Winter Sports in Switzerland

by E. F. Benson

International Style

It has been already remarked that the two styles, English and International, have nothing to do with each other, and that the practitioner of one who is so imbecile as to belittle the other, is no less crack-brained and idiotic than a Rugby football player who calls Association a “rotten game.” Personally, I do not skate in the International style, but to attempt to depreciate the beauties of it would be to me as unthinkable as it would be to run down polo. To the spectator, whether of polo or of International skating, the skill and the splendour of these sports are, unless he is entirely lunatic, beyond any question at all. But it is as an admirer, pure and simple, that I venture to embark on a subject with which I have no practical acquaintance.

Spectacularly there is no doubt that to the ignorant the International style rightly makes the most powerful appeal. A simple manœuvre, as for instance a forward three to a centre, looks far more difficult and hazardous when executed even only moderately well in the International style than when executed almost perfectly in the English style. In the one case, to the ignorant, arms and legs are flying: it seems impossible to maintain a balance, and the attitude itself is charmingly graceful: whereas in the English style the whole difficulty of the manœuvre, such as it is, lies in the necessity of making it look easy, and standing quite still and at rest.

But the difficulty of doing it perfectly in the English style is, as a matter of fact, far greater than that of doing it properly in the International style. Of that there is no question whatever. A good English skater will put down his turns and edges one over the other, in the accurate fashion so rightly demanded by the International style, without producing half the effect that a good International skater will produce. But the English skater has done the more difficult feat. On the other hand, I do not think that the skater in the English style is ever called upon to do anything so difficult in his highest test as the back-loop 8, or perhaps the rocker 8, as required by the first-class International test. And then I think of a back bracket, executed at good speed at a certain point, in the correct style. Really I do not know.... Also I do not care. The back-loop 8 of the International skater is altogether lovely, which is all that matters.

But, as I have said, the two styles have nothing to do with each other, either as regards tests or as regards the general sport of them. I can imagine no more glorious athletic feat than that of four first-class English skaters performing a really difficult combined set properly, a set that is as far away from the compulsory set of the first-class test as is the first-class test from the second; nor, on the other hand, can I imagine a more glorious athletic feat than the free skating of some champion of the International school. But when Mr. Grenander or Herr Salchow are so kind as to show me the Hugel star, I no more think of comparing that with the combined skating of fine performers in the English style, and others, than I compare it with Mr. Baerlein in the tennis court or Mr. Jessop slogging his sixes. They have nothing to do with each other.

As in English skating, I propose to lay before the reader the tests of the International school, and in contrast to the rule of English form, I subpend the essential requirements of International excellence, as laid down by the collective experience of its senators. Proper form is no less essential in one than in the other, and the same sternness of requirement is insisted on in both. But the effect is poles apart: in the International style a fixed freedom of the unemployed limbs is necessary, in the English a fixed quietness and immobility. Neither is laid down in an arbitrary manner: it is impossible to perform the necessary evolutions in first-class skating otherwise than is provided by the rules. No English skater could, in his prescribed form, execute the International figures: no International skater in his could do what is required of his English brother. Here, then, are the essentials of good form as demanded by the International school:

“Carriage upright but not stiff; the body not bent forwards or sideways at the waist; all raising or lowering of the body being effected by bending the knee of the tracing leg with upright back; the body and limbs generally held sideways to the direction of progress. The head always upright. Tracing leg flexible with bent knee. The eyes looking downwards as little as possible. The knee and toe of the free leg turned outwards as far as possible, the toe always downwards; the knee only slightly bent. The free leg swinging freely from the hip and assisting the movement. The arms held easily, and assisting the movement; the hands neither spread nor clenched. All action of the body and limbs must be easy and swinging with the direct object of assisting the movement of the moment; violent or stiff motions are to be avoided, the figure should seem to be executed without difficulty.

“The figures must be begun from rest—that is, by a single stroke with the other foot; and at the intersecting point of two circles. Every figure must be repeated three times consecutively. No impetus may be taken from the ice by the foot which is about to become the tracing foot; and every stroke should be taken from the edge of the blade, not from the point.”

There are also the following directions for correct tracing, i.e. the marks left by the skate on the ice.

“The essentials of correct tracing are:

“Maintenance of the long and transverse axes (as the long axis of the figure a line is to be conceived which divides each circle into two equal parts; a transverse axis cuts the long axis at right angles between two circles); approximately equal size of all circles, and of all curves before and after all turns; symmetrical grouping of the individual parts of the figure about the axes; curves without wobbles, skated out—that is, returning nearly to the starting-point. Threes with the turns lying in the long axis; changes of edge with an easy transition, the change falling in the long axis.”

In this form, then, and with this accuracy of tracing, the following figures must be skated for the third test:—

Eight	Rfo—Lfo
Eight	Rfi—Lfi
Eight	Rbo—Lbo
Change	{(a) Rfoi—Lfio {(b) Lfoi—Rfio
Threes	RfoTbi—LfoTbi
R = Right. L = Left. T = Three.	f = Forwards. b = Backwards. o = Outside. i = Inside.

Into the system of marking—candidates have to get a certain proportion of marks in each figure—we need not go. It will be sufficient to say that it is necessary to skate each figure passably, and to earn more than half marks on the whole.