Skating on Ice - A Concise Essay on this Popular Winter Sport Including its History, Literature and Specific Techniques with Useful Diagrams

By Edgar Syers

“Skating on Ice” is a vintage guide to ice skating, looking at its history and origins, literature, techniques, and equipment, and much more. Ice skating involved moving skates attached to the feet to propel the skater across a sheet of ice. This can be done for a variety of reasons, including exercise, leisure, travelling, and various sports. Wonderfully illustrated and full of timeless information, “Skating on Ice” is highly recommend for skating enthusiast and those with an interest in its history and evolution. Contents include: “Skating – Introductory”, “The History and Literature of Skating”, “Of International Skating, and the Practice of the School Figures”, “Of Free Skating, Special Figures, Competitions and Training, Etc.”, “Of Modern Racing”, “Skating for Ladies”, and more. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this book now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with the original text and artwork.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macha Press
• Release date: Mar 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781528767248

Book preview

SKATING

I

INTRODUCTORY

THE elements of skating are not difficult provided that one sets out with the determination to overcome them in the right way and is not unduly discouraged by initial failures.

As to the joys of the art, have they not been sung, written of, and appreciated by generations of enthusiasts of those nations to which Nature has been sufficiently bountiful in providing the necessary medium? Skating is not singular in that it is more easily learned at an age when one has not far to fall and not much dignity to lose; that it can be acquired in later life and enjoyed in old age is constantly demonstrated by its followers.

Like the universal game of golf, figure skating demands no exceptional strength, correct form, united with a moderate amount of energy, is all that is necessary. Doubtless most exercises have their charm, they are more or less graceful, more or less easy, more or less expensive, and thus they present varying attracttions to different minds, but in no other are combined the elements of skating.

It is the one exercise which imparts the sense of flying to its votaries, diving from a height comes the nearest to it, but the sensation is here so transient that almost ere it is appreciated it is lost, in both grace is essential.

Skating is absolutely the only sport in which competitors are marked both for the doing of a thing and for the way it is done, it is the only one in which grace is a factor to which such a special recognition is awarded.

If the ancient Greeks had known of skating they would have included it in the athletic Pentathlon at the games of Olympia, and bequeathed to us a worthy companion work to the Discobolus. What would Phidias or Praxiteles have made of the Spiral? Would they not have shod Mercury with skates, instead of with wings, and made him the patron of skaters rather than of persons of a less desirable eclecticism? Unfortunately it devolved principally upon the Dutch painters to delineate an art the utilitarian aspect of which was the only one they appreciated.

How much depends on the first steps in skating, how delightful a task to teach them to the young idea, particularly if it is of the opposite sex.

As to the first steps, many infallible instructions have been given, and we remember finding in an early treatise the advice that a bag of lead shot should be placed in a pocket on the side to which one desired to lean, a suggestion which opens up interesting possibilities in dynamics.

Our advice to novices is to work out their own salvation as far as possible; those who become accustomed to the support of others rarely learn to skate with confidence and freedom alone. In these days, when professional tuition is available, too much dependence is placed on the instructor, and originality is sacrificed. This is not of much moment as regards the somewhat mechanical school figures, but pupils insist on being taught free skating, of which nothing beyond the mere dry bones can ever be indicated; these must be clothed and animated with the individuality of the skater himself.

illustration

ON THE ST. LAWRENCE.

illustration

A CANADIAN ICE YACHT.

Now that Switzerland affords ever-increasing facilities for winter-sport holidays many of our boys and girls get plenty of practice at an early age; it was not so some years ago, and I remember the rare and auspicious occasion, when a cold snap visited the West Country and introduced me, as a small boy, to ice in bulk.

What a treasure was that old pair of Fen runners, relics of a past generation, obtuse and red with rust—they were fastened on somehow and I was soon disporting myself upon the nearest pond.

Few of our Cornish folk had heard of skating, none of them had ever seen a pair of skates, and my divagations were shortly interrupted by a vernacular outcry: "Com y’ ere’r telle, there be a little tacker a skitterin’ in pattens."

It must not be supposed that figure skating is the only form of ice sport which is to be commended; racing and touring have also their pleasures, and ice yachting and skate sailing are glorious diversions. On