Pre-dating skating, a figure is a named pattern of movement. Our skating forebears soon realized that performing a figure on ice leaves behind tracings, or figure artwork, that stand alone as visual art. They sought to retrace the same tracing to improve the visual appeal of the figure artwork. Free figures do not retrace themselves, instead focusing on graceful moves of the performer. Figure artwork and free figures may both involve airborne segments, at which point they become flying figures. Creative figure artworks are figures unique to one individual skating artist, and they are an important part of developing our own personal style. This gallery showcases figure artwork and free figures that are used in the World Figure Sport training curriculum or are competed at the World Figure & Fancy Skating Championships on Black Ice.
Exam Figure Artworks
Figure artworks used in the World Figure Sport training curriculum may be viewed on World Figure Sport’s Skating Exams page.
NOTE:The term “school figures” referred to the set of figure artworks chosen by the International Skating Union (ISU) in 1897 for training and sports competitions, but they have fallen out of common practice since 1991. All of the figures included in that set were well known before 1897, and many of them remain in the World Figure Sport curriculum today. Although World Figure Sport does not use the term “school figures,” the figures in this set have proven their value in the training of figure skaters to the highest levels.
Championship Figure Artworks
These figure artworks have been used in World Figure Sport Championships, some are also included in the exam curriculum. Many were known as “kickers” in the 1800’s because they involve reversal of direction and kicking of the free leg. (In approximate order of difficulty)
- Quadruple Artwork
- Twin 3’s
- Pivoting Heart
- Quad Loop de Loops
- Twin Bracket 3’s
- Maltese Cross
- Double-sided Maltese Cross
- World Record in the Maltese Cross
- Swirling Mirror
- Butterfly Loops
- Super Link
- Swiss S
- Exterior Ringlet Loops
- Cross Cuts
- Winged Diamond Cross Cut
- Winged Swedish Cross Cut
- 10th Anniversary Diamond Cross-cut with Pearls
Creative Figure Artworks
- Panin Lake Special Figure (Nikolai Panin, 1908; Marc Fenczak, 2023)
- Beacom Blossom (Gary Beacom, 2016)
- Creative Artworks (World Fancy Skaters, 2016)
- Ahlbrecht’s Gliding Grafstrom (Jill Ahlbrecht, 2016)
- Enthralling Elmore (Lisa Elmore, 2018)
- Shannon’s Shanrock, (Shannon Cattaneo, 2018)
- Creative Artworks (World Fancy Skaters – Ladies, 2019)
- Creative Artworks (World Fancy Skaters – Men’s, 2019)
- Creative Artworks (World Fancy Skaters – Ladies, 2022)
- Swans (Katherine Mangiardi, 2024)
- Shepherd’s Spiral (Shepherd Clark, 2024)