Where do the names come from?

Tonichelle · Jan 31, 2009

I'm not talking the jumps and spins that have some skater's name as its own

I am talking like "shoot the duck" and "death spiral" and the like

where did these come from? why did they get THAT name. Some I realize are obvious... but still?

Clarice · Jan 31, 2009

I believe the Protopopovs invented and named the "death spiral". In fact, I think they had different names depending on what edge was being used - one was called a "life spiral". I forget the other two.

I've always wondered where "mohawk" and "choctaw" came from. Certain things are called by different names in different places, which is also interesting. My Russian coach used to call choctaws the "Jackson step" - I'm not sure which Jackson he was referring to.

gkelly · Jan 31, 2009

Clarice said:
I believe the Protopopovs invented and named the "death spiral". In fact, I think they had different names depending on what edge was being used - one was called a "life spiral". I forget the other two.

Sort of.
From wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_spiral_(figure_skating)

The backward outside death spiral was invented in the early 1900's by Charlotte Oelschlagel, although it was first performed with the skaters holding both hands and the lady not fully lowered towards the ice. The current one-handed version was developed in the 1940's by the Canadian pair Suzanne Morrow and Wallace Diestelmeyer. The other death spiral variants were invented by Ludmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov in the 1960's. They assigned the following names to them:

Backward Inside: Cosmic spiral
Forward Inside: Life spiral
Forward Outside: Love spiral

I've always wondered where "mohawk" and "choctaw" came from. Certain things are called by different names in different places, which is also interesting.

I seem to remember reading an old Skating Magazine article called "Savage Steps" about these turns. I think it theorized that they were named after American Indian tribes because they were considered less refined than one-foot turns. Or something like that. I can't find the article now.

My Russian coach used to call choctaws the "Jackson step" - I'm not sure which Jackson he was referring to.

My first guess would be Jackson Haines. I haven't come across him being especially associated with choctaws though.

I have heard the sitspin referred to as "Jackson Haines spin." For example:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,932555,00.html

Joesitz (RIP) · Jan 31, 2009

On rollers the sitspin is call a jackson.

A forward inside takeoff with 1-1/2 air turns landing on the same take-off foot is called a Boekle after Willy Boekle

A toe loop jump is called a Mapes after Bruce Mapes

A loop jump is called a Rittenberger after the inventor of the same name. (Don't know much about Mr. Rittenberger.)

Have no idea about the Wally. A wonderful jump but gone away by the CoP choices.

The Flip is misnamed because it really is a Toe-Salchow.

Kati · Jan 31, 2009

The loop jump is also called rittberger, named after Werner Rittberger, a German figure skater (1881-1975).

Joesitz (RIP) · Jan 31, 2009

Kati said:
The loop jump is also called rittberger, named after Werner Rittberger, a German figure skater (1981-1975).

Thank you for the correction and I changed my post to Ritterberger.

Aside. I believe, though there were loop jumps or ritterberger jumps before 1981.

Mathman · Jan 31, 2009

^ Kati meant 1881. According to Wikipedia, Werner Rittberger first did it in 1910. The first triple loop was done by -- guess who? -- Dick Button, 1952 Olympics. :clap:

The jump is called a loop because it is like the figure of that name.

I found this explanation of Mohawk from the book Figure Skaking History by Lynn Copley-Graves.

In the 1800's the British were fascinated by stories of American Indians. A few American Indians had been brought to England to entertain the British with war dances. Some skaters who saw them thought the spread-eagle pose done in Indian ceremonies resembled the turned-out position of a turn they did on ice.

The tracing made by that turn resembled an Indian bow, so they named the turn the "mohawk" after the visiting tribe from New York State...

Maxwell Witham and H. E. Vandervell compiled the rules of English style in the first comprehensive study of figure skating in any language in their book, A System of Figure Skating, first published in 1869 and revised in 1880. In the 1880 version, they illustrated and described the outside-to-outside mohawk, as done in the Foxtrot today: "A very pretty combination of the outside forward with the outside backwards has lately come into vogue, and it can be skated by every one who is capable of turning out his toes sufficiently, so as to get into the spread-eagle position. This figure was last year introduced into the Club figures on ice and christened by the name of Mohawk."

According to Earnest Jones, writing in The Elements of Skating in 1931, the name "mohawk" for this turn was derived from a cut-like step used by the Mohawk indians in ther war dances.

Two editions later Max Witham described the choctaw, named for another Indian tribe: "A variation of the Mohawk has lately been introduced, and is called a Choctaw ... the skater goes from the outside forward of one foot to the inside back of the other."

Ptichka · Feb 1, 2009

Just to add about death/ life spiral. Protopopovs named the other spirals love, life, and cosmic because they felt it was wrong that the only spiral had such a negative feel, death.

gio · Feb 1, 2009

Does anybody know the origins of these names: camel, spread eagle, cantilever, hydroblading, corckscrew, donut ...

dorispulaski · Feb 1, 2009

The cantilever was created by Werner Groebli (Mr. Frick of Frick & Frack). He named it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frick_and_Frack

Hydroblading was the joint creation of Bourne & Kraatz and their coach/choreographer, Uschi Keszler who originated the term

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uschi_Keszler

In fact, Uschi Keszler has actually trademarked the term Hydroblading

http://www.iceworks.net/figure_academy.shtml

dorispulaski · Feb 1, 2009

Some info on the camel spin:

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Camel-spin

Gustave Lussi (coach of Dorothy Hamill, among others) said the camel was invented by an Australian skater named Campbell and that the name is a corruption of Campbell.

Other credit its invention to Cecelia Colledge, but that doesn't explain why it would be called a camel.

The first person I remember doing a donut spin was Oksana Baiul and the commentators at 1993 started calling it that. However, it may be considerably older.

Tonichelle · Feb 1, 2009

I would assume hydroblading was a play off of the term 'hydroplaning'

Mathman · Feb 1, 2009

A cantilever (in mechanical engineering) is a beam or rod that is attached to the support only at one end. I think the idea is that in the skating move, you try to create the illusion that your body is stretched out parallel to the ice supported only by your feet at one end.

I think a donut spin is so called just because it looks like a doughnut -- a big round shape withj a hole in the middle.

(Then there is the jellyfish spin, where your arms dangle down between your legs like tentacles.

)

Joesitz (RIP) · Feb 1, 2009

Mathman said:
A cantilever (in mechanical engineering) is a beam or rod that is attached to the support only at one end. I think the idea is that in the skating move, you try to create the illusion that your body is stretched out parallel to the ice supported only by your feet at one end.

I think a donut spin is so called just because it looks like a doughnut -- a big round shape withj a hole in the middle.

(Then there is the jellyfish spin, where your arms dangle down between your legs like tentacles. )

And they are not considered acrobatic as the tornado is. :rolleye:

gio · Feb 1, 2009

Thanks for all the infos! :thumbsup: :bow:

Isn't the "jellyfish" spin a variaton of the pancake spin??

Cannonball and pancake spins. Do you know their origins?

dorispulaski · Feb 1, 2009

http://www.taxfreegold.co.uk/images/1999usa5dollarsgeorgewashingtonbicentennialgoldproofrev400.jpg

In context with spread eagle label (scroll down)
http://www.taxfreegold.co.uk/usa5dollarscommemoratives.html

A spread eagle, when it isn't in skating, is how the eagle looks on the back side of US coins. The above image is called a spread eagle. The original skating spread eagle has the arms stretched out, as well as the legs turned out and spread.

Shoot the duck is so called because your leg is a rifle, (out straight in front of you) is shooting an imaginary duck.

Both these terms were in use on the local skating pond when I was a kid, as was the term "grapevine", the two footed crossfoot sculling action that Brian Boitano used in his Les Patineurs SP in 1988 to simulate Victorian era skating.

mskater93 · Feb 2, 2009

Joesitz said:
On rollers the sitspin is call a jackson.

The Russian coaches at our rink call the rocker-Choctaw a "Jackson"

Joesitz (RIP) · Feb 2, 2009

mskater93 said:
The Russian coaches at our rink call the rocker-Choctaw a "Jackson"

That's ok, but I do not understand rocker and choctaw given one name. A rocker is a forward outside edge then 3 turn to a back out edge on same foot in a serpentine fashion. The choctaw is a forward outside or forward inside step on one foot and change to a back outside edge on the other foot in place.

They both have the same body movement.

(not the best information but the best I can do off my head.)

gkelly · Feb 2, 2009

Joesitz said:
That's ok, but I do not understand rocker and choctaw given one name. A rocker is a forward outside edge then 3 turn to a back out edge on same foot in a serpentine fashion. The choctaw is a forward outside or forward inside step on one foot and change to a back outside edge on the other foot in place.

Rockers and choctaws can start from any edge, forward or backward, inside or outside. Both, as well as counters, change circles from clockwise to counterclockwise or vice versa.

Rockers end up on the same edge (inside or outside, same foot) but going in the opposite direction (backward or forward).

Choctaws change feet and therefore end up on the opposite kind of edge (outside or inside) as well as going in the opposite direction.

The rocker-choctaw sequences in the US moves in the field tests are a back inside rocker, which ends up on the forward inside edge of the same foot, immediately followed by a forward inside choctaw to end up on the back outside edge of the other foot.

http://www.usfigureskating.org/Shell.asp?sid=42296
Open the video for the first move, which is a proposal for how the important parts of the current first two moves on the novice test could be combined. The second half of what's shown here are the rocker-choctaw sequences.

I've also come across references to "rocker-like choctaws" (i.e., choctaws that rotate into the entry circle, as rockers do) and "counter-like choctaws" (choctaws that rotate toward the exit circle, like counters).

Joesitz (RIP) · Feb 2, 2009

^^^
Good explanation. I was doing it early this morning and not quite awake. I was hoping someone knowledgable or a link to an official definition would post cript.

The rocker-choctaw sequences in the US moves in the field tests are a back inside rocker, which ends up on the forward inside edge of the same foot, immediately followed by a forward inside counter to end up on the back outside edge of the other foot.

Shouldn't the bi rocker end up on a forward outside edge? Otherwise I see a Counter or Bracket?

I've also come across references to "rocker-like choctaws" (i.e., choctaws that rotate into the entry circle, as rockers do) and "counter-like choctaws" (choctaws that rotate toward the exit circle, like counters).

I do agree with 'rocker-like choctaws' but rockers and choctaws are fundamentally different in the use of one foot and two foot actions.

But I would not agree to the Russian nomenclature.

Where do the names come from?

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll

Clarice

gkelly

Joesitz (RIP)

Kati

Joesitz (RIP)

Mathman

Ptichka

Forum translator

gio

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll

Mathman

Joesitz (RIP)

gio

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl

mskater93

Joesitz (RIP)

gkelly

Joesitz (RIP)

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