"How do I stop?" is usually among the first questions asked by beginning skaters. Robert Jones notes that being able to stop is important because skaters often collide and recommends three ways to stop in his book (pp. 56–57): Jump and make a quarter turn in the air [Stopping] may be easily done, by leaping… Continue reading How to stop in 1772
Category: Books and articles
Skating in Thomson’s Winter
James Thomson's The Seasons was a collection of four poems, one for each season, published in the eighteenth century. Since this blog is about skating, we're interested in Winter. Winter was the first season to be published, in 1726. At that point it didn't have any skating in it. That version is available from ECCO… Continue reading Skating in Thomson’s Winter
Sonja Henie in My Lucky Star
My former colleague Ann and I wrote a paper about a Sonja Henie movie. It's pretty clear what parts each of us contributed: The skating geekery is mine, and the serious philosophy is hers. Sonja Henie on the cover of Time's July 17, 1939 issue. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Editions of Robert Jones’s Treatise on Skating
I've sorted out the various editions of Robert Jones's Treatise on Skating in a new article. As I was doing this, I discovered several new things that aren't mentioned in my edition of his book. It seemed like lots of new stuff has come online in the last few years! And now it's time to… Continue reading Editions of Robert Jones’s Treatise on Skating
Stevens’ Bibliography of Figure Skating
Ryan Stevens, who writes the Skate Guard blog, has taken on the gargantuan task of making sense of all the books on figure skating published in the last century and a quarter by continuing F. W. Foster’s 1898 Bibliography of Skating. It's a job worth doing and Stevens is to be commended for taking it… Continue reading Stevens’ Bibliography of Figure Skating
Vieth, On Skating
I have completed my translation of the first German book on skating, Gerhard Ulrich Anton Vieth's Ueber das Schrittschuhlaufen. It was originally a lecture given in Dessau in 1788, then published as a journal article in 1789, and finally published in book form with some additions by an anonymous editor in 1790. Vieth's book is… Continue reading Vieth, On Skating
Lunn’s Letters to Young Winter Sportsmen
The cover of the Home Farm Books reprint. Note the misused comma! Young men planning to spend the winter at an Alpine resort (which lots of rich English people did back in the day) and get involved in winter sports while there are the intended audience of this book, which was published in 1927. The… Continue reading Lunn’s Letters to Young Winter Sportsmen
Frostiana’s chapter on skating
The cover of my edition of Frostiana. Frostiana is a book about various ice activities that was allegedly (but probably not literally) published on the ice during the last London Frost Fair in 1814. I put together an edition of it a few years ago. The whole book is a collection of previous works, generally… Continue reading Frostiana’s chapter on skating
Skates Made of Bone is on sale
McFarland, my publisher, is offering 40% off when you shop with code HOLIDAY22 through November 28. That means you can get my bone skates book for $27 instead of the usual $45. After that, the code will get you 25% off for the rest of the holiday season. The code is good storewide. They have… Continue reading Skates Made of Bone is on sale
End of the Compulsories
James Hines, author of the great big skating history book, has come out with another book. This one is billed as focusing on figures and has been made much of by US Figure Skating: Sarah Brannen reviewed it on the USFSA site and the August 2022 issue of Skating mentioned it. It's a self-published limited… Continue reading End of the Compulsories