Moves That Could Revolutionize Figure Skating

I know. I know. This is the kind of attention grabbing headline that frankly no one cares about. Are you an avid fan of figure skating?

Once upon a time I was. What did I learn about figure skating? That there has been very little in the way of innovation, especially with jumps. Most of the innovation has occurred in ice dance, and even then, with so many routines ending in dramatic death scenes, the powers that be tried to reign in control by making ice dance less about dramatic performance and more about dance (boo!).

Figure skating has long held that its practitioners care about beauty, not sheer athleticism. This is why a skater like Surya Bonaly, who was a tumbling champ turned skater, was criticized. Her moves lacked grace. Her crossovers were amateurish. But she could jump from a standstill and do a triple.

This is why backflips have been banned from figure skating. It made figure skating look far less graceful and far more like gymnastics. Indeed, a careful observation between figure skating and gymanastics would show that figure skaters are indeed more graceful. Gymnasts, especially young women, are able to tumble and make athletic moves, but that characteristic over-arch of the back and waves to the audience show a lack of elegance. Some of that comes from youth and the lack of height. Height can give you more in the way of elegant lines.

The martial arts moves in the video above would border right on that edge of athleticism and grace. Some of the moves are sideway twists, rather than the conventional spins, a cross between a spin and some of the flying spins that skaters already do. Note that these athletes land on their feet, and many skaters practice on the ground before taking their moves out on the ice.

For a sport that seems like it's caught in the ice age, to forgive a wintry metaphor, these side twists could a new spin to the sport of figure skating.

If only some figure skater was bold enough to try it.