An Overview of Related Skating Activities and Sports Disciplines

Skating is any sports or recreational activity that consists of traveling along on ice or a dry surface using skates. Skating can be done on natural or synthetic ice; a variety of hard, dry surfaces including wood, plastic, tile, asphalt, cement or any other dry smooth surface; and can happen indoors or outdoors.

A variety of skates can be used for skating activities, and there are even more disciplines associated with skating than there are equipment styles. There are several well-known varieties of skating that include recreational, fitness, competitive and transportation activities in the ice, quad and inline sports.

Ice skating has an assortment of activities and disciplines:

• Recreational Skating
• Fitness Skating
• Figure Skating
• Ice Hockey
• Speed Skating
• Tour Skating

Quad roller skating has many activities and disciplines including many done on ice and some that are unique to quads:

• Recreational Skating
• Fitness Skating
• Artistic or Figure Roller Skating
• Roller Hockey
• Speed Skating
• Jam Skating
• Roller Derby

Inline skating has a lot activities and disciplines including many done on roller or ice and others that are unique to inline skates:

• Recreational Skating
• Fitness Skating
• Speed and Inline Racing
• Marathon Skating
• Freestyle Slalom Skating
• Inline Figure Skating
• Inline Hockey
• Aggressive and Stunt Skating
• Urban Skating
• Off Road and All Terrain Skating
• Nordic Skating
• Downhill Racing

The ice, quad and inline sports disciplines that share names and use similar equipment and rules often share participants. And many of the serious skating athletes cross train on an alternate surface when weather or availability might interrupt preparation for an important event. For these athletes, "skating" must go on in any skates.

In addition, iceboarding, skateboarding and snow skating sports call their movements over surfaces skating even though the equipment used to "skate" over the surface is not a traditional pair of skates.