There’s more to skating than MOVES the eye!

Whether you’re a parent of a skater new to Moves in the Field, or a parent with an athlete who has a few or more Moves tests under her belt, you may not understand what exactly Moves in the Field is, why it’s vital to the skillset of your skater, its relationship to Synchro, and its relationship to other figure skating disciplines. 

Moves in the field: it’s hard not to imagine a grassy pastureland, maybe some cows munching on green grass, but “moves in the field” or “Moves” for short is a discipline of figure skating originally designed to replace Figures Testing in USFS testing structure. You parents have probably heard of or seen figure eights, you can watch them here, to get an idea.

This change away from figures and toward Moves was implemented in 1996, and though I risk dating myself, I remember the switch well. What characterized figures: edge quality, control, precision, and clean precise turns, also characterizes Moves. The difference being, in Moves patterns may use the entire ice surface in some cases, while in figures patterns were limited  to a small patch of ice to demonstrate your turns and edge quality. The patch of ice was so small in fact that the Judges used to stand in their sneakers on the ice and watch as the skater performed the figures, and then would walk to the patch and analyze the tracings left behind before awarding a PASS or RETEST.