Figure Skating: Championship Techniques (Sports Illustrated Winners Circle Books)

I started taking figure skating classes about a year ago. As an older student compared to the 9 year olds in my class, I found it very difficult to follow the class now that I'm on freestyle level. The kids in my class seems to be able to perform the moves without putting too much thought into it, but I found myself standing in the class and just watching them moving, and before I knew it, the class was over and I had spend the entire class just standing, freezing trying to understand the moves.This book was so helpfull as it describes the moves in great detail. There are several diagrams so you know where your foot goes. Should I use the left, should I use the right foot? When you read the description of the moves you might not understand at first, but as you read and you practice the moves, it becomes an excellent tool. You can use the book together with some of the u-tube videos. You can watch the moves in the u-tube to have an idea, then you go to the book and break it down the moves. Then you are able to get it after practicing a lot! I recommend this book to anybody starting to learn a little bit more difficult moves and need some help.

I purchased this book to be able to show my students a visual representation of some of the techniques I was demonstrating and teaching. It's a nice book for a fan looking to learn the lingo or for a skater taking instruction. I would never recommend this in place of proper instruction for advanced moves.

As a newbie skater, this book offers some good general info and advice as most instructional books do.My main complaint is that the pictures are not descriptive enough to follow a sequence and, let's face it, it's tough to show movement in book form anyway. However, the other issue is that the text is hard to follow as well, if you are trying to learn about a new move. Naturally the text and the pictures make more sense when you already know the move and want to improve on it.So, depending on your ice-skating skill level, your ability to decifer instructions and your imagination, you might say this book is skating on thin ice.

I have this in print and it is a great resource.

A birthday gift for a young figure skater. She LOVED it.

Perfect

I'm ordering another copy, as somehow mine got lost in a move. Some of the names of things may differ between figure (ice) and artistic (roller) skating but the descriptions and photographs were very, very useful to me and waaaaaaaaaaah I'm very lost without my copy as there are very few artistic skating coaches in existence! So, yes! My toe stops are in a knot! This was a very useful book to me!

I have owned copies of this book for years and it has been my standby reference manual during training and recovery from injury. Inspirational and great step by step.

This is a very handy book to have it explains everything you need to know in idiot proof fashion. When you are starting out skating you don't always understand whats taking place - you see the skater do moves, but HOW EXACTLY ARE THEY DONE!!! Well this book breaks down the lot...........VERY WELL WORTH THE BUY

ok

I started skating as an adult in my 40s. I skate for the joy of it (not to compete or anything), but the way my brain works I need to know why things work the way they do and find it helpful to see diagram of the tracings on ice. At almost 30 pages this book covers a ton of detail. It's old, but I'm actually not finding it very dated, so am very happy with the purchase. Seems like it's a "bible" for figure skating technique.

The fact that you are looking alone for reviews of skating manuals may mean that you are a “freelance” skater, like me. Being an adult amateur solo ice & inline roller figure skater, to a great extent self-taught and not aiming at competitive performances, I have been in search for a handbook that would enable me to develop as proper and safe skating habits as possible in the face of the lack of support from a trustworthy coach. I am trying to assess to what extent a given skating manual can become a primary source of practical knowledge. Incidentally, please take into consideration that no handbook can replace a coach and spotter, and be aware that self-learning is not the best, safest or easiest way to acquire skills in this dangerous sport, so do not follow me – unless you likewise have no other choice. It is possible that you do cooperate with a coach and will simply need a book as a secondary reference; in such a case your expectations will probably be slightly different from mine.My non-professional skating background does not let me issue a binding judgement on the contents of Mr. John Misha Petkevich’s book; it is enough to say that it has gained a broad acclaim among professionals and has been included into the standard skating reference library ever since. My purpose here is to analyse to what extent it answers my needs, and I hope that you will find this evaluation helpful. By comparing it with some other manuals, I am also able to provide an assessment of its relative value.The first touchstone against which I am going to measure the merits of this handbook is one of my greatest anxieties – and I believe yours as well – the issue of safety. Especially if you have ever tried, apart from ice skating, also artistic roller skating on concrete surface: you will know how far the fear of falling can impede your progress. Fortunately, Mr. John Misha Petkevich’s handbook for ice skaters provides the whole range of valuable indications, not only as regards the proper techniques that prevent falling, but also as regards the difficult art of learning how to fall without incurring injury to yourself.In connection with the above, the second issue is a need to learn step by step the proper techniques and being able to self-evaluate and avoid mistakes. This is, in my opinion, the strongest point of this manual. Written by a proud skating technique inventor and elaborator, the book has a definitely felt scientific touch and is ideally attuned to an analytical mind. Each description of a figure is divided into stages, and each stage describes, in a clearly defined order, the performance of every fragment of a skater’s body. No limb position is left unmentioned. Each of the several edges leading to the take-off is described in astonishing detail. Wherever it might prove helpful, the author even provides the precise angles at which the tangents of two curves should be related to each other, or the angle at which the shoulders should be turned against the hips. The book also includes something incredibly helpful, something that a few other manuals lack: vast, generous analyses of possible mistakes. After each detailed specification how to perform a given figure, illustrated by up to ten carefully selected photographs in motion, several most common mistakes are mentioned, around which possible reasons are grouped and – if needed - explained further. Sometimes there are even two variants of prints on the ice: the one that is correct and an additional one which denotes a mistake in the technique. Worth noting is a very helpful and systematically organised chapter on spin combinations. This manual is also a very accurate resource – except for two mistakenly mirrored photographs of a split and stag jump, the book seems to be flawless. My study of those analyses has already improved my back spin, lutz and some other figures on which I had lost years of futile endeavour before I reached for this publication. Based on previous resources, I had given up any hope in ever performing a flying camel – but with Mr. Petkevich’s manual I was able to land this spin successfully on the first day, almost at the first attempt ever (naturally, it requires a lot of practice still).My further objective is to improve elegance. Mr. Petkevich’s book does a great service to all those who keep forgetting that an arched torso, a raised chin and a pointed toe are not only helpful in the successful performance of most figures, but also indispensable if you are ever to skate in front of a jury (for the sake of digression: none of the books I have had in my hands take into consideration that if you always practise on an extremely crowded and jabbed ice-rink, your possibility to extend and lock your limbs or look away from the surface will always be seriously challenged). The author also presents all the interesting variations on jumps which he has invented and become famous for. However, there is one reservation. Although the US champion of 1971 emphasises that the overall impression and the interpretation of music is more important than the technical elements of a programme, and has indeed been widely acclaimed for his own elegant style and vivid musical expression, the book does not elaborate upon this topic. We are left with this bare statement to develop our own imaginative style, without knowing how to approach it. After all, each cubic centimetre of our body has its weight, which makes attempts at creative body positions or changes difficult and even dangerous. Advice would be highly appreciated.One of the most important matters is to make my theoretical knowledge fuller and more systematic. Unfortunately, here we touch the greatest shortcoming of this manual. The punctilious analyses of the technique of the most basic figures fill the 288 pages completely. Of course, it is difficult to include everything in one publication, but if some important segments are left out, another volume should be issued to cover all these. No room is left for a greater variety of figures, and you will feel this want acutely after the completion of your reading. It seems as if skating consisted only of turns, spins and jumps. Entire categories of figures are omitted, not only such quaint moves like hydroblading (popularized in 1990s, that is after this book was written) but also traditional moves like spirals, spread eagles, let alone loop steps or twizzles. Even within the chapters treated with detail there are many shortcomings: e.g. among spins, it is fruitless to look for a pancake, doughnut or royal spin. The well-known artistic variants are also missing: although Boitano is featured on many photographs, including the cover photo with the characteristically raised hands, no reference to this “Tano” versions of jumps is ever made. I would also appreciate a set of introductory exercises preparing a skater for double jumps, which unfortunately are absent. But the greatest omissions affect figures performed predominantly by ladies. The book has not even got a brief catalogue of the most popular figures and variants known at the time of its completion. Other kinds of skating, apart from the singles, are very slightly touched upon, whereas the synchro, which was getting rapidly more and more popular at the time of writing the book, has not been given even a paragraph. Nothing particular is written as regards the ethical and legal aspect of skating – for me one of the focal points of interest. The chapters concerning the equipment and clothes are too concise, as the author refers us to a separate handbook. Regardless of this, the descriptions of the equipment and clothes have become partly obsolete in the course of time; thus, a newer edition would be needed, anyway. Off-ice conditioning and practical tips for selection of music are virtually absent. The chapter concerning jumps has, in my view, a little impractical order of presentation. I think it can even make the systematic learning difficult, since the axel is being explained right after the waltz jump, before any other jump, and the loop comes fourth. The fact that all the edge jumps have been explained prior to the chapter on toe jumps can pose a problem to a person who has a natural inclination to learn toe jumps first (like me). Last but not least, except for a simple table of contents, there is not an index of skating terms. It would be very helpful, either with dictionary-like explanations or with a simple reference to pages.In conclusion, the present book gives a skater very sound basics and a brilliant start, but it leaves him/her in the middle without even suggesting what there is to be learnt yet. Although skating has been changing, both from the artistic and technical point of view, new figures have appeared and some traditional ones are performed slightly differently – this handbook is nonetheless extremely helpful in achieving a reasonable set of habits and turning this extraordinary sport into a “second nature.” I strongly recommend that you should get familiar with it as early in your career as possible, but it will not be the last manual you will need to buy. I am greatly indebted to Mr. Petkevich for enabling a considerable improvement in my technique. An updated and more inclusive edition would be needed - and very welcome, indeed.Elżbieta Flisak

La bible du patinage pour ceux qui veulent des instructions détaillées. C'est en anglais mais il n'y existe encore rien en français de comparable.Je recommande comme ouvrage de réference ; surtout quand on apprend seul.