Ski-running

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Greg Chapman and PG Distributed
Proofreaders
1924
So many excellent books have been written about Ski-ing that it is, perhaps, presumptuous on my part to think that there is room for another.
Mr. Vivien Caulfeild in his How to Ski and Ski-ing Turns, as well as Mr. Arnold Lunn in his Ski-ing for Beginners, Cross Country Ski-ing and Alpine Ski-ing, have covered all the ground of the technique discovered up to date. What future discoveries and inventions may be made, requiring new books, no one knows as yet.
Had it not been for the help and coaching these two exponents of Ski-ing have given to me personally, I should never have been able to enjoy the sport to the extent I do now, because I should probably have been content to continue running across country, falling whenever I wanted to stop, and using a kick turn at the end of my traverses. Their enthusiasm and example gave me new ideas of the standard I wanted to attain, and their unfailing kindness and advice helped me to get nearer to it than I could otherwise have done.
The standard still lies away up out of reach, as age undoubtedly tells against the Ski-runner, and the perfect Christiania in deep, soft snow round trees growing close together on a steep slope must be done in heaven rather than on earth by people who are nearer fifty than forty.
Much experience of coaching beginners convinces me that there is still room for a book such as I hope to make this—a book containing only the simple answers to questions put to me during the last three years, when I have been responsible for running the Ski-ing in various centres. The object of such coaching is to raise the standard of British Ski-ing, and it is satisfactory to realize that other nations, including the Swiss, already marvel at the fair average of our runners. This is specially remarkable when it is remembered that most British runners can only afford a bare fortnight or three weeks' winter holiday in the Alps, and that they are not always in training when they arrive. Ski-ing is a sport which exercises every nerve and muscle as well as lungs, as is soon discovered during the first 100 feet climb or the first fall in deep snow on the Nursery slopes.