A Question...Hope you can help me out here.

Re: A Question...Hope you can help me out here.

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I'd like to see figures be used at all levels of testing, and maybe as a qualifier at Worlds. You could lock all the judges in a room, allow the skater to do the figures, hide the skater, and then let the judges judge the tracings without knowing which skater did them. That would eliminate any judging shenanigans.[/quote]

Great idea! It would definitely get rid of judging problems. I just had the weirdest image though of someone grabbing Michelle Kwan off the ice and shutting her in a cupboard while they judge the figure... :lol:

Re: A Question...Hope you can help me out here.

Red Dog:

I could fill this reply for pages explaining the finer points of figures, but I won't do that to you. Figures are the bases of all skating and without them figure skating would certainly not be the event it is today. However, the figures were done away with at competitions because it was deemed too tedious to keep judging them at comepetions as well as the average fan did not understand them. As the levels of jumping kept going up - the figures got pushed to the side. Most people wanted to "jump to the chase" as it were and figures were left behind. Unfortunately, with the demise of figures a generation of skaters have missed out on a great aspect of figure skating and what it was all about in the first place. Executing figures is tedious, but it can also be challenging and fascinating. It's the best way to learn about edges.

I hope this has helped. There are many books available on the history of school figures. You should visit your public library.

Ladskater