How To Ski and How Not To

by Vivian Caulfeild

The moment you are fairly heading downhill, throw the whole weight on to the heel of the front ski, face towards its point, and finish the swing as before ([Fig. 37]).

The faster you are running at the moment of beginning the swing, the sooner you can transfer the weight from the toe to the heel, and face in the direction of the leading ski; in fact, from a very fast traverse, a downhill Telemark swing is practically made in exactly the same way as an uphill one, the preliminary stem of the front ski and the weighting of the toe being barely perceptible.

In putting the weight on the toe at the beginning of the swing, take great care not to poke the foot forward, but to keep the knee well over it; otherwise you are sure to take the weight right off it.

Be on your guard also against the tendency to try to start the swing by leaning to the left, for, if you do this, you will either fall downhill or get the skis apart. Simply lean well forward, look in that direction only, and don’t think of trying to turn, but rather try to go on across the slope, letting your skis carry you round.

As you turn downwards of course the pace increases, and you must lean more forward, but you will find it less difficult to do this sufficiently during the Telemark swing than during a stemming turn. The great secret is to keep the right knee well forward over the foot, to try to lean over the front of the ski, and to keep your eyes on the ground at your feet, trying to imagine it flat, as I advised in the case of the stemming turn.

The Telemark swing, when executed correctly, at high speed, requires no sustained muscular effort except that of holding the leading ski on its inside edge and pressing down the heel. In deep soft snow this is easy enough, if the knee is well over the leading foot and all the weight on that ski, but in shallow snow it is sometimes difficult, at a high speed, to prevent the ankle from bending outwards, which flattens the ski and makes it skid outwards with an irregular, jerky movement, leaving the weight on the back foot. To prevent this, press the knee in well, turn the outside of the foot hard upwards, and press the toe upwards against the toe-strap.

This will give the sensation of grinding the inner side of the heel into the snow, and you should try to increase the pressure as the swing proceeds.

Strictly speaking, a very slight flattening of the front ski hastens the start of an uphill swing from a traverse. But this flattening should be merely momentary, and it is so difficult to make it so and instantly to edge the ski again that it is safer to leave it out altogether.

Neither allow the back ski to come forward to the normal position, nor weight it until the swing is quite finished and you are either standing still or running off in a new direction.