had been taught by his father, who was an excellent skater.
“The first great thing you must always bear in mind,” said he, “is that the leg upon which you stand, while on the outside edge, must be kept straight and stiff, with the knee rigidly braced. You see some fellows there practising by crossing the legs; while they are on one leg they bring the other in front, and across it, before they put it down on the ice. This certainly forces you to get on to the outside edge, but it twists the body into a wrong position—one in which the all-important thing in skating, balance, cannot be acquired. Besides, it gets you into a way of bringing the foot off the ground to the front, whereas it ought always to be a little behind the one you are skating on, and it takes as long to get out of that habit as to learn the outside edge altogether pretty well. Why, here is Old Algebra positively with a pair of skates on!”
“Old Algebra,” as a mathematical genius, whose real name was Smith, was called, skated very well too.
“Look here, Algebra,” cried Penryhn, “I am trying to show Buller how to do the outside edge; can’t you give him a scientific wrinkle?”
“The reason why you find an initial difficulty in the matter,” said Algebra gravely, adjusting his spectacles, “is that you naturally suppose that if you bend so far out of the perpendicular, the laws of gravity must cause you to fall. But that is because you omit the centrifugal force from your consideration; remember what centrifugal force is, Buller, and it will give you confidence.”
“Oh, I have confidence enough!” said Buller; “it’s the power of getting on to the edge without overbalancing myself that I want, and all that rot about the laws of gravity won’t help me.”
“I fancied they wouldn’t, but Penryhn asked for a scientific wrinkle. If you want a practical one, keep the head and body erect, never looking down at the ice; when you strike out with the right foot, look over the right shoulder; body and foot are sure to follow the eye, and clasp your hands behind you, or keep them at your sides; do anything but sway them about. That’s it, you got on to the outside edge then; now boldly with the left foot, and look over the left shoulder. Never mind (Buller had come a cropper); you fell then because you did not let yourself go, but when your skate took the outside edge you tried to recover. You lacked confidence, in short, in the centrifugal force, and bothered yourself, instinctively, without knowing it, with the laws of gravity. Try again; you stick to that. Rigidity. Right foot—look over right shoulder, not too far, just a turn of the head. Left foot—look over left shoulder. There, you did not fall then. Trust to the centrifugal force, that’s the thing,” and he swept away with a long easy roll.
“A capital coach he would make,” said Penryhn, admiringly. “He always tells you just what you want to know without bothering.”
“Yes,” said Buller, “I have asked him things in lessons once or twice, and he made it all as clear as possible, but I didn’t know he was good for anything else. This is a grand idea for learning to skate, though; look here, this is all right, is it not?”