DEVELOPMENT

Development of ice skating

Ice skating is a blend of athletic and artistic  skills. It can be categorized as recreational activity as well as a competitive sports. The first skating race was held in England in 1763. Figure skating moved to the next  by organizing first world championship in North America in year 1889. The Father of Modern Skating was Jackson Heines of New York City and later popularized by Norway’s Sonja Heines in late 1920s and 1930s. Icy sports dwell through a tremendous development. Ice skating is played ii all over Europe. United States of  America, Southwest Ontario, North Carolina, Ohio and even in Asian country. Wherever there’s ice,there’s figure skates.

Synchronized skating

The person who pioneered a synchronized figure skating  was Dr. Richard Peter in 1954. In 1976, the first team skating tournament was held in Ann Arbor, Mich. The second synchronized skating championship was held in Bowling Green, Ohio in 1984. Synchronized skating participating into ISU Congress in 1994. Since then, people began to accept synchronized skating as an official game sport and they are played in several countries e.g: Sweden, Finland, Canada, Italy, Miami and USA.

In order to synchronize their movement, each member must be competent at a variety of skating skills, including speed, footwork and ice presence.they perform simpler task such as twizzles, three turns, Mohawks and Choctaws.

·      Choctaws Turn

A Choctaw is a simple turn in synchronized skating from an edge to the other edge or forward to backward and vice versa.

                                                  

                                                                           
Mohawk Turn

·         Mohawk Turn  is quite similar to Choctaw Turn. The only difference is that skaters turn to the same edge where they began while Choctaw Turn ended up in different edge.