Debbie Stoery: Preserving the Art of Figures Through Moves in the Field

By Terri Milner Tarquini

For the first 50 years of figure skating being an organized sport, compulsory figures, at the root of how figure skating itself got its name, counted for 60 percent of a skater’s overall score, outweighing free skate components.

Simply stated, figures were a big deal.

All figures were strictly traced circles that incorporated a variety of turns and edge requirements, which had to be performed with smoothness, precision, and accuracy.

Their importance diminished, however, and, in 1990, the International Skating Union abolished figures in international competitions and, by 1998, they were discontinued in qualifying competitions in the U.S., opening the door for a new set of skill-building drills: moves in the field.

A goal of moves in the field is to teach the elements of compulsory figures in freestyle-inspired patterns; thereby taking the turns of figures (three-turns, brackets, counters, rockers and loops) and melding them with step sequences that emphasize power, carriage, agility and flow, rather than slow-paced tracing, tracing and more tracing.

A huge part of moves in the field patterns is the development of the turns themselves – vital to many areas of figure skating, including jumps and step sequences.

Now, two decades down the road, figure skating is seeing a reemergence in coaches going back to the compulsory figure roots to teach these essential building blocks.

Yes. Circles are back.

In January, the Skokie Valley Skating Club hosted a PSA-endorsed event, “Preserving the Art of Figures through Moves in the Field,” featuring Debbie Stoery, an elite technical coach of 50 years who had a hand in the development of Olympians Caryn Kadavy (’88), Nicole Bobek (’98), Melissa Gregory (’06), and Evan Lysacek (’06 and ’10).

“Back then, there were 22 ‘patches’ on the ice,” said Stoery, referring to the sections of ice during figures practice sessions. “There was no music and no talking other than to our coach. What we did was trace our patterns in a very quiet environment and we learned what the appropriate sounds were so we could hear what our blade was supposed to be doing. We could hear the push and the turn and the grip of the edge.”

“Listen,” she said, demonstrating a three-turn, “there’s a swish when it’s done correctly. Skaters still need to know what that sounds like.”

For an on-ice, tip-packed seminar, Stoery and coaches Laura Kretekos Kaplan and Christine Heiser, with longtime judges Lois Todd and Pat Smith contributing, took to the ice and shared their knowledge and exercises on how to teach edges and turns for moves in the field testing success, using compulsory figures as a base. There were even several (gasp!) scribes on the ice. (A scribe is a compass-like mechanism for drawing circles of all sizes for compulsory figures.)

“While the ‘perfect’ figures circle was actually impossible due to friction, the idea of the circles and patterns was easily identifiable,” Stoery said. “With moves in the field, now we have a system supported by the Laws of Physics.”

But why were figures so important and what is there still to be learned from something that is from so far in the past?

“The physical aspects that skaters benefitted from with figures were transverse abs (the deep front and side abdominal muscles) – skaters held a position for a long time and built up muscle strength and awareness,” Stoery said. “They also learned to use the full extent of the blade.

With less speed, the skater had to be more accurate and it was much more obvious if they weren’t. There was also visual feedback: They learned what turns and edges looked like, so they looked at the ice and understood what they needed to do differently.”

And, like most things in skating, beyond the physical, there’s the mental.

“The mental benefits were that we had repetition, which still needs to happen, but needs to be legislated in much smaller doses or we will have zero students in a week,” Stoery said. “We had attention to detail, and we had very clear goals, which sustained us in many ways and translated into many other areas of the sport.”

The idea of utilizing figures to teach moves in the field elements will infuse the sport with the skills from above, while also sustaining the current test structure.

“My steadfast, most important rule is to wait as long as possible before teaching the moves in the field pattern,” Stoery said. “Teach the element and legislate repetitive practice by giving the skater exact amounts of time to be working on each thing and have them document it. The pattern shouldn’t even be a thought until the element is well-established.”

Figures were never quick or easy, but they did lay a foundation that reached out to all areas of skating.

“What we teach translates into real life,” Stoery said. “If it’s worth having, it’s worth working for and waiting for.”