The turns and changes are to be made on the near side of fixed points determined by the candidate; the distance between these, and the lengths of the first and last curves, are to be each not less than 50 feet beginning on forward edges, 35 feet beginning on back edges.
| Group E | |
| Max. Marks. | |
| Outside forward three, change | 2 |
| Inside forward three, change | 3 |
| Outside forward rocker, change | 3 |
| Inside forward rocker, change | 3 |
| Outside forward bracket, change | 5 |
| Inside forward bracket, change | 4 |
| Outside forward counter, change | 5 |
| Inside forward counter, change | 3 |
| Group F | |
| Outside back three, change | 5 |
| Inside back three, change | 8 |
| Outside back rocker, change | 6 |
| Inside back rocker, change | 8 |
| Group G | |
| Outside back bracket, change | 16 |
| Inside back bracket, change | 8 |
| Outside back counter, change | 16 |
| Inside back counter, change | 8 |
| Group H | |
| Grape Vines | |
| Single, each foot leading | 2 |
| Double forward | 3 |
| Double backward | 3 |
| Pennsylvania | 5 |
| Philadelphia | 6 |
Now, again omitting for the moment the subject of combined skating, we see that in Part II the rest of the groundwork of English skating is very thoroughly traversed. To pass this final test the skater has to be able to execute all the threes (the two simple ones are omitted, as they have already been required in the second test), rockers, brackets, counters, mohawks, and choctaws at fair speed and on large edges at a given point on the ice. Having done that to the satisfaction of the judges, he has then to make his selection from a large number of 8’s, which include practically most possible 8’s comprising one or two turns, excepting these simple ones with regard to which he has already satisfied the judges in his second test. Here he has to score marks, selecting not more than one 8 of each group, and by the devilish ingenuity of those who drew up this test, it is impossible for him to get through unless the majority of the 8’s he selects to skate are really difficult. He may then add to his marks by executing what are called reverse Q’s at two given points on the ice. At the first of these he has to make his turn, whatever it is, and at the second to change his edge. This requires a considerable degree of accuracy, for in order to arrive smoothly and still at a fair travelling pace at the second point, he will find that he has to have a practically perfect control of the edge, which has not been disturbed by executing a difficult back turn, let us say, at the first given point. Finally, if he is still in want of marks, he may earn a few more by a grape-vine. This latter does not properly belong to English skating, since it is a two-footed figure, and those responsible for the test might have omitted this group with advantage.
The Combined Figure.—Probably no branch of sport—except, perhaps, flying—has undergone such improvement and revolution within the last fifteen years as this art of combined skating. Not only are there a vastly multiplied number of competent and even first-rate combined skaters, but the skill demanded of a first-rate combined skater, and the variety of the manœuvres he may be called upon to execute, is immeasurably greater than a decade and a half ago. I do not mean that there were not in 1897 a certain number of skaters who might have been able to execute a difficult set as directed by a caller of to-day, but these were, in golfing parlance, “plus players,” and the ordinary “scratch” skater—one, that is, who had passed his First Class N.S.A.—would have had no more chance of getting through such a set without throwing everybody out, and himself down, than he would have of flying. Both the speed and the size of these combined figures has greatly increased, and the whole of the material of English skating is employed. And the main reason for this improvement and revolution is due to the greatly augmented number of English skaters who now go to Switzerland in the winter, and the multiplication there of really large rinks.
That this immense improvement has taken place in combined skating is proved, luckily, not only by the fallacious memory of individuals, but by printed records. I have before me the Badminton volume on skating (edition 1902), in which, for instance, we find the following figure (among many others like it).
“Forward two turns. This movement skated to a centre is very difficult, and is a great test of good skating, and many men make a practice of devoting five or ten minutes to skating it every day when they come on the ice, feeling that if they can skate it, making the curves between the turns of equal length and making the turns clean without any scrape and yet coming true to the centre, they are in good form and equal to skate anything that may be required of them.”
Now no doubt two turns to a centre, as required in the second-class test, is a very good elementary figure, but it no longer has anything whatever to do with combined skating, whether it is skated with a partner or with a second pair, or simultaneously with other skaters. Speed and size and difficulty (as demanded by the scale on which combined skaters now move) are necessarily absent from it, and from a hundred others of these calls which then were the last word in combined skating. A man who had passed his second-class test would be capable of doing this, which was then considered a criterion of good combined skating, whereas the same man could not live for two calls in a combined figure of moderate difficulty to-day. The whole nature of the business has changed: turns have to be executed at high speed far away from the centre, and the curliness and smallness of such skating as is here implied and necessitated has vanished altogether, giving place to a far more difficult style and speed.
Nor, again, in this respect, is Part I, in the first-class English test, up-to-date in requirements of size. Here we read that on a “twice back” the candidate must recede at least 35 feet from the centre. That no doubt was laid down because on the artificial rinks available in England, such a distance took the skaters nearly to the bounds of the space at his disposal. But any candidate who, on the Swiss rinks, where nowadays almost all first-class tests are passed, receded but 35 feet from the centre would have, practically speaking, no chance of getting through. His lawless judges would inevitably tell him to skate larger. Still less would he be able to take part in any combined figure-skating for amusement by skaters who had any pretension to be of the first-class. With these big surfaces of rink, the whole style and method has become larger and faster, and therefore more difficult.
A third instance, to prove how greatly the art of combined skating has progressed, has the ring of pathos about it, and, though only oral, is trustworthy. A friend of mine, who resides at that excellent English skating centre, Oxford, told me that in old days he could scarcely get a combined figure, since the most elementary calls were sufficient to floor his partners. But not so long ago he told me he could scarcely get a combined figure, since nobody cared to skate such elementary calls as he was capable of. But he assures me that he skates just as well now as he did in the days when there was nobody up to his standard. Perhaps in twenty years more, no first-class skater will care to engage in such simple stuff as we now think rather advanced. And dearly will such present-day skaters who are fortunate enough to be alive then, love to see the newer and more arduous manœuvres! But since it is impossible to prophesy about the things we cannot imagine, it must be sufficient to give the outlines of combined skating as practised by fairly expert gentlemen to-day.