Glossary of Skating Terminology

Ice Dancing (dance): A discipline of skating in which a man and a woman perform dance maneuvers on ice in programs choreographed to accompanying music.

IJS: International Judging System. The system of judging defined by the ISU that replaced the 6.0 system of judging.

Illusion spin: An upright spin in which the skater dips up and down at the hip in time with the rotation to create the illusion of spinning around the hip like a pin-wheel.

Ina Bauer: See Bauer.

Ineligible skater (athlete): A skater ineligible to compete under the rules of national and international governing bodies. The rules of national and international governing bodies specify what action cause an athlete to lose their eligibility.

Initial round: The first dance or group of dances in a dance competition.

Inside Axel jump: A normal rotation edge jump. The skater takes off from a forward inside edge, and lands on the back outside edge of the same foot. A single inside Axel has one and one-half rotations in the air, a double has two and one-half, and a triple has three and one-half.

The inside Axel jump is an unlisted jump as it does not takeoff on the outside edge which define a normal Axel jump. Historically, this jump was sometimes referred to as a forward Salchow.

Inside edge: The edge of a skate blade closest to the center line of the body.

Intermediate spin position: A term briefly used by the ISU to describe a spin position other than a camel, sit or upright position.

International governing body: The international organization responsible for administering a competitive sport on an international level. In figure skating this is the International Skating Union (ISU).

Interpretive Skating: A category of showcase skating where the competitors first hear the music to be skated to at the event. The skaters must create the choreography for their program during the warm-up period for the event. This sometimes has been referred to as extemporaneous skating.

Intersecting move: A synchronized skating maneuver in which two formations move through each other with the skaters in the two formations interleaved.

Interruption: A break in the skating of a program due to accident, injury, equipment failure, or other reason. Interruptions result in deductions and if excessive in length result in the disqualification of the skater.

Interruptions not the fault of the skater do not result in a deduction; for example, interruptions caused by a failure of the music layback system, the scoring system hardware, power/lighting failure, earthquakes, etc.

Introductory steps: The initial steps of a dance program whose purpose is to get the couple up to speed and on pattern.

Inverted camel: A camel spin position in which the skating hip is turned out and the torso twisted so that - to the greatest extent possible - the torso of the skater faces upwards, instead of towards the ice.