Ice Skating Vocabulary Quiz

Figure skating pairs perform overhead lifts, throw jumps, solo jumps, and death spirals, requiring great athleticism. Ice dance prohibits overhead lifts and solo jumps, instead rewarding musical interpretation and intricate footwork, making it the discipline most closely related to ballroom dancing. Ice dancers also maintain a close hold for much of their programme.

The axel is widely regarded as the most difficult jump in figure skating because it is the only jump that takes off facing forward rather than backward. This forward take-off means the skater must complete an extra half-rotation in the air compared to other jumps of the same name — a single axel has one and a half rotations, a triple axel has three and a half.

Both the lutz and the flip use the toe pick to launch from the ice, but they differ in the edge used for take-off. A flip takes off from the back inside edge, while a lutz takes off from the back outside edge. When a skater mistakenly takes off from the wrong edge on a lutz attempt, it is informally called a flutz.

The component score is the part of a figure skater's mark that assesses the artistic and skating quality of the performance rather than the technical content. Under the current judging system there are five components: skating skills, transitions, performance, composition, and interpretation of music, each marked out of 10 by the judging panel.

A Zamboni is an ice-resurfacing machine that drives slowly across the rink between skating sessions. It shaves a thin layer off the top of the ice to remove ruts and grooves, collects the shavings, and lays a thin film of clean, hot water that freezes to create a smooth, fresh sheet of ice.

The death spiral is a required element of pair skating in which the man pivots on one toe pick while the woman glides around him in a sweeping arc, held by one hand, leaning back until her body is nearly parallel to the ice. It requires exceptional trust, balance, and precise grip between the two skaters.

The bottom of a skate blade has two sharp edges running along its length, separated by a hollow groove — the inside edge, closest to the arch of the foot, and the outside edge, furthest from the arch. Skaters transfer weight from edge to edge to turn, push, and glide, and almost every jump and spin specifies which edge the skate must be on.

The short programme is shorter, around two and a half minutes, and must include a precisely defined set of required elements. The free skate is longer, around four to four and a half minutes, and gives skaters much more freedom to choose their own elements, music, and choreography. Both scores combine to determine the final result.

Crossovers are a fundamental skating technique used to generate and maintain speed while travelling along a curve. The skater crosses the outside foot over the inside foot with each stride, pushing off the inner edge of the crossed foot to propel the body forward smoothly around the curve.

Watch figure skating broadcasts with English commentary and notice how commentators name every jump, spin, and step sequence. Reading official judging protocols after competitions is also excellent practice. Supplement this with Flash Cards on LexFizz and test yourself with this quiz to fix the words in memory.