Backward counter exercise

Backward inside counters into open mohawks, and backward outside counters into 3-turns, with changes of edge between them.

BIS Skills 5exercise 7New 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.

The counter arrives here, in the second of Skills 5’s October additions. A counter holds its edge and turns against the curve, which puts it opposite the rocker in exactly one respect and makes it feel like a different family of movement altogether: the rotation has to be produced entirely by the body, because the lobe is not going to supply any of it.

Neither counter here is allowed to stand alone. One runs into an open mohawk and the other into a 3-turn, so what is being assessed is a counter that can be left as well as entered. That is a real distinction: a counter checked hard enough to stop the rotation is checked too hard to turn out of, and finding the middle of that is most of the work.

The changes of edge between the clusters are doing something specific. They put the skater onto the other side of the blade before the next counter, which means each turn starts from an edge the skater has just made, and there is nowhere in the exercise to coast.

Elements

Left backward inside counter-mohawkLBI → LFI → RBI: 2 turns on two feet.
Right backward inside counter-mohawkRBI → RFI → LBI: 2 turns on two feet.
Right backward outside counter-threeRBO → RFO → RBI: 2 turns on one foot.
Left backward outside counter-threeLBO → LFO → LBI: 2 turns on one foot.
Right backward inside change of edgeRBI to RBO: the blade rolls across without turning, still travelling backwards, and the lobe reverses.
Left backward inside change of edgeLBI to LBO: the blade rolls across without turning, still travelling backwards, and the lobe reverses.
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 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.
Right backward inside edgeRBI: the right foot travelling backwards on an inside edge, tracing a clockwise lobe.
Left backward inside edgeLBI: the left foot travelling backwards on an inside edge, tracing an anticlockwise lobe.

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.