Customer Reviews

The Complete Book of Figure Skating

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is one of the best books about figure skating available. It is an excellent guide for figure skaters who want to improve their skills and a good coaching reference. Many photos and step-by-step instructions provide information for learning turns and footwork, spins, jumps, freestyle moves, basic moves, and pairs. Also included in this book are information on choosing skates, warming up, types of figure skating, fitness and strength, and more. Plus, there is helpful information on choosing music and costumes for programs. This book is a wonderful, helpful reference for all figure skaters and coaches.

This is a great book for any figure skater! It gives you tips on moves and tells you step by step how to do them. It gives instruction on the basics, freestyle moves, spins, jumps, footwork, and pairs skating. It also gives you tips for just starting out. It highlights popular figure skaters for their specific moves (example: Lucinda Rue for her spins, Scott Hamilton for his footwork, ect.). It is a great book for any skater of any level or age.

This is a much more visual book than Petkevich's, which has detailed verbal explanations that take a bit of effort to visualize. Unfortunately, some of the pictures in Shulman's book leave large gaps between frames, and it's hard to tell how to get from one position to the next.

There are some editorial or proofing mistakes that really hurt the book. Figure skating spins and jumps are done in one direction (counterclockwise for most, clockwise for some) that the skater chooses early-on in their training. Shulman explains this, and the fact that her directions are for counterclockwise spinners and need to be reversed by clockwise spinners. Unfortunately the picture and directions for the one-footed spin are backwards, and describe a *clockwise* entry and spin when all the other spins are written for counter-clockwise skaters. This will be very confusing for a begining skater who has no coach of their own!

In one or two other places a picture is reversed (mirror image), which again can be very confusing if you're trying to learn on your own and don't know that there's a mistake in the book.

There is a good section on modern off-ice strength training, including periodization.

Overall I'd recommend this book *in conjunction* with Petkevich's book: both have gaps that the other complements. And of course there's no substitute for a real coach!

This book is complete in the sense that it has information on all aspects of skating, from beginner skills to advanced techniques. However, the beginner section is not extensive, so this is more for skaters who have mastered the basics and want to learn the proper technique for spins and jumps. The pictures to demonstrate the moves are nice, but sometimes not very helpful, since the in-between steps are not included (a lot happens from picture 1a to picture 1b).

When they say complete they mean it. Having searched the internet for several technical terms I was often frustrated with the limited information. This book not only provides great on ice information but great 360-degree review for the avid skater.

It has information to all of the essential movements in figure skating, spins, jumps, footworks. It also has a lot of interesting and related stories to the movements such as Paul Wylie's spread eagle.

A great book for a figure skater.

I agree with previous reviews. This is an excellent book for both skaters and their parents. It not only provides detail information and graphics about each move and jump on ice, but also give a good advice on how important it is for off ice training and passion of the sport.

I was disappointed in the book because I wanted it for a new young figure sakter, and I was anticipating more pictures -- this book is very technical and for older skaters.