It may almost be said of the children of Friesland, a province of Holland, that they learn to skate before they learn to walk. As soon as the Frisian baby can stand upright, if it is winter, the skates are fastened to his little feet, and he is launched upon the glassy surface of the canal. At six years old he—or it may be she, for the girls are treated in just the same manner—is probably an expert skater, and for the rest of his life steel runners are to him almost as familiar a means of getting about as his own feet. The Frieslander, we are told, goes to market on skates, goes to church on skates, and goes love-making on skates, and when he has won his bride the newly wedded couple are escorted to their home by a gay torch-light procession of steel-shod neighbors.
In Holland the races on the ice are regarded as a great festival. Prizes are given, and the winners are heroes for the time. Women sometimes join the men in the races, and not seldom they carry off the prize. Two young women once won a race of thirty miles in two hours, beating several men. Imagine a couple of comely Dutch girls flying along at the speed of a railroad train between short stops, and keeping up the pace for two hours!
And what sport is there to compare with skating on a perfect piece of ice, frozen by a couple of nights' severe cold, and quite free from snow? This quickly formed ice is by far the best, for not only is it the smoothest, but it is also the safest kind of ice. It may crack, perhaps, and bend, but it is so elastic that there is little danger of its breaking. Hark to the ever-changing hum of a hundred pairs of steel blades upon the shining surface of the pond, now swelling, and now almost dying away in the clear, biting air! And mingled with it merry laughter and shouts, with every now and again a half-frightened, half-playful little scream, as some too daring beginner "comes to grief." It is a poor spirit indeed that is not fired by sounds like these when Winter first lays his iron grasp on water and on land.
The art of skating has been brought to such perfection that mere speed is almost despised among our best performers, who devote themselves to that graceful variety of the art known as "figure skating." Among the Northern peoples, however, from whom we originally learned to skate, speed and distance still hold their own. The reason of this is that in those countries skating is necessary for travelling, especially in Holland, which is literally cut up by canals that are frozen for several months every winter. Among us skating is generally done on ponds, and careering round and round a pond, however fast one may go, soon becomes tiresome.
But although we have given up long-distance skating for figures, the fastest time in which a mile is said to have been skated was done by a certain William Clark, of Madison, Wisconsin, who covered the distance in the wonderfully short space of one minute and fifty-six seconds. It is difficult to believe this, and but little less so to credit the "record" of an English skater named Tebbutt, who is reported to have skated a measured mile in two minutes and four seconds.
In France they attempt to teach people to swim by making them lie across a narrow table, and strike out in the most approved manner. It is not recorded, however, that any one thus taught ever entered the water with any confidence in his ability to swim, and it is probable that a Frenchman thus taught would swim about as well as a boy or girl would skate the first time they went on the ice after reading about it. Skating, indeed, like swimming and many other things, can be learned only by practice, but at the same time a few hints may help the beginner over the most slippery places; and if he learns what not to do, he has learned a great deal. Here are a few useful hints:
Do not fall. At the same time do not give up trying because you do fall, or for fear of falling. Young bones carry light weights, and falls do not hurt if they are done properly. It is the backward falls that hurt and are really dangerous. Keep the body slightly bent forward; hold the elbows down by the sides; and, above all, when you feel you are losing your balance, do not throw up your arms and wrench yourself wildly to try and keep your balance. Let balance go to the winds, if it must go, and then you may fall forward on hands and knees with all the grace you are master of. It will not be much, perhaps; but never mind.
As soon as you have learned to skate forward, and can travel at a fair rate of speed, you will want to begin cutting figures. Probably in your first attempts you will "cut a figure" that will make people laugh. Let them laugh, and laugh with them. Everything must have a beginning.
Your first figure is one that does not amount to much by itself. In fact, it amounts to just nothing. It is O. When you can make a fairly correct O on one foot, or, better still, on each foot, you will be getting on capitally. But if O amounts to little by itself, make another O on the top of it, and you will have the figure 8. Strike out boldly with one foot, leaning well over to the side so that you make a rapid curve. As soon as the circle is nearly completed, bring the left foot to the front, and pointing it well to the left make another circle as before. You will not make the second circle so easily as the first, but after a little practice you will succeed in making a very fair figure of 8.
This is the only figure that can be made altogether on the inside edge of the blade, and that is not the best way to make it, although it is the easiest. Before you go any farther you must learn the "outside edge." After skating a few yards at a good pace, bring both your feet parallel to one another, and as you skim along without effort, lean your weight first to one side and then to the other. You will find yourself moving along in a serpentine course, and one of your feet will be resting on the outside edge of its skate, and the other on the inside edge. Lift up the foot that is doing inside edge, and see how far you can go on the other foot alone. When you feel that you are losing your balance, or coming to a stop, put the other foot down, and push off again, repeating the outside edge trick with the other foot. After some practice you will be able to start off on outside edge altogether, and by throwing your weight to the side of the foot you are on, you will soon be able to make circles on the outside edge.