Composition is about how the whole program is designed.
What You Will Learn | |
Understand that Composition is not about how difficult your jumps or spins are. It is about how your whole program is put together. |
While the points you get for landing jumps and spins are called the Technical Score, the Program Components Score (PCS)—which includes Composition—is all about evaluating the artistic side of your performance.
This means judges are looking at the overall beauty of your performance: smooth and purposeful movements, choreography that clearly matches the music, and effortless, flowing skating. The highest scores go to performances that truly captivate the audience—the kind of performance that gives people chills and moves them emotionally, just like watching a great movie.
As part of these components, Composition looks at the blueprint of your entire routine. It checks how your whole program is put together. Instead of looking at your jumps, spins, steps, movements between elements, and music as separate tasks, Composition evaluates whether they all connect seamlessly with one another.
The goal is not simply to complete a list of elements like a checklist. The goal is to connect everything so that your entire performance feels like one complete story from the very first second to the very last.
✍️ Summary
Composition is the blueprint of your program. Judges do not only count successful elements. They look at whether those elements become a natural part of one beautiful performance.
Note: “Elements” means jumps, spins, step sequences, and choreographic sequences. Note: In the official criteria, a meaningful whole, proportion, unity, space, pattern, and musical structure are central to Composition.
ISU rule basis: ISU Communication No. 2788, updated May 19, 2026. Composition is defined as the intentional development of a meaningful whole from movements of all types, using the principles of proportion, unity, space, pattern, and musical structure.