What are your favorite and hated moves in figure skating?

[Mafke]

hate (no matter how 'well done' :

Biellmann positions,
spiral sequences (as a required move),
quads (ugly, overrrated),
almost all CoP spins,
almost all CoP footwork,
CoP death spirals,
CoP "dance spins",
most pair spins (pre or post CoP, mostly blah)

lurve (when well done):

triple-loop that's timed to a music highlight,
delayed axels,
inside axels,
one-foot axel into a salchow (will we ever see that again?),
fast nimble footwork with an unmoving upper body (harder than flailing around like you're being electrocuted),
loops in footwork (especially when the camera shows the tracing),
spread eagle,
spiral position with a nice solid edge (as a transition),
Kwan's CoE spiral (no one else does it especially well)

 

[BlackAxel]

Yeah ITA about the CoP footwork being really long and tedious and at most times overdone. I prefer the footwork that was exhibited in the 6.0 era with my favorite coming from Michelle Kwan in her Tosca lp

However, I do love some CoP footworks this season from Mao ("Bells of Moscow" lp), Stephane Lambiel ("Willem Tell"), Nobunari Oda ("Charlie Chaplin Medley"), and of course the king of footwork Daisuke Takahashi

 

[aftertherain]

colleen - ITA about Robin Cousins' slide spiral... very beautiful move indeed. Huge Russian splits (like Sabovcik and Flack Burghart's) are ultra cool as well.

What about Sasha's? Lol.

 

[ankka]

I think I'm opposing just about everyone again with this but I must say I actually PREFER the CoP footwork, when well done of course. The likes of Kostner, Kim, Lepistö, Ando and Asada seem to make most of it and I really like the fact how well they manage to interpret music and manage to make it look easy. I think with the old system it was just one of the things you wanted to do as quickly as possible and concentrate on other stuff. But, of course, many skaters struggle with the current requirements. And yes, I think a brilliant step sequence crowns the program better than anything else.

 

[Mathman]

^ What I don't like about CoP footwork sequences is the emphasis on working the upper body. To me, this is unattractive and merely detracts from what the feet are doing.

 

[DesertRoad]

Shockingly enough ankka, I agree with you!

Now, I'm the first to say that the COP's prioritizing of complexity over quality is painfully wrong. And yes, the COP has created quite a lot of bad footwork sequences. But when skaters do make it work, it is unlike anything I have ever seen in skating before and I appreciate it.

Faves: Daisuke's footwork. Like some sort of Renaissance ornamentation, traced with lightning and lined with thunder. Mao Asada's Nocturne step sequence, so beautiful and light and natural, it doesn't seem choreographed, just that the music is moving her. And of course, Patrick Chan's footwork. He moves with the grace of a danseur and the speed of a superhero.

Worsties: Any time someone pauses in a footwork sequence even though the music is still chugging along. Yu Na Kim's Bond footwork sequence comes to mind. It's cute she takes a moment to pose, but it clashes badly with the relentless music.

 

[psbfan01]

What about....

Hmm, I didn't realize the biellmann spin was so unpopular! I love Denise Biellmann as a skater. I think the biellman spin can be beautifully executed when the skater can conform their upper body and clasped leg to create the appearance of a tear drop (if you know what I mean).

I really like a nice Ina Bauer...that reminds me, on an old tape I saw Tonya Harding do a double axel from an Ina Bauer position - cool!

Sublime: Kerrigan's and Bobek's spirals...most of Ito's and Harding's jumps....Bonaly's backflip into 3 salchow...amazing....Yagudin's footwork....

 

[Mafke]

I didn't realize the biellmann spin was so unpopular!

Early architects of CoP didn't realize that people respond to incentives and made any crude approximation of a Biellmann position a major point getter. The result was a flood of awful, ugly pseudo-Biellmann positions that made me hate it.

A _very_ few skaters can do it well and should (like the CoE spiral) and most of the rest shouldnt' try it.

 

[berrycute]

Favorite: One handed Biellmann Mao's version, and also the Pearl

Least favorite: Fan spiral and shaky change of edge spirals

 

[BravesSkateFan]

Favorites: double and triple axels, fully extended russian splits

Hate: haircutter spins (ugh), spirals with a low back or where the shoulders aren't pulled back (posture ladies!), crazy complicated dance lifts where each position is held for a fraction of a second before moving on to another and another position.

 

[Olympia]

Delayed axels (agreed)

The Robin Cousins slide spiral thing( does it have a common name?)

Multi-jump series

I agree about all three of those moves. Whatever that slide-spiral thing is, I think Gordeyeva does a version of it, too. It seems that the need for jumps has shortchanged the other possibilities of skating--the ability to move lightly to music in a way that even dance can't achieve. Skaters who mine those possibilities are usually the ones I love.

It's almost unfair to mention things like Browning's footwork, because no one else could ever do it, though Yagudin is no slouch in that department.

Speaking of Gordeyeva again, she used to do a kind of death spiral variation with Sergei Grinkov, where he kept spinning her until she was off the ice and drifting through the air around him. Magical.

 

[Layfan]

^ What I don't like about CoP footwork sequences is the emphasis on working the upper body. To me, this is unattractive and merely detracts from what the feet are doing.

Yeah, I agree. I've said before that I don't mind footwork sequences under CoP but I guess I just don't mind the complexity of the, you know, actual footwork. But it is awful when skater looks, as some one else said, like they are being electrocuted.

 

[Wicked]

Love- Ina Bauer (especially Mirai's), split jump, stag jump

Hate- most ladies' spirals (aka the "I'm flexible, here's proof" move)

 

[trinity90]

Love: Spread eagles with deep edges, Y-spiral. russian split

Hate: reverse lifts that some dance teams are performing (reverse lifts should be left to Anissina/Peizerat)

 

[Olympia]

For ina bauers, I think one of the all-time champs has to be Shizuka. She practically bends double, yet it never looks like a contortionist's trick. Rather, she just looks like a graceful reed bending in the wind and then wafting into position again.

I love spread eagles, too, both inside and outside. And pair spread eagles can be glorious--ultra-romantic when done right.

I realize, thinking about this topic, that two of my favorite skaters, Gordeyeva and Kwan, are not really all that flexible. They achieve their grace more by fluidity of movement, lightness across the ice, solid technique, and connection with the music. For example, the other day I re-watched Kwan at the 1995 Worlds--the year before she won--and her ina bauer barely had a bend at all. But she still took my breath away.

So I think I agree with Wicked that flexibility for its own sake doesn't necessarily correlate with beauty of skating. You can have beauty without hyper-flexibility, and you can certainly (alas) have extreme flexibility without much beauty. It's wonderful when you get both in one skater, as with Sasha, Mirai, and Caroline (who remains a beautiful skater except for her jump technique--I hope for her "recovery" in the future!). But I guess when skaters are looking for ways to increase their score, they'll pull out all the stops. Can't blame them!

 

[semosk8tfan]

My most hated move has to be the "crotch shot" of the ladies. It may show extreme flexibility to skate with your leg by your head but it is ugly and extremely unlady lilke.

 

[Raatkirani]

My favorite moves in figure skating are the triple loop jump done on its own, not in combination, deep spread eagles held for a long time (like Brian Boitano), a classic layback spin with the kind of leg position that would make Dick Button weep with joy, overhead lasso lift done with one hand.

Least favorite moves: don't hate me, but Michelle Kwan's "eggbeater" spin (I swear I once heard Dick Button call it that). It's that signature upright spin, with the leg up, giving the body a "Y" appearance. Never ever liked that move on anyone. Second is that ridiculous spin some men are doing. It's when they're bent over, like they're trying to touch their toes, only the free leg is not on the ice. Brandon Mroz and N. Oda do that spin this season--you know the one I'm talking about: face down, rear up.

 

[prettykeys]

Excuse my lack of skating terminology!

Favourites:
"Flying" 3 Axel
A nice step sequence (electric or soft) without too much curving-blade-work
The spin position that looks like a diagonal pearl-drop held with one hand
YuNa's 3-3's (teehee)

Least liked:
Fan spiral (it's always looked kind of stupid to me :frown2
The spin position with the leg held up in front of the face, a common finishing move
--neither of these moves look graceful at all!

 

[lcd]

Delayed axels all the way. Dorothy Hamill and Robin Cousins.

 

[n_halifax]

The 'Detroiter' was made famous by teams like Anita and Frank, Calla and Rocky, Tuffy and Doug and Isabelle and Lloyd in the 90's but check out this variation that Leonova and Khvalko first debuted in their breakout performance at the U.S. Open in 1997:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iU2Z2hlLvA

(This is from a show much later... the move is at 0:15-0:16 into the video)