Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VII. CONTINUOUS AND MISCELLANEOUS FIGURES. N continuous figure-skating the skater has a twofold object in view: (i) to progress continuously upon one foot for some considerable time without touching the ice with the other foot; (2) while so progressing to force the skate-blade to cut out some definite design, having, perhaps, a recognized name, or to trace some original fancy design peculiar to himself. If the skater executes his continuous figures all over the ice, so to speak, he is said to be skating in " field ;" but if he skates Picture according to design, he is confined to a particular ice-area, and is said to be skating "to place." Such designs skated to place, when their pattern is elaborate, are termed " picture figures," and are the most difficult continuous figures to skate, as the various cusps and curves of which they arecomposed have to be placed in accurate position on the ice, according to the prescribed plan. Besides all the simple figures already enumerated in Chapter V., other one-footed miscellaneous figures are used in continuous skating, such as loops, cross-cuts, beaks, hooks, and pig's-ears. These will shortly be described in detail. They have not hitherto been introduced into combined figure-skating, as they cannot be executed with facility according to the present rules of good form peculiar to the British school of skating. Continuous figures, in fact, of all kinds, even when these miscellaneous figures are not introduced, are more efficiently and gracefully performed by methods not in accordance with the British style. Continuous figures need more hard work than any others, and are exceedingly difficult. For this reason, perhaps, it is the fashion amongst some to deride them as acrobatic feats. No doubt the way in which they are do...