(Firstly, please let me apologies for this lonnnnng post. I don't post often, but when I do, I'd like to contribute as much as I can
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A lecturer at the Royal College of Art, world's leading school in art and design once said something that stayed with me:
"The worst idea we ever had was to give children a paintbrush and a picture in front of them to say, paint like that."
I was first taken aback because that is the way all children and adults around the world are taught, and continues to learn, to draw like the masters. I asked him why. He said, it is because they should be free to express in any way they want, whether to draw with their fingers and decide what they like to do with it, draw, mark, dab, print, splash, drip or paint, and there are unlimited potentials. By putting a cap on them at the start, you are making them into craftsman and not artists. You also failed to give the opportunity to develop their own unique sense of relationship which is expressing their unique view and visions of the world. It spells the death of creativity, therefore art.
I can't help but feel much of he says can also be applied to some of the perspective shared generally including outside the forums. Although all are valid, but many of the views are conditioned by what has been 'institutionalised' as 'successful' programs/performances, by the COP of its time through in the form of scores/wins; the 'big tricks', 'social environment' and the 'cultural impact' for the skaters within certain national biases. By boxed in what is art, and the rules of 'good' art, one perhaps fails to realised perhaps we became prejudiced by such conditions therefore we are not really opens to the idea of profound possibilities.
Truth, Art, Beauty. On the face of it they can all be about similar things, but they are really quite different. In performance art as it is in life, art and beauty dies the moment it really happens (even though captured on film, these are merely reproductions but not 'real art'), and the only thing that last out of the 3 is 'Truth', which is who the skater is, and what he/she has achieved.
Figure skating is both an art and sport.
As a performance art, art is possible by the condition it must be genuine, unique, truthful, delivered on the occasion, in the contextual circumstance in the grand scheme of things. Real art in performance is the part that the performer were able to bring the heights and the depth of expression that can never replicated gain. It is what all skaters strive for but rarely achieve but all capable of achieving. But it is the occasion, the stage that set the significance of the performance apart. Real art is the peak state of liberation, freedom and abandonment of earthly conventions or rules and regulations. A spatial state of mind, but also one that is simple, spontaneous and pure.
Figure skaters are all artists and capable of creating art, but rarely do they achieve real art when it matters the most. All their potentials, what they have done during rehearsal are just craft. Through good choice of music, gorgeous costumes, brilliant make up, expertly choreograph programs and skilled skates, may all maximise chance of art happening, but it does not mean it will happen. It those rarest inspired moments, occasion, highs of simplicity and purity, spontaneity, luck and even perfection that makes us yearning for this sport.
Figure skating as a sport
Sport for me is like a supreme craft, pushing the human boundaries to its maximum and once it surpassed its peak, by its own uniqueness and wonderment, it became art. All sportman/craftsman are capable of delivery great art through inspired moments of expertise, but in sport and is in Art, what happens during rehearsals and practice doesn't matter. Only what happens when it count is the most important to appraise sport as art.
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My own personal interpretation of the different levels of aptitudes in developing relationship with the arts in learning them, appreciate them and in performing them. (Arts = alls humanity subjects Music/Performances/Dance/Painting/Fine Arts/Literary).
1. You learn the techniques.
2. You improve the techniques.
3. You perfect the techniques.
4. You develop your own techniques.
5. You forget about the techniques.
6. Let the techniques be part of you and it is seamlessly integrated in everything you do.
7. You can't see the techniques.
1. You see/ hear / interact with the arts/work at first hand with no preconceived notion and always with an open mind and a 'fresh pair of eyes' as well as all your senses.
2. Be very self aware of how it make you feel on a pure instinctual level, even based on a limited understanding.
3. Research and learn about the background, crafts, historical and cultural context, environment, personal journey of the artists and the works's creation, intention, and by product.
4. Appreciate the original 'creator/artist's vision in crafts, his/her 'persuasion' (Objectivity), and even 'lack of persuasion' speaks volumes about the work and the artists intentions.
5. Develop your own opinion and response to agree or disagree with his 'persuasion (Subjectivity).
6. One should try to perform the work acknowledge the above but the depth of knowledge might not be necessary, the intention is not to offend or mishandle the material. It is about being respectful and truthful to the work, but there's a fine line with how much you let yourself dictated by it as a performer and an artist.
7. Awareness of the audience. This is subjective to the artist's own generosity. Some artists perform / create for their own pleasure or spite. In performance arts, it is for the audience.
Even if the most well executed technically sound program are performed to its perfection, in an empty arena without an audience or record of it, it is not art, it is just work.
8. The performance itself should be a large extension of the artist within, in spirit, emotional response, and most importantly, in original thoughts as expressed within the realm of the performer's human constricts. A true artist should always bring their own 'uniqueness' to any preconceived objectivity.
9. In performance art, the success of the work should be measured by how much audience respond to it, even long after a performance has ended, and the career of the artist finishes. After all, that's the reason Arts fall under the category of 'Humanity' subjects.
Most skater at elite level is proficient in the Point 1 to 4 of the learning curves, some on occasion reaches level 5 and 6 and even 7. Art happens at 7-9. Although in rare burst of inspired moments, all skaters are capable of transcend to 8 and 9 on rarest occasions, sometimes by accident, some by personal affinity, and sometimes if you are among the rare gifted, they have the unique instinctual empathy to by passing other steps before start the process again with another new program. Some skaters were born with 8, and they can be spotted even at Juniors.
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) care about the sporting and the artistic aspects of figure skating at very different levels of granularity.
, who, by the way, did a double toe loop as her other jump, not a triple flip. (My excuse in the case of Sato -- my eyes were all teary from having been overborn by the strains of Amazing Grace.)
(When you mention both epistemology and metaphysics in the same sentence, that paragraph had better be only one sentence long. 
