While the school figures, both elementary and advanced, have been described or illustrated, there are other important figures which the skater should learn. These will be useful for introduction into any free skating programme and some of them are exceedingly interesting. In my theatrical skating I make up a programme which contains very few of the school figures. Spectacular jumps and spins, pirouettes and acrobatic development of skating strokes are the most taking features of any skating programme offered to the general public. For this reason, the skater who is ambitious to become an exhibition skater must perfect himself or herself in these movements which are somewhat outside of the strict school figures but which nevertheless are most important additions to general figure skating.

In this list are comprised cross-cuts or anvils, the very names of which tell the method of their execution or appearance, also spins, pirouettes and jumps, introduced between changes of direction or edge, or for their own sake as independent movements; grapevines, beaks, spectacles, spirals and spread-eagles. From these figures, together with the school figures, all skating exhibitions and competitions are made up.

It would be difficult indeed for even the most painstaking student of skating to learn some of these movements from a printed description or diagram of them. Such description is almost worthless. They can be learned best from a teacher and in almost every locality where there is figure skating there will be found at least a few skaters capable of executing some if not all of these free skating figures. The student is urged to watch carefully the strokes of those who can do them and then work the figures out for himself on the ice. Do not be ashamed to ask questions of those who skate better than you do. Make pencil sketches of figures that interest you and write down the correct carriage of balance foot and arms until you have learned them.

Spins and whirls, on one foot or two feet, on the flat blade of the skate or on an edge, are best started from a long, strong spiral on one foot which ends in a three, the balance foot and the arms being swung widely to give rotating impetus. Pirouettes are done on the toes of the skates and imply extremely difficult balances. Jumps on to the toe of the skate are not so difficult, although they appear very difficult, are very effective for exhibition purposes and often form very pretty interludes to introduce into a skating programme.

Cross-cuts and anvils are explained in the diagrams. They are not pretty figures but are sometimes useful in embellishing a skating programme through their oddity. Spectacles are often extremely beautiful numbers to skate to music, the balance foot beating time in the air. Spirals are splendid figures for pair skating or for the demonstration of graceful carriage. The various grapevines have never been very popular in Europe yet they have much value in stimulating ingenuity and in increasing the flexibility of the ankles. Some surprising figures can be built up by executing one movement with one foot while the other foot executes a different movement.

The spread-eagle is a figure which many skaters find themselves physically incapable of. It requires a flexibility of the hip-joints which can not always be cultivated. It can be made very spectacular by the introduction of jumps while it is being performed. Some of the cross-cuts and even some of the dance steps, require that the skater be able to execute the spread-eagle. It should be learned unless physical inability prevents.

The various dance steps are merely variations of the school figures or the addition to them of some of these movements. Few of them are at all difficult, the combinations being all that the skater has to learn. The waltz, for instance, is simply the three turn, on both edges, forward and backward, with a partner, who is oftener a help than a hindrance to the beginner.