!
Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

I don't have the personal excitement about figures that some people have, however, I have always observed that the number of people out there that loves school figures seemed to be much larger then what the 'official' party line claims. Moreover, most of the people I deeply respect in figure skating had their roots in figures. So it has always mystified me to observe the distance, and what I would describe as a willful amnesia by USFS towards any resurgence of figures.

I hope any effort to support or rebuild school figures is sucessful!

Thank you - I love that term "willful amnesia" - it's like "figures? What is that? We did them SO LONG ago!" Willful amnesia is a better way to say it than short-term institutional memory, which is how I think of it.

Doesn't seem so long to me - in fact I did them about an hour ago...

__________________
Is Portland the only city with it's own ice-dance website? http://www.pdxicedance.net/

Vesperholly - that would be so cool!

I'd suggest (in addition to other suggestions already posted) links to historical photos, as well as YouTube videos of figures. I have a collection of .jpg files that I have found in web-poking, and I periodically update a list of YouTube videos.

I also have a 1942 copy of Skating Magazine that has an article on figures - with a stunning photo of a patch loop on the cover.

Website's a go!

I'm thinking "Go Figure" for a website name. I don't want anything like "bring figures back" because I'm not agitating to bring them back in that sense.

anything anyone can find on "creative figures" - the historical precursor to the standard figures.

They were actually called special figures. I have an old book I got in a book store in Lake Placid with a bunch of them. I'm having a jeweler make me a doubkle sided pendant with two of the designs. They are really cool. I'll post a photo when I get it.

Lara

Wikipedia says ISI currently has a creative figures division- you create an original figure that has to be submitted to the judges ahead of time. I wonder if that was what the other poster was thinking of.

Is this the same thing that special figures was?

__________________
-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

I think this is the same thing. In the US Figure Skating Adult figure test structure, you have the option of doing a Creative or Special figure as part of the Gold test. You can also substitute any figure of your choice.

I bet we could find some of these drawings somewhere - although it is also entirely possible for the skater to make up their own figure! Cool!

__________________
Is Portland the only city with it's own ice-dance website? http://www.pdxicedance.net/

Not exactly. Here is the wikipedia on special figures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_figures they were introduced in the 1908 summer olympics. One of the figures I'm having made on the pendant was done by grafstrom (the Hugel star I beleive) in the 1924 Olympics and the other is in my book as the "Beak and Three Star". Both of these are based on the Maltese cross which I watched Don Jackson do for us several years ago at LP Adult Week. Very cool.

Lara

Here's the Grafstrom figure. I got the idea for the pendant from this one. I didn't want the cubic zirconia. http://www.cmarket.com/auction/item/...sp&id=46858376

OMG that is so cool! I can't even imagine doing that as a figure. I had a hard enough time with paragraph loops!

I just finished reading "A Figure Skating Life" by Dorothy Hamill, which is a must read. I read it in two days--just breathed the book in. In it she speaks extensively about school figures in the most beautiful way. So, I'm reading the book and she's talking about patching after school at Fritz Dietl's in Westwood, NJ during 1968, and a few years after, and I nearly fell off my chair, and ran to the section of the book where are all here photos and there is one of her when she was 9 years old, or so, and I remembered her from patch! I thought I was going to have a stroke. She's one year older than I am. Anyway, she became something and I became nothing, but I still have a tremendous love of school figures and think they should be brought back.

The real barrier to bringing figures back is a financial one and really up to rink management. The reason why figures were done away with is the "Janet Lynn" thing, but also because rinks were loosing money with patch ice, which I could never understand, because patch sessions were always full with about 20 kids patching at once. But I remember a lot of talk around the rinks that "patch" was no longer financially viable.

I don't recall the 8th or Gold test having any optional figure is in it. Here is exactly what is on the Eight (Gold) Figure test:

Paragraph Double Three
Paragraph Loop
Paragraph Bracket

Of course, all of the above skated forward inside, forward outside, back inside and back outside. Once upon a time all 12 figures in this test had to be tested at once. Now they allow you to take 1/2 of the test first, and then the other 1/2 of the test at a later date. They call it 8A and 8B.

Janet Lynn was partially responsible for reducing the value of figures -- to only 30%, due to the addition of the short program, then worth 20% -- but she wasn't responsible for their being done away with entirely. That came much later, and it was mostly a financial decision -- and not just for rinks. IIRC, it had a lot to do with TV revenue. And once the ISU did away with figures, USFS was virtually forced to follow suit. Apparently the fireworks really flew at that particular Governing Council!

The previous poster said the optional figure was in the gold test in the "US Figure Skating Adult figure test structure" -- in other words, the Adult Gold Figure Test -- not the 8th figure test.

Quad roller skating still has figure competitions. I used to take quad figure lessons for a while. They were a lot of fun and helped my ice skating. I had to quit roller skating b/c of time constraints. As I understand, roller figures were judged by the skater skating through chalk and leaving marks on the floor to demonstrate the precision of the "tracing".

Kay

__________________
Visit my figure skating journal
http://www.skatejournal.com/