Figure Fouetté

A “figure” in many kinds of dance from the British Isles is a named pattern of movement larger than a step and smaller than a phrase. When English people started skating, they brought their dancing with them and created English Style Skating, which involved a caller and people moving around the ice to make patterns, … Read more

I was thinking about these questions my entire ballet career (and beyond). I’ll try to share briefly here. I took the attitude that the primary purpose of dancing is to get to dance all day every day. Some people just need that, at least for a portion of our lives, and I am one of … Read more

My opinion: Dance education is different from academic education because knowledge must not only be learned, but also embodied. We bring our neuro-muscular system into the studio, which operates largely on autopilot with only limited ability to take direction from our thinking mind. The goal of dance education is to teach dancers (thinking mind) how … Read more

I love making beautiful figure artwork on the ice, an intense meditative practice that develops internal energy, relaxation and mental focus to generate power. Each figure — a named pattern of movement — is a puzzle to be solved inside my body. I am learning blade magic, drawing power from each edge to skate forever … Read more

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBTaSS43wVo In relation to your video, I encourage you to read my blog post on the history of figure & fancy skating, or my blog in general: https://www.artofskating.org/introduction-and-history-of-figure-fancy-skating/https://www.artofskating.org/blog/ A little history: The Pannin creative figure you showed won the Special Figures (now Creative Figures) event at the 1908 Olympics, but that was the first … Read more

This week I stopped by a small local outdoor ice rink in upstate New York, open to the public for FREE. I arrived right when it opened at 10am and told the rink attendants I wanted to “cut some figures.” When I got on the ice I proceeded to measure out space for three large … Read more

I skipped a couple of days for lack of cell service. I will fill in later. but first a brief update: the Alaska Highway turns into serious wilderness, just the highway and boreal forest, starting soon after it starts. The farms and oil infrastructure give way to just oil infrastructure and eventually even the utility … Read more

Wednesday morning I did some more work, then re-packed the car and bid my friends farewell. I shared about the wonders of figure & fancy skating, and then we were off! I high tailed it to Edmonton then shopped for food and gas. I stumbled into a brand new shopping area: and overall I would … Read more

Monday evening and all day Tuesday, I rested. I really needed it: as soon as I got into my friends home I collapsed. We had a nice time for a couple of days, and I also got some of my NY work done. A time to relax, restock and regroup. Highlights for Tuesday included baths … Read more

So, Monday we entered Alberta as soon as we left the rest area, where I now saw scrub range land rather than grassland. Also Alberta’s rest areas are truly terrible and I didn’t stop at any of them. I was cruising along when I saw the sign for Provincial Dinosaur Park. OF COURSR I had … Read more