Robert Jones was an officer in the Royal Artillery of the British Army. He is best known for writing and self-publishing The Art of Skating, the first book about figure skating, in 1772, which helped popularize the sport in Great Britain. He also authored a book about and popularising fireworks. The Art of Skating has been called "a milestone in the history of figure skating"; it described basic techniques of skating, which was a recreational activity at the time, before the development of figure skating as a sport in the late 1800s. Jones was the first to recognise skating as an art form and advocated for the inclusion of women in the activity, as long as it was done for leisure.

Figure skating is a sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform on figure skates on ice. It was the first winter sport to be included in the Olympic Games, with its introduction occurring at the 1908 Olympics in London. The Olympic disciplines are men's singles, women's singles, pair skating, and ice dance; the four individual disciplines are also combined into a team event, which was first included in the Winter Olympics in 2014. The non-Olympic disciplines include synchronized skating, Theater on Ice, and four skating. From intermediate through senior-level competition, skaters generally perform two programs, which, depending on the discipline, may include spins, jumps, moves in the field, lifts, throw jumps, death spirals, and other elements or moves.