Toller Cranston

Cranston quickly gained a reputation as the most innovative and exciting artistic skater of his time, one of the first to emphasize use of the whole body to express the music, to lie down while sliding down the ice and to wear elaborate costumes. He was particularly known for the quality and inventiveness of his spins, which were widely copied by other skaters. (Cranston, incidentally, was a clockwise spinner and jumper.) Canada had several other top World class skaters at this time that "jumped left handed". The quality of his precision landings and inventive choreography was topped by his combination jumps that included triple revolution jumps. It is harder to complete as much revolution in a jump combined with other jumps. Soon reports from competitions of this period began to mention younger skaters who had become "Tollerized" by attempting to copy Cranston's style, which was characterized by contrasting very stretched positions with a high free leg with more angular, bent-leg positions, and the incorporation of elements such as running toe steps and high kicks in step sequences. Many of his original spins included many changes of positions that seemed to defy gravity. His Russian split jump was "over split" which brought his skates up to shoulder height instead of waist height. Read Less