What is STARSkate?

Skills, Tests, Achievement, Recognition – this is what STARSkate is all about!

STARSkate offers opportunities for skaters of all ages to develop fundamental figure skating skills in the areas of ice dance, skating skills, free skate and artistic skating. Unique in Canada, this program teaches figure skating skills in a group and/or private lesson format in a progressive and sequential manner. Skaters have the opportunity to take Skate Canada Tests through a nationally standardized testing system. 

STARSkate has been the mainstay of figure skating in Canada for more than four decades.

Once a skater is in the Skate Canada STARSkate Program, there are several of options. Skaters may choose to remain in the STARSkate Program, taking tests (although not mandatory) at organized test sessions and honing learned skills. Skaters may also choose to enter competitions, while still trying Skate Canada tests. Other skaters may feel that they have progressed to a point where they may wish to enter the Skate Canada CompetitiveSkate Program or become involved in synchronized skating, evaluating or judging, or participate as an adult or varsity member.

Skating Skills

Skating Skills are a combination of fundamental skating movements, executed on a pattern and in isolation. The basic components of all disciplines of figure skating are incorporated into the program. The movements are derived from former compulsory figures, free skating and ice dancing. The objective of the Skating Skills program is mastery of the basic fundamentals of skating – edge quality, control, power and speed.

There are 11 Skating Skills tests in the STARSkate program:

• Star 1 – Star 10
• Gold

Ice Dance

Consisting of twelve levels of tests, the Dance Test program teaches timing, musicality, rhythm interpretation, structure as well as basic skating skills such as edges, flow, control and unison.

The dances in the STARSkate Program can be tried in any order but a candidate must pass the required number of dances in a dance test before proceeding to the next level..

The Dance Tests are as follows:

• Star 1 – Star 10
• Gold
• Diamond

Free Skate

Free skating consists of the execution of jumps, spins, footwork, field movements and stroking, either in isolation or performed in sequence to music.

There are eleven Free Skating tests in the STARSkate Program:

• Star 1 – Star 10
• Gold

Each test consists of 2 parts – Elements in Isolation and a Solo.

Artistic

The objective of the Artistic program is to encourage and develop skaters’ creativity, expression, musicality, movement, interpretation of music, as well as the use of space, rhythm, line and style. The program provides skaters with the opportunity to explore the performance aspect of skating without focusing on technical elements.

The Artistic tests consist of skating to and interpreting a piece of music 2.0 to 3.0 minutes (+/- 10 seconds) in length.

• Star 5
• Star 7
• Star 9
• Gold