Backward outside 3-turns

Backward outside 3-turns joined immediately to an open mohawk, with backward cross rolls and crossovers between the lobes.

BIS Skills 2exercise 6New 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.

Added on 01/10/2026, and it is the first turn anywhere in Skills that starts backwards. A back outside 3-turn takes the skater from travelling backwards to travelling forwards, which is the opposite journey to every turn in Skills 1 and 2 so far, and the difference is not symmetrical: turning to forwards means the rotation arrives before the skater can see where it is going.

The exercise never lets the turn finish on its own. Each one runs straight into an open mohawk, so the forward inside edge the turn produces is somewhere the skater passes through, with no moment to land on it. That is a real demand (a checked exit and an immediate change of foot are competing requirements), and it is why the cluster is learned as one thing.

Backward cross rolls sit between the lobes on each side. They are the same crossing of the lean as the forward version in exercise 4, done where the skater cannot see the foot they are stepping onto, and after a turn that has just spun them.

Elements

Right backward outside three-mohawkRBO → RFI → LBI: 2 turns on two feet.
Left backward outside three-mohawkLBO → LFI → RBI: 2 turns on two feet.
Right backward outside edgeRBO: the right foot travelling backwards on an outside edge, tracing an anticlockwise lobe.
Left backward inside edgeLBI: the left foot travelling backwards on an inside edge, tracing an anticlockwise lobe.
Left backward outside edgeLBO: the left foot travelling backwards on an outside edge, tracing a clockwise lobe.
Right backward inside edgeRBI: the right foot travelling backwards on an inside edge, tracing a clockwise lobe.
Right backward outside crossoverRBO to LBI: the free foot crosses in front of the skating foot onto the same lobe, still travelling backwards.
Left backward outside crossoverLBO to RBI: the free foot crosses in front of the skating foot onto the same lobe, still travelling backwards.
Right backward outside cross rollRBO to LBO: a step onto the other foot, still travelling backwards, and the lobe reverses.
Left backward outside cross rollLBO to RBO: a step onto the other foot, still travelling backwards, 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.