Death spiral (figure skating)

Figure skating element
Element name:	Death spiral
Scoring abbreviation:	Ds
Disciplines:	Pair skating

Death spiral is an element of pair skating performed with the man in a pivot position, one toe anchored in the ice. Holding his hand, the woman circles her partner on a deep edge with her body almost parallel to the ice. It is a required element in pair skating.

Variations

Back inside death spiral

Back outside death spiral

Forward inside death spiral

Lady in shoot-the-duck position during entry to back inside death spiral

Man in difficult catch-foot position during entry to forward inside death spiral

Lady in catch-foot position during back outside death spiral

Death spirals can be performed in all four variants of inside/outside and forward/backward edges. The outside edge death spirals are considered more difficult than the inside edge variants, with the forward outside death spiral the most difficult of all.

Pairs may increase their score by incorporating a difficult entry or exit and/or holding the position during the death spiral. These may be one of the spiral positions, the Biellmann, shoot-the-duck, or other position. Pairs may also change the hand hold during the death spiral.

History

The backward outside death spiral was invented in the early 1900s by Charlotte Oelschlagel, although it was first performed with the skaters holding both hands and the lady not fully lowered towards the ice. The current one-handed version was developed in the 1940s by the Canadian pair Suzanne Morrow and Wallace Diestelmeyer. The other death spiral variants were invented by Ludmila Belousova and Oleg Protopopov in the 1960s. They assigned the following names to them: Cosmic spiral (Backward Inside), Life spiral (Forward Inside), and Love spiral (Forward Outside).

ISU Judging System

Under the ISU Judging System, the death spiral is abbreviated as "Ds" in the protocol, with the edge listed before and the level listed afterwards. The abbreviations are:

Edge	Abbreviation
Forward Inside	FiDs
Forward Outside	FoDs
Backward Inside	BiDs
Backward Outside	BoDs

A level three backward inside death spiral would be written as BiDs3.

For the 2007-2008 season, the back inside death spiral was the required death spiral for the senior pairs short program. For the 2008-2009 season, the required death spiral was the forward inside.