One notation for the whole vocabulary
Named turns, steps, jumps, and spins can be read in their familiar language. The same structure can also describe new transitions, combinations, and patterns without requiring a new name first.
About the project
Skating literacy
Library of Skating is building a way to read and write skating, collect patterns and programs in a shared library, and eventually study how skating movement works.
Why a notation
A language for named and unnamed skating movement.
Skating already has familiar pattern diagrams and standard names. Skating siteswap keeps that vocabulary while extending it to movement that has never received an official or traditional name.
Inspired by juggling siteswap
Juggling siteswap gave jugglers a compact way to write any pattern they could imagine, rather than relying only on named tricks. Skating siteswap brings that same idea to the blade.
A language for a shared library
Programs no longer have to live only in memory. Figure skaters can exchange patterns, save useful fragments, recombine phrases, and gradually build a community library of written skating.
One foot now; two-foot forms later
The current system writes one ordered stream of states and transitions. Slalom, hockey, roller skating, and other two-foot forms will eventually need a synchronous extension for both feet.
Toward a theory of skating
What written skating lets us study
Once movement can be written and compared, practical observations can grow into shared questions about flow, difficulty, rhythm, and connection. These choreographic notes are the beginning of that theory.
Using the notation
Choreographic notes
Treat these as practical rules of thumb, not hard limits. A good skating program should flow through musical time and remain physically plausible for the figure skater performing it.
One program edge per beat
Each row of the program editor represents an edge lasting one beat, with its siteswap transition carrying the figure skater into the next edge. To give an edge more time—or to create more space between elements—add a 0CT continue for every additional beat.
Change speed gradually
Keep neighboring velocity points fairly close. A phrase may build smoothly from rest toward roughly 1× velocity, hold a steady pace, and return toward zero if the figure skater stops. Deceleration may be sharper than acceleration, but large beat-to-beat jumps in velocity will usually be difficult.
Use the deepest workable edge
Favor as much edge depth as the figure skater can control: deep edges give the pattern character and flow. A deliberately straighter edge can be useful when preparing for a jump or whenever the element needs a calmer approach.
Read the turn marks as a rhythm
For quick one-foot turns, several divots on the same side of the trace preserve the same direction of spin angular momentum and tend to flow easily. A step may reset that direction. An alternating left–right sequence is another useful pattern: it can be performed with little net spin momentum as the feet rotate relative to the body.
Judge “same side” relative to the trace itself. The large-scale curvature of the path describes orbital angular momentum, which is separate and generally easier to change.