Now it is only by learning the best methods and style at the very outset (or by changing them if he has started with bad ones) that a man can develop to the utmost whatever latent capacity for ski-running he may possess, and only in this way that he is ever likely to become expert enough to have any right to the title of a good runner.
At this point I had better, for the benefit of those readers who have already used skis, give some sort of definition of good ski-running as I understand it.
It is not quite easy to do so, but I take it that the best judges would hardly call a man a good runner unless he could run steadily, quickly, and easily down any hill on which ski-ing was possible at all—no matter how difficult the ground might be as regards obstacles, gradient, and condition of snow—without ever using his stick as an aid to the balance or for steering, or, except on the very rarest occasions, for helping him to slow up or stop; and unless he could, on an ordinary jumping hill, make jumps of fair length without falling very often.
Such a man would probably be able to make, in that kind of snow which is appropriate to each, all the swings and turns to either right or left while running at a good speed, and would almost certainly both run and jump in really good style.
A good runner, indeed, can nearly always be recognised by his style, although, of course, a man cannot be called a bad runner, however bad his style, if he is really fast and steady downhill, and can make long jumps with certainty. But a ski-runner with a bad style is below his proper form; if, with a bad style, he is fairly fast and steady, and is good at jumping, he would with a good style be exceptionally so.
Among the Scandinavians or the best continental runners, no one would be considered at all good on skis unless he more or less fulfilled the above definition. Among English runners, I am sorry to say, the standard, not only of performance, but of criticism, is far lower, and although there are by this time many Englishmen who are capable tourists and mountaineers on skis, there are almost none who can be called good runners in the above sense, or who can be compared with the best continental runners even, while to compare them with the best Scandinavians would be ludicrous.
Among the English at Swiss winter-places a man is often spoken of as “good at ski-ing” for no better reason than that he spends most of his time on skis and has climbed several hills on them, or has crossed several passes; while if it is known that, as a rule, he gets through a day’s run without falling, he is sure to be considered a most accomplished ski-runner. Quite as reasonably might a man gain a reputation for fine horsemanship simply through being able to make long journeys on horseback without falling off or getting exhausted. Just as the latter may easily be a poor horseman, so may the former be a very poor ski-runner; the fact that he may happen to be a great mountaineer gives him no more claim to the title of a fine ski-runner than does the fact of his being a fine ski-runner to the title of a great mountaineer.
If asked his opinion of some such champion, a good Swiss runner will usually answer tactfully, “He is good, for an Englishman.” The full value of this compliment can only be appreciated by some one who, like myself, has overheard Swiss runners criticise an exhibition of unusual awkwardness and timidity on the part of one of their own countrymen in the words, “He runs like an Englishman.”
It would be very nice to think that jealousy of our prowess in ski-ing made them talk like this, but that, unfortunately, is out of the question.