Is watching figures an oxymoron? | Page 2 | Golden Skate

Is watching figures an oxymoron?

Medusa

Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 6, 2007
This whole thing puzzles me. I've been watching skating mainly since they stopped doing figures in competition, so in a way I have no problem with their being gone. But intellectually, I rebel at the idea of a sport that cuts off its historical knees to the point where, as someone said, it shouldn't even be called "figure skating" any more.
Well, it's not called figure skating in all languages, so that argument falls a bit flat for me. We say "Eiskunstlauf" in Germany (= artistic ice skating), it's the same in France with "Patinage artistique" and in other countries who use Latin dialects. So no metions of figures in those names - and therefore I can't get worked up about eliminating something from the sport that's in the name of the sport, when to me it never was in the name of the sport.

My husband is a teacher and likes to use the idea of learning figures before getting to do free skates as a metaphor for how students have to do standard assignments before they get to invent creative research projects. I tried to tell him figures aren't done any more but I guess he'll have to wait till he sees the blank looks on students' faces. I wonder how many more years he can use that metaphor.
That is certainly a good point. A bit like in ballet or in martial arts - you learn the basics, you have to be able to do the basic movements, in order to progress further.
 
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