Pair skating vs. ice dancing

Main disciplines of figure skating are men’s singles, ladies’ singles, pair skating, and ice dancing. In both pair skating and ice skating, dancers compete as a couple consisting of a man and a woman, but there are some differences in terms of technical elements and requirements.

The biggest difference between pair skating and ice dancing is the allowance of jumps. Unlike pair skating, throws jumps (the lady is assisted on a standard jump by her partner as he holds her waist or hands) and other jumps are not allowed in ice skating. Both disciplines have lift techniques but there is a slight difference. Lifts in ice dancing differ from those in pair skating in prohibiting the man from extending his hands above his head. Also, partners are not supposed to separate by more than two arm lengths for more than 10 seconds in ice skating but figure skating does not have such rules.

The use of music in the performances is different as well. According to the Korea Skating Union, pair figure skaters can select music for their performances freely. In ice dancing, however, dancers must always skate to music of a genre selected by the International Skating Union (ISU) for each season.