Author: Bev

Grapevines

Bev

The grapevine is a move that goes back to the middle of the nineteenth century but has mostly been forgotten by figure skaters today. It still survives outside of figure skating.

On December 21, 1867, this move became known to the skaters of England through a diagram and brief description in The Field, the newspaper of choice for skaters of that time.

From M. A. C., “Club Figures—The Grapevine, &c.,” The Field, December 21, 1867, 511. Image © The British Library Board. All rights reserved. Courtesy of the British Newspaper Archive.

A few years later, T. Maxwell Witham described his experience learning the grapevine from this diagram.

I learned the grape vine by simply taking a diagram that had been sent to me from Canada (unaccompanied by any description) … and forcing my feet to follow the turns and curves. By this means I acquired the action, and subsequent practice made it go.

T. Maxwell Witham, “The Grape Vine,” The Field, December 30, 1871, 581.

Other skaters were perplexed, and he tried to help them by appending a rather long and confusing explanation. A quarter-century later, he implied that grapevines were worthwhile even though they were not “pure skating.”

Although it will have become apparent to my readers that I am a great advocate for pure skating, as exemplified by long-sustained efforts on one or the other foot, yet it would be absurd to ignore the beauties of the two-foot figures which are known to most figure-skaters as “the grape-vines.”

T. Maxwell Witham, A System of Figure Skating, 5th ed. (London: Horace Cox, 1897), 182.

His attitude toward “pure skating” lingers in competitive figure skating. The Rulebook requires to skaters to minimize their two-footed skating (rules 6091 and 8072(A)(3)), so you won’t find grapevines in figure skating programs today. But you can find them elsewhere: in freestyle skating on inline skates. The technique is a bit different because the skates are, but you can see how nicely grapevines move.

Naomi Grigg explains how to do a grapevine on inline skates.

This was the first of many grapevines to perplex skaters. Because these moves were skated on two feet, they were difficult to explain in words and pictures. Today, videos make communicating tricks much easier.

References

The 2020 Official U.S. Figure Skating Rulebook. 2019. Colorado Springs: U.S. Figure Skating.

M. A. C. 1867. “Club Figures—The Grapevine, &c.” The Field, December 21, 1867, 511.

T. Maxwell Witham. 1871. “The Grape Vine.” The Field, December 30, 1871, 581.

T. Maxwell Witham. 1897. A System of Figure Skating, 5th ed. London: Horace Cox, 1897.

Dowler blades

Bev

Dowler blades look like a disaster for figure skating. They’re only slightly wider than modern freestyle blades in the middle, but flare out at the ends, to nearly half an inch wide. Invented in 1879, they enjoyed a brief period of popularity in the late nineteenth century.

Dowler blades with Mount Charles fittings.

These strange blades were immediately endorsed by skating great T. Maxwell Witham, author (with H. E. Vandervell) of the monumental A System of Figure Skating, which defined English skating. He enthusiastically recommended them in The Field in time for skaters to buy their own for the next season:

Towards the end of last skating season Capt. Dowler, a member of the Skating Club, astonished the other members by bringing to the club ice a skate made with concave sides. Several of the members tried it, and it was obvious, not only that it worked well, but that all movements were skated with very much greater ease and power on it than on the old form of blade. I myself gave it a good trial, and was so impressed with its merits that I persuaded Capt. Dowler to go at once to a patent agent and file a specification of his invention.

T. Maxwell Witham (1879, 479).

Dowler did as Witham advised, and his patent was granted. His intention was to make it easier to skate curves by having a blade that approximated one and, according to Witham, he was successful.

Dowler skates became the skates to have for some years after that. In The Babe, B.A., the eponymous character, desiring to skate,

bought himself a pair of Dowler blades with Mount Charles fittings, which he was assured by an enthusiastic friend were the only skates with which it was possible to preserve one’s self-respect, and fondly hoped that self-respect was a synonym for balance.

E. F. Benson (1897, ch. 20).

The popularity of these skates was not long-lived. In the year that The Babe was published, Mrs. Walter Creyke “asked the advice of many of the best skaters” and found that all

agree in condemning the Dowler blade (which I use and like), with one exception, and he told me that the second-class test could be skated on Dowlers.

Mrs. Walter Creyke (1897, 484).

In the earlier year of the twentieth century, the popularity of the Dowler blade waned further. Benson (1908, 16-17) recommended against purchasing Dowler blades despite their recommendation “by a shopman or by an enthusiastic friend.” H. E. Vandervell went further in The Figure Skate. After a full discussion (52–55) of the blades, he described his analysis of both convex- and concave-sided blades (55–69). After all that, he could

really see nothing in the convex or concave, after this searching inquiry, to dethrone the parallel [blade] from its well-deserved position, but on the contrary everything to enhance its value as far and away the best form of blade for curvilinear skating.

H. E. Vandervell ([1901] 2020, 69).

The Dowler skate went out of use not long after its invention. Today, it has largely been forgotten.

Mount Charles fittings may be a subject for another day. They are the two plates that attach to the boot and allow the blade to be screwed in. You can see them in the picture.

References

F. E. Dowler. 1879. Improvement in skates. US Patent 216,159A, issued June 3, 1879.

E. F. Benson. 1896. The Babe, B.A.: Being the Uneventful History of a Young Gentleman at Cambridge University. London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

E. F. Benson. 1908. English Figure Skating: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Skating in the English Style. London: George Bell and Sons.

Mrs. Walter Creyke. 1897. “Skating on Artificial Ice.” The Nineteenth Century: A Monthly Review. 46: 474-486.

T. Maxwell Witham. 1879. “New form of blade for figure skates.” The Field, October 11, 1879, 479.

H. E. Vandervell. (1901) 2020. The Figure Skate. London: H. E. Vandervell. Reprint, Evanston, IL: Skating History Press. Citations refer to the Skating History Press edition.

Sven T. Kjellberg’s experiments with bone skates

Bev
Sven T. Kjellberg. Photo
courtesy of Wikimedia
Commons.

In 1940, Sven T. Kjellberg published the results of his experiments on bone skates. He concluded that the bones he evaluated weren’t used as skates, but others could have been. I reached a different conclusion from his results.

Kjellberg took a pair of bone skates to a small pond in his neighborhood to try them out (pp. 76-77). Pushing with a pole in the usual manner, he was able to get going pretty well. The problem came when he reached the end of the pond. Turning on bone skates is extremely difficult, and he was only able to accomplish it by bending his knees inward and pressing on the insides of the skates. This, he reasoned, would produce noticeable wear on the bones—after just ten minutes, he could already see wear starting to appear. Skates subjected to more intense use would eventually become rounded on the inside.

To me, this seems more like a side effect of suboptimal experimental conditions. It seems more likely that bone skates were generally used in fairly straight lines—across lakes, for example. Olaus Magnus describes long-distance races on bone skates, and William fitz Stephen‘s skaters glided in straight lines toward each other while jousting.

Kjellberg’s other main point is that in Lund, where the bones he was examining were found, winter terrain would have consisted of many small skating areas, such as the spaces between dams along a river. Skaters would have had to walk along streets and other non-icy surfaces to get from one bit of ice to the next. This, he argues, would have left marks on their skates.

For today’s skaters, the response to this is simple: use skate guards. There is no evidence for guards for bone skates, and they don’t seem necessary. This situation could have encouraged skaters to simply not attach their skates to their feet. Tying bone skates on wasn’t necessary because skaters never lifted their feet from the ice. Unattached skates would have made it easy to reach the edge of one skating area, step off the skates, pick them up, carry them to the next skating area, put them down, step back on, and glide away. In this situation, bindings would have been more trouble than they were worth.

Kjellberg doesn’t rule out the use of bone skates as skates, but does say he doesn’t think the bones he was examining were skates because the wear patterns weren’t what he expected based on his experiments. I think more extensive experiments would have helped.

Reference

Sven T. Kjellberg (1940). “Gnida, mangla, och stryka.” Kulturens årsbok, 68-91.

Jackson Haines’ parlour skates

Bev
Jackson Haines in 1866.
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Jackson Haines is often credited with inventing modern figure skating. American by birth, he traveled to Europe in the 1860s and performed in various countries. His skating proved particularly inspirational to the Viennese. There, dancing on ice took off and, going down a long and twisty path, eventually resulted in today’s figure skating. The focus of this post is on his skates.

Haines’ first stop was London. On September 3, 1864, Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle noted his arrival of Jackson Haines:

Mr Jackson Haines, the champion skater of America, has just arrived in this country with a view of giving us a taste of his qualities. It might seem strange that he should have selected this time of year for his exhibitions did we not know that he is quite as much at home on terra firma, with his parlour skates, and can accomplish as many tours de force as he can in ordinary skates on the ice. Mr Haines is in treaty for an engatement with several London managers, and, we doubt not, will shortly be before the public.

Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle, Saturday, September 3, 1864, p. 8.

What were these “parlour skates”? A later article clarifies:

The patent skate used by Mr. Haines runs on three indiarubber wheels, and the effect under his sway was almost to lead the spectator to believe the Palace was an ice-house and the platform in front of the Shakespere-house frozen over. The rapidity with which he moves in his dances is exceedingly pleasing, and indeed marvellous.

Express (London), Tuesday, September 27, 1864, p. 2.

Were these the first artistic inline skates? I haven’t found a picture of them, but there are some pictures of Haines on inline skates with four wheels. The fourth wheel may have been added in a later version of the design.

Incidentally, the Express‘s description of Haines’ performance as “exceedingly pleasing” and “marvellous” contrasts with the usual story of Haines’ reception in England, but that’s a story for another time.

Prikschaatsen

Bev1 Comment

Prikschaats is the Dutch name for a type of medieval skate that includes a spike at the toe. It translates to “prick-skate.” I’ve already written about prikschaatsen here and here. I also made a pair.

My prikschaatsen.

I made them out of part of a regular old 2×4 and some 3/8″ square bar stock (mild steel). The methods I used weren’t entirely historically accurate. The ordinary power tools and propane forge were analogous to medieval methods—the same workflow, with less soot and exercise. But I did use electric welding, which was definitely not available 500+ years ago, to attach the toe picks.

I’ve skated on them and they do work. After a bit of practice, I was able to skate by pushing with the toe picks. Since the blades are wide and flat (not hollow-ground like modern figure and hockey skates), they tend to slide sideways, which makes it difficult to push off an edge like modern skaters do. Skating on them feels more like walking than skating on modern skates does. For an intermediate step between pole-pushing and edge-pushing, this seems quite reasonable.

My prikschaatsen are featured in CIADC’s online member gallery!

Pivots

Bev

Among the skills learned by today’s figure skaters are pivots, two-foot moves where the skater sticks the toe (or occasionally heel) of one blade into the ice while the other foot circles around it. Skaters generally learn four pivots in this order:

  1. Forward inside (at :20)
  2. Backward inside (at 0:34)
  3. Backward outside (at 0:19)
  4. Forward outside

The pivots are named after the edge the circling foot is on. The links are to the ISI test requirements. The forward outside pivot is considered an uncaptured move by the ISI and is rarely seen, but it is done in the same position as the backward outside pivot.

Back in the day, there were more pivots. The Skater’s Text Book (p. 59–60) lists six pivots! The two extra ones are:

  1. The outside edge toe-step forward, foot in front.—Start the same as in the last movement [forward outside pivot], but instead of crossing the foot over behind, cross it in front.
  2. The outside edge toe-step backward, foot in front.—Start on the outside edge backward, and cross the pivot-foot over in front, placing the pivot-toe on the ice, as far over as possible, and circle around it on the outside edge.

What happened to these extra pivots? Figure skaters don’t do them any more, perhaps because they are much harder than the pivots that do survive (even forward outside seems to be dying out) and aren’t as flashy as fancy jumps and spins. But they do survive in freestyle slalom skating. Here’s a video with the full set of freestyle slalom pivots.

The full set of pivots, on inline skates.

The video includes heel pivots, which are rarely done (but known) in figure skating today. The correspondences are:

  1. Forward inside pivot = forward uncrossed toe pivot
  2. Backward inside pivot = backward uncrossed toe pivot
  3. Backward outside pivot = backward crossed-behind toe pivot
  4. Forward outside pivot = forward crossed-behind toe pivot
  5. Extra forward outside pivot = forward crossed-in-front toe pivot
  6. Extra backward outside pivot = backward crossed-in-front toe pivot

These pivots aren’t just curiosities in freestyle slalom skating. They actually get used in programs, like this one:

Sofia Bogdanova does a backward crossed-in-front pivot at 1:41.

It’s fascinating to see how these moves have survived!

Reference

Frank Swift and Marvin R. Clark. 1868. The Skater’s Text Book. New York: John A. Gray & Green.

Freestyle slalom skating

Bev2 Comments
Image courtesy of Seongbin Im.

In this ice-free time, it seems appropriate to post about ways to keep skating off the ice. Skating on wheels—both quad and inline—has evolved in new directions that take advantage of the unique properties of these skates. I’m particularly interested in old skating moves that have survived on wheels, but not on ice.

Freestyle slalom skating consists of a series of tricks done around a line of cones. Skaters usually use inline skates, though quad roller skates are sometimes used, and occasionally people try slalom tricks on ice, generally in hockey skates. Here are a couple of example videos that will give you a sense of how it works.

I find freestyle slalom skating more interesting than artistic inline skating, sometimes called inline figure skating, because it doesn’t try to be ice figure skating. It clearly draws some inspiration from figure skating, but has gone native, taking advantage of things inline skates can do that figure skates can’t, like gliding on the front or back wheel alone.

Some relics of early twentieth-century figure skating survive here. Many slalom tricks seem to be based on grapevines, two-footed maneuvers that were banished from figure skating because they didn’t fit the increasingly narrow definition of what skating was. Skating on one foot was more highly prized than skating on two feet. Other moves, like extra pivots, have also been preserved. Watch for more about these in the coming days.

Marks or tracings?

Bev

I’ve written about Spuren auf dem Eise before—it’s one of the founding texts of figure skating. Two editions were published, the first in 1881 and the second in 1892. The second edition is substantially revised to include an expanded section on artistic skating. One interesting change comes in the section on theory. The first edition includes the sentence

Die Marken auf dem Eise sind das unauslöschliche Sündenregister, welches die Schlittschuhseele des Eisläufers, sein Schwerpunkt, auf dem Gewissen hat. (p. 132)

(The marks on the ice are the indelible register of sins, which the skate-soul of the skater focuses on consciously.)

Spuren auf dem Eise (1881), p. 132. Translation my own.

The second edition, in contrast, says

Die Spuren auf dem Eise sind das unauslöschliche Sündenregister, welches die Schlittschuhseele des Eisläufers, sein Schwerpunkt, auf dem Gewissen hat.

(The tracings on the ice are the indelible register of sins, which the skate-soul of the skater focuses on consciously.)

Spuren auf dem Eise (1892), p. 89. Translation my own.

The only difference is that “Marken” (marks) changed to “Spuren” (tracks). I’ve translated “Spuren” as tracings since that’s what the marks left by skates on the ice are called today. This change emphasizes the control skaters were developing and the goal of producing a visible design: marks can be any random imperfections, but tracings are left on purpose. This change signals the development of figures as a discipline of skating that contrasts with the visual spectacle of dancing on ice.

Both editions have “Spuren” in the title, which shows that this idea was present from at least 1881. The change in the second edition shows that the emphasis on tracings became even stronger. Both editions go on to say

Hervorragende Eisläufer erkennt man an ihren Spuren auf dem Eise.

(One recognizes outstanding skaters by their tracings on the ice.)

Spuren auf dem Eise (1881), p. 133; (1892), p. 89. Translation my own.

References

D. Diamantidi, C. von Korper, and M. Wirth. 1881. Spuren auf dem Eise. Vienna: Alfred Hölder.

D. Diamantidi, C. von Korper, and M. Wirth. 1892. Spuren auf dem Eise. 2nd ed. Vienna: Alfred Hölder.

The cost of skating (in 1899)

Bev

In 1899, Frederick George Aflalo compiled a book called The Cost of Sport. It’s an attempt to quantify how much you should expect to pay to participate in various sports. There’s a short section on skating by Theodore Andrea Cook. Cook lists the following expenses:

  • Skates: A sturdy pair of boots plus some nice blades. No price is given for the boots, but the blades cost about one pound. According to the Bank of England’s inflation calculator, that’s about £129.47 today.
  • Club membership: No price is given.
  • Admission to artificially frozen ice rinks: Again, no price is given.
  • Travel to natural ice: This is where the bill gets huge, with a four-month stay in Switzerland for “the best skating in the world” at luxury hotel rates (p. 344).
  • Personal ice rink: The equipment for ice maintenance costs “something under a sovereign,” or a bit less than a pair of good blades. Labor, however, can be very expensive!

The cost of clearing away snow is often a heavier matter, and the secretary of the Wimbledon Lake Skating Club has reckoned that a really heavy fall costs the club not far short of a sovereign a minute while it falls.

Cook 1899, p. 344

Comparing this list to the expenses facing skaters today is quite interesting. Skaters still need skates, ice time, and club membership. Skaters still travel to training camps, though these are generally no longer held on natural ice. Personal ice rinks are uncommon today. Interestingly, two of the major expenses facing today’s skaters are absent: coaching and costumes. Back then, skaters helped each other informally and skated in clothes suited to everyday wear. There’s also the expense of testing and competing, including travel to competitions. Skaters also did these things in 1899, but Cook does not mention them.

Reference

Theodore Andrea Cook. 1899. “Ice Sports” in The Cost of Sport, edited by F. G. Aflalo, p. 342-347. London: John Murray.