aftershocks
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Why that book specifically? There have been lots of how-to books on skating from the 19th and 20th centuries, from different experts' perspectives. Vinson herself wrote more than one. What makes this book more applicable to today's skaters than any of the others? Some of the lessons and tips therein, which I'm sure will come in handy for a 21st century competitive career:
Shorts are all right for the youngsters while they are practicing school figures but should be completely discarded for dancing and free skating, where the swish of a well-cut skirt adds so much to the grace of the movement...
The best way of gaining speed [for spirals] is literally to take short running steps on the flat of the skate. Turn the toes out on each step, so that you hit the inside of your edge, and run. At first you will probably feel that this Charlie Chaplin toe-out run makes you look ridiculously clumsy (I know I did), but the truth is that if you move your feet really fast the onlooker does not see your toes go out at all, and you will gain tremendous speed.
Okay now @gkelly, for sure the excerpts you cite tongue-in-cheek are pretty funny. But I didn't say that everything in Vinson's 1938 book is relevant to today's skaters. I was also trying to avoid writing a long post. But since you've decided to provoke, I will point out in this MITF section of FSU, the passages that I think are very relevant to the piss-poor skating we often see today. And that's taking nothing away from the fact that in many respects the sport has evolved in a good way, and surely even in ways that Vinson at that point couldn't possibly have imagined.
The sad fact is that the decision to completely scrap figures from 1990 onward, was bonehead and not well thought out. It was based on catering to television network coverage. It was a good decision to drop figures from singles event competition, but everyone should still have been required to understand and to apply the basic foundations of practicing figures. That's why in recent years, we had the very gifted Patrick Chan bless the sport with his rare expertise. And yes, not everyone made to practice figures the way Patrick had been would necessarily have been as good as he was in SS. Yet surely many skaters today would benefit if they diligently practiced figures, and at the very least, they might be more knowledgeable about skating if they better understood the concept of and the necessity behind figures practice.
I think it's quite interesting that Vinson's passages about skaters wanting to advance quickly to jumping before mastering other basic skills is as relevant today, as it was in 1938 and beyond. Of course, the irony is (and has probably always been) that if skaters would actually spend more time on the basics of learning how to skate, maybe they could become better and more consistent jumpers.
I'll post some relevant passages from Vinson's book in separate posts. I think Vinson's book is helpful for anyone who wishes to learn how to skate, whether recreationally or competitively.