any idea how to get into (just the fandom or uk just watching for now) figure skating cus i do my research and then loose it and i would rlly like a guide maybe? if not thats ok<3
anon so sorry about answering this so late!!
I think the best way to get into figure skating is to watch competitions. There are a lot of competitions throughout the year, but I'm going to highlight some of the important ones:
Junior Grand Prix (JGP): This series is composed of 7 events which feature junior level skaters. Junior skaters are aged between 13 to 19 (or 21 for male pairs and ice dance skaters). These events start out the formal competition season, and the first event for this year is JGP Courchevel which will take place between August 18 and 21. The top 6 skaters or teams in each discipline across the seven events qualify for the Junior Grand Prix Final, which is held along the Senior Grand Prix Final in December. Here's a screenshot of all the Junior Grand Prix events for this year.
ISU Challenger Series (CS): This series is made up of several (usually 10) B-level competitions for senior skaters. This year, they start with the CS Autumn Classic International which begins on September 10. Usually two or three top-tier skaters (like World Medalist/potential World Medalists) compete at these events to test their programs before making their debut on the GP. Here are all the Challenger Series Events for this season:
Grand Prix (GP): This 6-stage series is crucial to every figure skating season. Stretching from October to December, these stages are comprised of 12 women and men skaters, 10 ice dance teams and 8 pairs teams. The selected few are all top skaters. The GP is almost always comprised of Skate America, Skate Canada, Cup of China, NHK Trophy, Internationaux de France and Rostelecom Cup. The top six skaters or teams in each discipline qualify for the Grand Prix Final, which is held two weeks after the last event on the GP circuit.
Nationals: Each nation has its own Nationals, where skaters battle it out domestically to determine who gets to be sent to the lucrative Championships Events at the end of the season. Russian and Japanese Nationals are always extremely exciting events, and are both held around the last week of December.
European Championships: The European Championships are usually held in late January. This event is only open to athletes from Europe.
Four Continents Championships: The Four Continents Championships are usually held in early to mid February. This event is open to athletes from everywhere but Europe.
World Junior Championships: Junior Worlds are usually held in early March. This event is only open to skaters who are within the age range for junior skaters (13-19 for ladies and singles men skaters, and up to 21 for men in pairs or ice dance teams).
World Championships: Worlds are usually held in late March and are open to any skater from any continent
Olympics: This upcoming figure skating season will be an Olympic season! The Olympics are held in mid-February (which means the Four Continents Championships usually are not attended by most of the top-names that would go in years past) and include five figure skating events. The Team Event precedes the Individual Events. So far two countries have qualified to the Team Event - Russia and the US (they will probably be battling for gold as well). The Individual Event consists of 30 ladies and men, 22 pairs and 24 ice dance teams.
How to Watch: The JGP series and the Junior Grand Prix Final is always live-streamed on YouTube on the ISU Junior Grand Prix channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/ISUJGP2011). In addition, Russian domestic events like Nationals and Junior Nationals are often live-streamed on YouTube as well on Channel 1 (https://www.youtube.com/c/1tv). NBC Peacock Premium offers livestreams to the Grand Prix and Championships Events at $4.99 a month as well. The ISU also streams the Grand Prix and Championships Events on their YouTube Channel to certain countries whose broadcasters do not have access to the events. If you don't live in one of those countries, you can use a VPN to access the livestreams as well. Other livestreams will probably be available as well, I recommend you check out https://soyouwanttowatchfs.com for more information when competitions begin to start on a weekly basis.
I find that when I watch competitions, I find skaters that I really enjoy and once I begin to root for them, I begin to follow the sport closely and find more skaters to root for! While watching live competitions are very fun, if you want to find skaters you like now, I highly recommend watching some older livestreams of past events as well. The ISU has full videos of 2018, 2019 and 2020 Junior Worlds and the 2017, 2018 and 2019 World Championships on their channel (https://www.youtube.com/c/SkatingISU/featured).
Skaters to Watch Out For: Here are some of the top skaters in the world right now:
Alexandra Trusova - 2x Junior World Champion (2018 and 2019) who has revolutionized womens skating with her quads (she is the first woman to land a quadruple toe loop, quadruple lutz, and quadruple flip and well as the first woman to land two, three and four quadruple jumps in a program).
Alena Kostornaia - 2020 European Champion, 2019/20 Grand Prix Final Champion. Notable for her high quality of skating and fantastic speed and attention to detail in her programs.
Rika Kihira - 2x Four Continents Champion (2019 and 2020) and 2018/19 Grand Prix Final Champion. Notable for her fantastic flow in her programs, in between all her elements, and the musicality of her programs.
Anna Shcherbakova - 2021 World Champion. Notable for her dedication to performance and natural musicality and grace in her movements.
Kamila Valieva - 2020 Junior World Champion. Notable for her extreme flexibility and gorgeous spins as well as her elegant lines on the ice.
Kaori Sakamoto - 2018 Four Continents Champion. Notable for her speed, power and flow across the ice and through her jumps, as well as the sheer power of her performance.
Yuzuru Hanyu - 2x Olympic Champion (2014 and 2018) and 2x World Champion (2014 and 2017). Just the GOAT of the sport to be honest. His jumps are gorgeous, his skating is flawless and his artistry is sublime. You should 100% go watch his short program from the 2018 Olympics, as well as his free program at the 2021 Japanese Nationals.
Nathan Chen - 3x World Champion (2018, 2019 and 2021). Notable for his high technical content and insane number of quads in his programs.
Yuma Kagiyama - 2021 World Silver Medalist. Notable for his amazing skating skills and great flow across the ice.
Mikhail Kolyada - 2018 World Bronze Medalist. Notable for his elegance in his skating, as well as his strong skating skills and gorgeous jumps.
Jason Brown - 2x Four Continents Medalist (2018 and 2020). Though he may lack large numbers of quads, he has this ability to convey something so special on the ice, and skate with such attention to detail and command of the ice that very few skaters have.
Shoma Uno - 2018 Olympic Silver Medalist and 2x World Silver Medalist (2017 and 2018). Notable for his dynamic power on the ice.
Wenjing Sui / Cong Han - 2018 Olympic Silver Medalist and 2x World Champion (2017 and 2019). Just such a fantastic team! They have gorgeous and big throws, twists and fast and musical lifts. They have such a fantastic ability to capture the audience in their programs and portray distinct characters on the ice. You have to watch their 2019 Worlds Free Skate!
Aleksandra Boikova / Dmitrii Kozlovskii - 2020 European Champions and 2021 World Bronze Medalists. Notable for their powerful and emotional performances as well as their intricate and musical transitions.
Anastasia Mishina / Aleksandr Galliamov - 2021 World Champions. Notable for their high tech content and consistency.
Evgenia Tarasova / Vladimir Morozov - 3x World Medalists (2017, 2018 and 2019). Notable for their fantastic elements, especially the huge triple twist.
Cheng Peng / Yang Jin - 2x Four Continents Medalists (2019 and 2020) and 2x Grand Prix Final Silver Medalists (2018/19 and 2019/20). Notable for their amazing programs and huge throws.
Ice Dance (I like watching Ice Dance but I honestly do not know enough to truly speak about the best qualities of each team so, I won't try to lie and give them qualities they might not have):
Gabriella Papadakis / Guillaume Cizeron - 2018 Olympic Silver Medalists and 4x World Champions (2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019)
Victoria Sinitsina / Nikita Katsalapov - 2021 World Champions and 2020 European Champions
Madison Hubbell / Zachary Donohue - 3x World Medalists (2018, 2019 and 2021)
Piper Gilles / Paul Poirier - 2021 World Bronze Medalists
Madison Chock / Evan Bates - 2x World Medalists (2015 and 2016)
Alexandra Stepanova / Ivan Bukin - 4x European Medalists (2015, 2018, 2019 and 2020)
Charlene Guignard / Marco Fabbri - 2019 European Bronze Medalists and 2018/19 Grand Prix Final Bronze Medalists.
Some of my other favorite skaters: Apollinariia Panfilova / Dmitry Rylov, Sofia Shevchenko / Igor Eremenko, Maria Kazakova / Georgy Reviya, Haein Lee, Alysa Liu, Karen Chen, Daria Usacheva, Elizaveta Nugumanova, Anastasiia Gubanova, Marin Honda, Wakaba Higuchi, Satoko Miyahara, Boyang Jin
Figure skating is also a very technical sport, so if you want to understand the technical aspect (like the jumps, spins, step sequences and different types of steps) I'd suggest you read this blog (https://the-real-xmonster.tumblr.com) which offers some great and objective analysis on jumps, spins and steps. This YouTube video is actually pretty good too because it does a good job of comparing a great quad lutz and a not-so-great one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VziXOiM8Jaw), though you shouldn't let these technical things determine whether or not you like a skater!
This was kind of rushed introduction so if you want to know more I'll link some great resources:
https://soyouwanttowatchfs.com: great place to find updates on competitions, or general overviews on all the complicated processes of skating.
https://twitter.com/AnythingGOE: a fabulous account to follow for daily updates on figure skating news
https://twitter.com/wtficedance: if you want to understand ice dance better!
There are some figure skating forums around too like on reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/FigureSkating/) and GoldenSkate (https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/) though I don't particularly recommend either forum unless you are okay with reading some problematic opinions that for some reason are generally well-accepted
