How To Ski and How Not To

by Vivian Caulfeild

Turn the right knee and foot a little inwards, placing the front ski slightly at an angle with the other; at the same time edge the right ski inwards and put the whole weight on the right heel, pressing it down and trying to lift the toes.

You will at once begin to turn uphill. The moment you start turning lean more forwards and face full towards the point of the front ski. As you stop moving weight the toe of the front foot, press the back knee inwards, and so bring the skis parallel.

Unless you are on the look-out for it, you will find a tendency, as you begin the turn, to lean inwards (towards the hill), or backwards, putting weight on the left foot, and at the same time to straighten the right knee and relax the right ankle, more or less flattening the ski ([Plate XXX.]). As a result you will, if you do not fall inwards at once, probably finish the swing in an awkward straddled position, the right ski pointing uphill, almost at right angles to the other ski, which will not have altered its direction, and the weight on both feet. Or else you will find that the weight on the left ski will make it run up level with the other again, which will prevent you from turning, or across it, which will throw you down.

It will help you to avoid this inward lean if you remember that, as explained on [p. 82], your right ski in turning does not cut round directly as a skate does, but slips sideways as well as forwards, and that, therefore, during the swing your right foot, instead of moving more and more to the left of your original line of progress, will at first move to the right of, or below it; and, if the hill is steep or the snow shallow, will hardly be above it even at the end of the swing. It is obvious, then, that if you are to remain properly balanced on your right ski, very little inward lean is necessary, and the usual directions for leaning the body inwards while making the swing are most misleading. In fact, although one really has to lean inwards when the turn has begun, the instinct to avoid an outward fall makes one overdo this to such an extent that at first it is better to try to throw the weight rather to the right and outwards, downhill (but well forwards), in order to get the proper balance.

In the Telemark swing the edging of the leading ski is an important factor in the turn, and there is more forward motion in proportion to the side-slip than in the stemming turn, which is almost entirely a skidding turn. Indeed, when the swing is made while running fast in deep soft snow (which reduces the side-slip to a minimum), the runner, as he comes at right angles to his original course at the end of the swing, may find it necessary to lean consciously inwards, but only at the end—never under any circumstances at the beginning of the swing.

In this swing, as in the stemming turn, it is a mistake, when practising, to look the way you want to go, as is sometimes advised. You must only look the way you are actually going at the moment—i.e. rather to the outside of the point of the leading ski.

It is also useless to try to force the turn by swinging the body or in any other way; and, as in the stemming turn, it is better to think nothing at all about turning, simply confining your attention to the weighting and position of the skis, and trying, in a sense, to go straight on. The great thing at first is to prevent the weight getting back on the back foot.

There is, of course, no real necessity for running in the Telemark position before beginning the swing, but to do so whilst learning it gives you less to think about when starting the turn. As soon as you get a little accustomed to it you can run in normal position with the upper foot leading until you wish to turn, and can then drop into Telemark position, lower foot leading, and begin the swing simultaneously.

When you can make the swing to the left, run across the slope in the opposite direction, and learn to make it to the right in the same way (of course substituting “left” for “right” and “right” for “left” in the directions).

When you can do this, practise it to the left again, this time running more directly downhill than at first, and then in the same way to the right, until you can at last swing to a standstill either right or left when running straight downhill ([Fig. 36], b). But do not, at any stage, run far before beginning to swing; get fairly under weigh and make the swing, then run on and do it again, and so on until you have gone as far as you wish. In this way you will get less climbing uphill in proportion to the amount of practice.