- Joined
- Jul 26, 2003
i agree with what someone wrote in here...
when i went to my first live event, i was amazed at the speed and skills even the lowest dance team had compared to single skaters (of course the top single skaters were great too) and i think that to see the intricacy of ice dance steps and patterns, at such speed gives it another perspective for a viewer who wouldn't grasp that on tv or online...
i was in for a treat as i went to ACI and saw V/M's FD of this year.... it was mesmerizing...
The Shibs said seeing the ice dancers at 2003 Worlds was one of the reasons they got into ice dance. They were impressed with the skating skills and speed of the dancers.
I am definitely interested in ice dance! But I have no idea how it works!! I know what a curve lift is, and I know what twizzles are, but basically nothing else. And the olympics are approaching. So, does anyone know of a YouTube video explaining basic knowledge of ice dance? Like, what makes a good pattern dance? how to tell if a team is doing difficult moves or not? What's the rotational lift? What's the difference between a level 3 step sequence and a level 4? Etc etc etc......
With the olympics coming I'd really like to understand the scoring.
Thanks
This website is a great resource:
http://www.ice-dance.com/site/
Check out the reference section for a detailed written explanation of all pattern dances, ice dance terms, holds, etc. There's even a history of what rhythms were prescribed in season's past.
U.S. ice dancers Kseniya and Oleg have a great number of videos teaching basic skating and ice dance steps. Some of their videos break down the compulsory/pattern dances as well. I learned a lot from watching their videos:
https://www.youtube.com/user/kseniyaOleg
I honest love watching 80s and 90s compulsory videos because I think there's so much clarity to the steps and pattern in the top teams' execution back then that we can see what the steps are supposed to look like.
Here is a series of video tutorials for the cumpulsory/pattern dances that even has illustrations of the pattern and what skaters are supposed to do:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRxHXjRwwNY&list=PLpjA5VAc6bWPy040nGAd57DK49NUdmKre
It doesn't have every pattern, but it's useful.
Here is what the Midnight Blues was supposed to look like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuuqT7Vshps&index=3&list=PLpjA5VAc6bWPy040nGAd57DK49NUdmKre
You can compare it to this past season's SDs where they only did the beginning.
Here's the Ravensburger Waltz pattern and you can compare it to the 2015-2016 SDs of the top teams:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8c8Pd6bgw0&index=13&list=PLpjA5VAc6bWPy040nGAd57DK49NUdmKre
Check out a very young Virtue/Moir showing off the proper hold in the Golden Waltz video, considered to be one of the most if not the most difficult of all the pattern dances because it's incredibly complex both in the blade work and in the changes holds. It was invented by Natalia Dubova and 1992 Olympic Champions Marina Klimova/Sergei Ponomarenko (my personal favorite ice dance team of all time, especially their more traditional stuff before 1990-1991) as K/P's Original Set Pattern (the precursor to the original dance, which was the precursor to the short dance) for the 1986-1987 season where they won the OSP portion of 1987 Worlds. It was last prescribed at the 2010-2011 season and the SDs were very long that season because they did an entire pattern.
This post has become long, but let me know if you want to see some videos of compulsories I like from the past.