This is a plain-English glossary of the words you hear when you watch figure skating: the programs, the jumps and spins, the pairs and ice dance moves, and the scoring terms and little marks on a score sheet. It's written for watching rather than skating, so it focuses on what commentators and protocols mean. Each term gets a short explanation, with links to our longer guides if you want more.
Key takeaways
- Singles skaters and pairs skate a short program and a free skate, and ice dancers skate a rhythm dance and a free dance.
- Each element gets a base value for its difficulty and a grade of execution (GOE) from -5 to +5 for how well it was done.
- The program component score has three parts: skating skills, composition and presentation.
- Small marks on the score sheet, like q, <, << and e, tell you a jump was short of rotation or took off from the wrong edge.
If you've ever heard a commentator say a skater "two-footed the landing on the quad Lutz" and wondered what just happened, this is for you. Figure skating on TV comes with its own language, and nobody stops to translate. Here are the words you'll hear most, grouped the way you'll meet them during a broadcast.
If you're learning to skate yourself, our guide to figure skating terms for adult beginners covers the words you'll hear in lessons and tests. This page sticks to the words you need to follow a competition.
Programs and events
Short program is the first and shorter program in singles and pairs. At senior level it lasts about 2 minutes 40 seconds and has a set list of required elements, including an axel, a jump combination, spins and a step sequence. Skaters can't add extras to make up for a mistake, so it rewards a clean skate.
Free skate, also called the long program, is the second segment. At senior level it lasts about four minutes for everyone, and skaters choose their own jumps and spins within the rules. It's where the biggest jumps and most of the drama usually happen.
Rhythm dance and free dance are ice dance's two segments. In the rhythm dance, every team skates to rhythms or a theme set for the season, and in the free dance they pick their own music and theme. Both are built around lifts, twizzles, step sequences and dance spins rather than jumps.
Segment is the word for each program in a competition. Each segment gets its own total, and a skater's final placement comes from adding the two together. A great free skate can lift a skater a long way up the standings after a rough short program.
Kiss and cry is the bench where skaters sit with their coaches after they skate, waiting for the scores. It's named for the emotional range you'll see there. Sometimes it's hugs and happy tears, and sometimes it's a long stare at the scoreboard.
Our guide to every Olympic figure skating event covers how the four disciplines and the team event work. It also lists the program lengths for each one.
Jump words
There are six jumps you'll see in competition. Three are edge jumps (axel, loop and Salchow), which take off from the edge of the blade, and three are toe jumps (toe loop, flip and Lutz), which use the toe pick to vault up. Our guide to every figure skating jump shows how to tell them apart in real time.
Single, double, triple and quad tell you how many times the skater turns in the air. The axel is the only jump that takes off going forward, so it carries an extra half turn: a triple axel is three and a half rotations, and a quad axel is four and a half.
Jump combination means two or three jumps in a row, where each jump takes off from the landing edge of the one before, with no steps in between. The toe loop and loop are the usual second jumps, because they take off from the back outside edge that jumps land on. You'll see it written with a plus sign, such as 3Lz+3T for a triple Lutz followed by a triple toe loop.
Popped jump is what commentators call a jump where the skater opens up early and turns fewer times than planned. A planned triple comes out as a single or a double, which costs a lot of points. It usually happens when the timing or the takeoff isn't quite right.
Under-rotated means a jump landed before it got all the way around. A jump a quarter turn short is marked q, more than a quarter short is marked <, and half a turn or more short is downgraded, marked <<, and scored as the jump with one less rotation. The table at the end explains what each mark costs.
Edge call applies to the flip and Lutz, which look alike but take off from different edges. The flip should leave from a back inside edge and the Lutz from a back outside edge. If the technical panel sees the wrong edge, the jump is marked e, and an unclear edge is marked with an exclamation mark, and both lower the score. A Lutz that rolls onto the inside edge is nicknamed a flutz.
Step out, two-footed landing and hand down are small landing errors. A step out is putting the other foot down to save a landing, a two-footed landing is coming down on both feet, and a hand down is a hand touching the ice. All of them lower the jump's GOE.
Fall costs points twice: the element's GOE drops sharply, and there's a separate deduction from the total. In senior singles, that deduction is 1 point each for the first and second falls, 2 points each for the third and fourth, and 3 points for every fall after that.
Second-half bonus is a 10% bonus on the base value of jumps done late in a program, but only on the last jump pass of the short program and the last three in the free skate. Saving the hardest jumps for those slots is called backloading, and our guide to jump placement explains the strategy.
Zayak rule is the limit on how often a skater can repeat the same jump in a free skate. It's named after Elaine Zayak, who won the 1982 World Championships with a free skate that included four triple toe loops. The exact limits have changed over the years.
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Build a bundleSpin words
Every spin is built from three basic positions. In an upright spin the skating leg is straight or slightly bent, in a sit spin the skater crouches until the upper part of the skating leg is at least parallel to the ice, and in a camel the free leg stretches out behind with the knee above the hip.
Layback is an upright spin with the head and back arched backward, and a Biellmann, named after Swiss skater Denise Biellmann, pulls the free leg up from behind and over the head. A scratch spin is the very fast upright spin with the arms and free leg pulled in tight.
Flying spin means a spin that starts with a jump, and the death drop is a flying entry that lands straight in a back sit spin. A change of foot moves the spin from one foot to the other, and a combination spin changes between basic positions. A spin that drifts across the ice instead of staying in one spot is said to travel, and it loses marks.
Level is the difficulty of a spin, from Base up to Level 4, set by the level features the technical panel credits. Our guide to what you're watching when skaters spin covers spins for viewers, and spin levels demystified goes through the features.
Steps, glides and choreography
Step sequence is a required element of turns, steps and edges that travels across the ice in time with the music. Like spins, it gets a level from Base to Level 4.
Choreographic sequence is the free skate element where skaters show off moves like spirals, spread eagles and Ina Bauers. It has a fixed base value, so the judges' GOE is what makes the difference.
Spiral is a long glide on one foot with the free leg lifted high behind. A spread eagle is a glide on both feet with the heels facing each other and the toes pointing out, and an Ina Bauer is a similar glide with one foot forward and the other trailing behind, often with an arched back.
Hydroblade is a glide on a very deep edge with the body leaning so low it's almost lying on the ice. Transitions are the steps and moves that link one element to the next. Programs with lots of interesting skating between the jumps and spins tend to look more like a performance and less like a checklist.
Pairs and ice dance
Pairs and ice dance both have two skaters, but they look very different. Pairs skaters jump, throw and lift, while ice dance is about close partnering, footwork and lifts, with no jump elements. If you can't tell which one you're watching, look for big jumps and throws, which only pairs do.
Side-by-side elements are jumps or spins both pairs skaters do at the same time, apart from each other. Timing is everything, and the judges notice when one partner is a beat behind. A pair spin is different: the two partners spin together, holding on to each other.
Twist lift is the pairs element where one partner throws the other into the air, they rotate, and the thrower catches them by the waist before they land. In a throw jump, one partner throws the other into a jump, and the thrown skater lands on their own. Both happen fast and look a little terrifying.
Death spiral is a pairs element where one partner pivots in place while holding the other's hand, and the other circles around on a deep edge with their body stretched almost flat to the ice. It's been part of pairs skating for a long time, and it still looks dramatic every time.
Lifts happen in both disciplines, with different rules. Pairs lifts often go up overhead, with the lifting partner's arms stretched straight up. Ice dance lifts aren't allowed to be held on fully stretched arms above the lifting partner's head, so they look lower and more flowing, with creative positions instead.
Twizzle is a quick one-foot turn that travels across the ice, usually done several times in a row. In ice dance, partners do sets of twizzles side by side and try to stay perfectly in time. They make it look easy, and it is not.
Scoring words
IJS, the ISU Judging System, is the scoring system used at international competitions today. It replaced the old 6.0 system at ISU events in 2004, and it gives every element its own score. U.S. Figure Skating kept 6.0 at many of its own events until June 2026 and then replaced it with the Component Judging System (CJS), so some U.S. adult and local events now use CJS instead of the IJS. Our guide to how figure skating scoring works goes through it in full.
Technical panel is the group of officials who identify each element and set its level. The technical specialist calls the elements, and the technical controller, who is in charge of the panel, checks and confirms each call. The judges, up to nine of them, grade the quality. With nine judges, the highest and lowest marks are dropped and the rest are averaged.
Base value is what an element is worth before any quality adjustment, set by its difficulty. Grade of execution (GOE) is the judges' quality mark for each element, from -5 to +5. In singles and pairs, each step of GOE is worth 10% of the element's base value, so a +5 adds half the base value again.
TES, the technical element score, is all the elements added together, base values plus GOE. PCS, the program component score, rewards the program as a whole, and since the 2022-23 season it has three components: skating skills, composition and presentation.
Deductions are points taken off for things like falls, time violations and costume or music rule breaks. Yes, there are rules about costumes. Total segment score is TES plus PCS, minus any deductions, for one program.
Protocol is the detailed score sheet published after each segment. It lists every element with its base value, each judge's GOE, the components and the deductions. Our guide to what makes a good figure skating score helps you put the totals in context.
Marks on a protocol
Protocols use a handful of small marks next to the element codes. Once you know them, you can see exactly where a skater lost points. These are the ones you'll see most.
| Mark | What it means | What it costs |
|---|---|---|
| q | Jump landed a quarter turn short | Full base value, lower GOE |
| < | Jump more than a quarter but less than half a turn short | 80% of the base value, lower GOE |
| << | Jump half a turn or more short (downgraded) | Scored as the jump with one less rotation, lower GOE |
| e | Flip or Lutz from the wrong edge | Lower score |
| Exclamation mark | Flip or Lutz from an unclear edge | Lower GOE |
| F | Fall on the element | Large GOE reduction, plus a deduction from the total |
| x | Jump in the second half that earns the bonus | Base value goes up 10% |
| V | A spin or other element missed a requirement | Reduced base value |
| * | Invalid element | No value |
The ISU fine-tunes these rules most seasons, so the exact effect of each mark can shift a little from year to year. If you want to dig deeper, the ISU publishes the current rules each summer.
Sources
The rules and definitions in this glossary come from the ISU and U.S. Figure Skating documents below, mostly as reproduced by skating federations, plus our own rewritten guides. Program lengths and scoring details change between seasons, so check the current rules before relying on any single number.
- ISU, Figure Skating Judging System page: the technical panel, the nine-judge panel and the trimmed mean.
- ISU Communication 2494, changes accepted by the 2022 ISU Congress: the three program components.
- ISU Communication 2788, levels of difficulty and GOE guidelines for 2026-27 (as posted by U.S. Figure Skating), and the 2026-27 Technical Panel Handbook: under-rotation and edge-call marks and what they cost.
- ISU Technical Panel Handbook, Single Skating 2026-27, pp. 2 to 4: who calls the elements and who is in charge of the technical panel.
- U.S. Figure Skating's scoring system page (the IJS, introduced in 2004) and its 2025-26 and 2026-27 Official Rulebooks, rules 1040 and 1041 (pp. 94 and 88): the move from 6.0 to the CJS on July 1, 2026, and which events use each system.
- U.S. Figure Skating, "Who is responsible for deductions" (2025-26), and Ice Skating Australia, Factors and Falls (2026-27): fall deductions in senior singles.
- Ice dance lift rules from ISU communications (2014 and 2018) and U.S. Figure Skating's 2025-26 ice dance deduction chart: lifting positions above the head.
- U.S. Figure Skating, SKATING magazine, January 2017 (Peter Burrows): Elaine Zayak's 1982 World Championships free skate.
- Adults Skate Too, Every Figure Skating Jump Explained, Spin Levels Demystified and Every Olympic Figure Skating Event Explained: jump types, spin levels and program lengths.
