Winter Sports in Switzerland

by E. F. Benson

SKATING—CONTINENTAL STYLE

From the Drawing by Fleming Williams

allowed to fly into their centre on a back edge with their unemployed leg waving, and there execute a rocker, there would immediately be a heap of mangled bodies on the ice, a result which is not recognised as being among the objects of combined skating; and similarly, in the International style, the graceful poses of arm and leg, which ignorant English skaters look upon as mere display, are designed to assist the movement. But in all other games (and this is where skating differs from them all) the point is to achieve a certain object, and the achievement of that object, however attained, renders the achiever a notable performer if he consistently attains it. The golfer, for instance, who consistently drives a long straight ball, puts his mashie shot near the hole, and generally putts out, is a magnificent golfer, in whatever manner or style he executes these tyrannously difficult feats. There are a hundred and a hundred hundred styles and modes of putting, and they are all good, provided only they enable the putter to hole his ball. At cricket, similarly, a man may bowl fast or slow with any sort of break, and with any sort of action (provided his shirt sleeve is not wantonly flapping), and he is a good bowler if only he gets wickets cheaply. But at skating the prescribed thing has to be done in the prescribed manner, and the prescriptions of the English school are, broadly speaking, all of them diametrically opposed to the principles of the International school. In the English style the employed leg (i.e. the one which for the moment is being skated on) must be straight; in the International style it must be bent. In the English style the unemployed leg must be close to the other, and hang beside it, loosely and easily; in the International, wherever the exigencies of the movement demand that it should be, it must at any rate never be there. In English the arms must not be spread and swung abroad to assist the movement, but must be carried inactively by the side, whereas in International, as long as the skate moves the arms must be engaged on their assigned activity. In both schools, in fact, every movement must be executed in a given way, but in no case is there the smallest resemblance between those ways, though both should result in clean edges and clean turns executed at defined places.

It is not my intention to give here a manual of English skating, beginning with instruction to beginners and ending with timorous hints to experts, but any book on Winter Sports would necessarily be incomplete unless it babbled to some considerable extent about skating, which, without doubt, is the sport in pursuit of which the large majority of English folk visit the High Alps in winter. From whatever cause, this slippery art exercises a unique spell over the able-bodied and athletic section of Anglo-Saxon mankind. It may be that this is partly accounted for by the comparative rarity of the occasions on which we can skate, owing to our Gulf-Stream-beridden and generally pestilential climate, and it is sufficient that some puddle-place in a village green should be half-frozen to cause the majority, not only of youth but of sedate men and women, to hurry down to the spot, and there slide about on both feet with staggerings and frequent falls and the ever-present possibility of occasional immersions. But the rarity of even half-frozen puddles in England does not wholly account for the transcendent spell: there is something in the quality of motion which is started by a stroke of the tense muscles, and then continues of its own accord, without effort or friction, until the impetus is exhausted, that appeals to our unwinged race, who must otherwise keep putting foot before foot to get anywhere. The sensation itself is exquisite, and the sensation is rendered more precious by the fact that from the days when the tyro slides cautiously forward on both feet, to the days when, having become a master in his art, he executes back-counters at the centre in a combined figure, there is always a slight uncertainty as to what is going to happen next. The tyro rejoicing in the unaccustomed method of progress is conscious of a pleasing terror as to whether he will not fall flat down, and glows with callow raptures all the time that he does not; while the finest skater who ever lived, will never be quite sure that he will flick out his back-counter cleanly and unswervingly. We can all walk pretty perfectly—at least, there is no pleasing terror that we may be going to fall down—but none of us at our respective levels as artists in skating can skate pretty perfectly. We can only skate moderately well, considering how well we can skate. And the joy of it! The unreasoning, delirious joy of the beginner who for the first time feels his outside edge bite the ice, and, no less, the secret elation of the finest performers in the world, when they execute their back-counter close to the centre, at high speed, and without the semblance of flatness in the edge! And even if any of us was so proficient as to perform such a feat with absolute certainty, there is no doubt whatever that we should find some further feat that would put us back into the dignified ranks of stragglers again. And the same holds good with regard to International skating: at least if there is any among those delightful artists who will execute the Hugel star first on one foot and then on the other without a pleasing anxiety gnawing at his heart, I should very much like to know his name and black his boots for him.

To go more into detail with regard to the manner and style of these antipodal twins, we will take first the twin known as English skating. This falls into two broad classes, namely, single skating and that which is the cream and essence of English skating, combined skating. A further development of combined skating, namely, combined hand-in-hand skating, has not long ago been undergoing a successful evolution, under the auspices chiefly of Miss Cannan, Lord Doneraile and Mr. N. G. Thompson. Without doubt it holds many charming possibilities, and very likely there is a great future before it, but owing to right of primogeniture we will first consider the two elder branches. In both the technique, so to speak, is the same. The object is to skate fast on large bold edges, to make turns of all sorts and changes of edge cleanly and without effort, and to skate all these turns and edges in a particular and prescribed manner.

The first consideration, therefore, is the manner. The stroke must be taken, i.e. impetus must be set up, not with a push of our skate-toe into the ice, but from the inside edge of the skate blade. The reason is obvious, for if a skater thrusts his sharp skate-toe into the ice he will make a hole in it, and damage the ice. That is sufficient: I think there are probably four or five other reasons, which in a general and unspecialised treatise like this need not be gone into.

The skater having got his impetus by leaning against the inside edge of one skate, launches himself on the other. Now there are two edges to a skate, namely, the inside and the outside. There is also the flat base of the skate. Both theoretically and practically, he never uses the flat of the skate in his actual progress. When he turns, whether the turn is a three-turn or a rocker, or a counter or a bracket, he comes up to the flat for a moment, but instantly leaves it again. He progresses on one edge, the inside, or on the other edge, the outside. And while he progresses, he must progress in the prescribed manner. And the prescription is this:

I. His head must be turned in the direction of his progress, whether he is progressing forwards or backwards. Again common-sense is at the base of this rule. For if his head is turned in the direction of his progress, he is looking, unless unfortunately blind, where he is going. This avoids trouble to himself, if there are holes in the ice, and trouble to other people if there are other people on the ice.

II. He must be standing erect with his shoulders and body sideways to the direction of his curve, not facing square down it. In other words, he must, among other things, be travelling not further forward than on the middle of his skate, otherwise he will not be standing erect, but leaning forward. This attitude is that which is referred to, in the humorous book I have already quoted, as characteristic of the ramrod school. But the author, in his blissful ignorance of skating matters, is not aware that it is impossible to execute a long smooth circumference of curve if you progress on the forepart of your skate. If you are on the forepart of the skate, you must be leaning forward, and no one of known anatomy can lean forward and execute a long smooth edge. The balance is unsteady, and the edge wobbles. Commonsense, then, again endorses this rule. In order to be steady on a long edge, your balance must be of the established order. You must be upright, and travelling without muscular effort to retain your position. This is only attained by travelling on the middle or the aft part of the skate. For nobody can stand still on their toes. But standing on the middle part of the foot or with the weight on the heel it is perfectly easy to do so. But when this humorous author (whom I drag out of his obscurity for the last time) calls this the ramrod school, he proves himself ignorant of the first principles of English skating, or perhaps has only observed himself in some mirror at Prince’s Club attempting to assume the correct attitude himself. As a matter of fact, the proper attitude of the skater in the English style is exactly that of a man who is well made and master of his limbs standing still with the weight chiefly on one foot. While skating, it is true, the weight is entirely on one foot, and the performer is moving, and not standing still. But the pose necessary to smooth and swift progression is exactly that. It no more resembles a ramrod, when decently done, as every good English skater does it, than it resembles a coal-scuttle or a pince-nez, or what you will.