How To Ski and How Not To

by Vivian Caulfeild

Realising that without the stick they themselves would be helpless, they say that its help is indispensable for safe running. Anything which they cannot do themselves, such as running with the skis together so as to leave a single track; turning or stopping by a free use of the different swings, &c., instead of by their own dreadful imitation of the Stemming turn and Christiania; fast straight-running; jumping, and so on, they condemn as showy, unsafe, and of no practical use, and class under the general heading of “fancy tricks.” The absurdity of this standpoint will be patent to any one who knows the immense superiority of good running to bad, as regards ease, sureness, and speed.

Let us compare ski-running with horsemanship. Just as the ski-runner undoubtedly finds it easier at first to run with the aid of the stick than without, so the man who mounts a horse for the first time will certainly find it a good deal easier to keep in the saddle if he holds on to it by the pommel or cantle. I believe, however, that there is no school of horsemanship which advocates this method of riding as being particularly practical.

The reasons against the use of the stick as an aid to the balance in ski-running are much the same as those against using the saddle for the same purpose in riding. There is a waste of energy in each case, for it is doing clumsily by brute force what can be done more comfortably, gracefully, and effectively by skill. Moreover, the balance, when helped in this way, never improves, but remains permanently bad.

Correct position, narrow track, complete command of the different swings—all those things, in fact, which distinguish good style from bad—mean economy of force, and are therefore eminently practical. To say that jumping is a useless accomplishment may at first sight appear justifiable. In one sense there is not much practical use in jumping, for occasions are not very often met with in the course of a tour where a jump is the only way, or even the safest way, out of a difficulty.

But in another sense jumping is extremely practical. It accustoms a runner to moving at the highest possible speed, and shows him that he need not mind taking a fall at this speed; moreover, to quote from Mr. Richardson’s excellent jumping chapter in “The Ski-Runner,” “the first thing which a jumper has to learn is how to keep calm and collected and to make up his mind instantly what to do next when travelling at top speed—just the very things, in fact, which he must learn if he wants to be a good cross-country runner. For these reasons it is the very best and quickest way of generally improving a man’s running.”

A very common attitude of Englishmen towards ski-jumping is to treat it as a showy and dangerous acrobatic display, all very well for reckless and athletic youths, but out of the question for any one else. Yet I suppose that among the men who take up this attitude there are many who ride to hounds, and very few who, though they may not themselves hunt, would dream of attributing to men or even women who do so either undue recklessness or unusual acrobatic ability.

Though there may be a doubt as to whether making a jump of moderate length on skis or riding a horse over a fence is the more difficult feat, there can be none whatever as to which is the more dangerous. Ski-jumping, indeed, is so safe that perhaps it could hardly lay claim to the title of a great sport but for the fact that it is not only difficult, but also exceedingly, if unreasonably, alarming—at all events to the beginner. It seems strange that so many able-bodied English ski-runners never so much as give jumping a trial, unless they have an altogether wrong idea of its danger.

I spoke just now of the ignorance which made many bad runners condemn a better style of ski-ing than their own. It is not easy, at first sight, to see why this ignorance as to the comparative advantages of good and bad running should be so common as it is, for at most of the Swiss winter places there are among the natives some really good performers. The English, however, get few opportunities of watching the Swiss runners, except on the jumping hill, and seldom see them doing their best across country, for these men, unless they happen to be guides, do most of their ski-ing with their own countrymen, the members of their own local ski-club.

Moreover, a good ski-runner is not seen at his best when acting as a guide, for he has to go slowly, and look after the weaker members of the party, and there is no element of competition to put him on his mettle.