Ice Dancing Vs Figure Skating

[Romantic Ice]

I think that out of all the ice events, Ice Dancing is my ultimate favorite. However, I'd never heard that term before I fell in love watching Scott and Tessa!
There are figure skating couples and now there are ice dancing couples.

So what exactly is the difference between the two? BTW, thanks for ignoring my stupidity! :frus:

[Clarice]

By "figure skating couples" do you mean pair skaters? Pairs include overhead lifts, throw jumps, and side by side jumps. Ice dancers rarely jump (and if they do, are only allowed to do singles, and even then not both partners together at the same time), and lifts are limited so that the lady cannot be higher than the man's head.

Ice dance also involves set pattern dances, where all the teams competing do the same steps in the same pattern around the ice to the beat of the music - sort of like ballroom dancing on ice. Pair skating doesn't really have an equivalent. Ice dancing really puts the focus on pure skating - the quality of the edges and turns. That's important to all skating disciplines, but without the big "tricks" of singles and pairs, ice dancers really have to excel at it.

[icedancer2]

Clarice is totally correct in the differences between dance and pairs skating - but they are both figure skating - the name figure skating I suppose from the time in the not-so-distant past when skating consisted of skating "figures" on the ice (like a figure "8") -

I think of Pairs as "freestyle with two people" and includes throws and lifts, whereas dance is based on ballroom - there are no throws or overhead lifts, but there are dance lifts... there are no real jumps but there are dance spins...

So yeah, it does seem confusing. My husband refers to all skaters as "dancers" - which drives me nuts, LOL...

[Romantic Ice]

Thanks for the info! Since I know next to nothing about skating (or ice dancing!), your replies were very informative. Clarice, I guess I did mean "pair skaters" when I was talking about figure skating couples.:) Not sure what I meant, really....:roll: