Forward outside & forward inside 3-turns

The first turns in the syllabus: forward outside three turns onto a held back outside edge, then forward inside ones.

BIS Skills 1exercise 5New on 01/10/2026

Not checked yet. The requirements on this page are a first draft by a non-expert, and no coach has seen them yet. Read them as a starting point and check them with a coach. Corrections are very welcome.

New on 01/10/2026, and it moves the first turn in the syllabus from Skills 2 down to Skills 1. Forward outside three turns on the first side, forward inside on the second.

What is worth noticing is what the outside turns land on. Each one exits onto a back outside edge that is then held, the same extended edge the second exercise of this test spends its whole length on. The turn is the way into an edge you already had to be able to hold, and the phrase carries on past it. That ordering is the argument for putting the turn in Skills 1 and not waiting a level.

The inside side has no held edge after it and runs shorter, which is honest about the difference: a forward inside three turn puts you on a back outside edge travelling the other way round the lobe, and asking a skater at this level to hold that as well would be asking a different question.

Between the lobes there are crossovers on one pass and a cross roll on the other. A cross roll changes foot and direction of curve in one step, stepping onto the new outside edge from the outside edge you were already on, which is a different thing from a crossover however similar the tracing looks.

Elements

Left forward outside three turnLFO to LBI: half a turn into the circle, changing edge and staying on the same lobe.
Right forward outside three turnRFO to RBI: half a turn into the circle, changing edge and staying on the same lobe.
Right forward inside three turnRFI to RBO: half a turn into the circle, changing edge and staying on the same lobe.
Left forward inside three turnLFI to LBO: half a turn into the circle, changing edge and staying on the same lobe.
Right backward outside edgeRBO: the right foot travelling backwards on an outside edge, tracing an anticlockwise lobe.
Left backward outside edgeLBO: the left foot travelling backwards on an outside edge, tracing a clockwise lobe.
Extended edgeA plain edge held for a third of a circle, long enough to be a position in its own right.
Left forward outside crossoverLFO to RFI: the free foot crosses in front of the skating foot onto the same lobe, still travelling forwards.
Right forward outside crossoverRFO to LFI: the free foot crosses in front of the skating foot onto the same lobe, still travelling forwards.
Left forward outside cross rollLFO to RFO: a step onto the other foot, still travelling forwards, and the lobe reverses.
Right forward outside cross rollRFO to LFO: a step onto the other foot, still travelling forwards, and the lobe reverses.

This page lists which elements the exercise calls for and what it is working on. It does not reproduce British Ice Skating's sequence, pattern or wording. For the exercise as published, go to their own document.