One-Foot Skating in Step Sequences

According to the ISU Components Chart, a mastery of one-foot skating is another display of skating skills. While this certainly means that the entire program should consist of moments where a series of movements are presented on one-foot, we obviously can see that these moments shine more in the step sequences. I've always been curious as to why those one-foot moments in step sequences were so overlooked. Then I realized that it's because we don't see that many skaters doing it these days (perhaps because past skaters in general had stronger skating skills? ) Now in case you're confused on what I'm talking about, here's an example!

Mao Asada's "Liebestraum" (3:57-4:09) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_fHcE4uFg4&t=3m55s

As you can see here, Mao does a series of steps and turns on just one foot for 12 seconds to open her step sequence. It's definitely impressive and done so beautifully.

Here are some other ones:

Patrick Chan's "Take Five" (2:38-2:47) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHOMvzABdO8&t=2m35s (the way he just flies across the ice )
Kanako Murakami's "El Tango de Roxanne" (2:37-2:47) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1r9x0YoqjWo&t=2m34s (can't tell whether she puts her left foot down before those amazing twizzles; if she does, then it's 2:44 instead of 2:47)
Satoko Miyahara's "Song for the Little Sparrow" (2:55-3:00) http://youtube.com/watch?v=EeECvwbQD-s&t=2m52s (a bit shorter than the others but still nice)

Can you guys think of any other examples?

It used to be a Level feature to do 1/2 the sequence on only one foot, which is why we saw it more often.

Jason Brown does two in his 2016 skate to Scent of Love at 1:55 and about 2:16...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k4zigd9jRkI

From Carolina Koster's skate to Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun in 2011, the one which I think is infinitely better than the 2018-version.
https://youtu.be/qSU803nRYh4?t=220

Irina Slutskaya has a nice diagonal sequence in her Culture SP from 2001. I saw this live and it was great....You also get the bonus of a restart as her music skips at the beginning of her program. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkmGeSIe4tA

Skaters who were known for doing whole step sequences on one foot during 6.0 days included David Liu and Galina Maniachenko.

Surya Bonaly also did it once, in her 1995-96 short program.

And Slutskaya, as mentioned above.

Ca. 2010 doing half the sequence on one foot was a level feature, so lots and lots of skaters were attempting to cover half the ice on one foot. Often they did get the ice coverage, but at the expense of clean turns and edges, which is probably why the ISU changed the requirements.

Now the comparable feature is to do "clusters" of difficult turns on one foot, once on each foot, but those don't take up as much of the time/real estate in the step sequence.

EyesOfLove said:

From Carolina Koster's skate to Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun in 2011, the one which I think is infinitely better than the 2018-version.
https://youtu.be/qSU803nRYh4?t=220

Click to expand...

Thank you very much for posting such unforgettable masterpiece.

And now some links:

Liu Mission
Liu Fascinating Rhythm

Boitano Elegy for Harp and Strings (pro)

Bonaly

Maniachenko

gkelly said:

Now the comparable feature is to do "clusters" of difficult turns on one foot, once on each foot, but those don't take up as much of the time/real estate in the step sequence.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the explanation! So just to clarify, the Satoko one I posted above is an example of this, right?

randomfan said:

Thanks for the explanation! So just to clarify, the Satoko one I posted above is an example of this, right?

Click to expand...

Yes.
Any level 4 (or attempted level 4) step sequence from the past 6 or so years will have two such sequences of 3+ difficult turns on one foot. That was a nice one.

Just remembered another one, for which there thankfully there is now a clean version on youtube:

Dmitrenko 1-foot circular

(didn't go so well for him at Worlds the previous year)