How To Ski and How Not To

by Vivian Caulfeild

Be on your guard also against trying to start the swing by leaning to the right, for, if you do this, you will either fall downhill, or will find that the right ski refuses to turn downwards. Simply lean, as before, towards the tip of the right ski, look in that direction only, and don’t think of trying to turn, but rather try to go on across the slope.

As you turn downwards, of course, the pace increases, and you must therefore lean more forwards; the great thing 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, endeavouring to imagine it flat, as I advised in the case of the Telemark and stemming turns.

You will find this downhill turn of very little practical use on a steep slope until you can make it quite shortly and sharply, for, if you make a long curve, the pace increases so much in the middle of it that you are almost sure to lose control and fail to finish the swing, even if you do not fall down.

When performed in this way the Christiania swing can be used for making either up or downhill turns on practically any slope and in any kind of snow except breakable crust. The deeper, however, the skis sink into the snow, the greater is the difficulty, not only because they skid round less readily, but because it then needs more force to hold the outer, back ski at a narrow angle with the other owing to the increased outward pressure of the snow. Unless this ski is then held perfectly flat it will instantly run apart from the other.

In the method just described the turn is started by sliding back the ski which is to be the outer one and pointing it away from the side to which one is about to turn. Another way of starting the turn is to slide forward the ski which is to be the inner one and point it towards the side one means to turn to. This practically amounts to the same thing looked at from another view; the relative position of the skis is exactly the same, and there is very little practical difference in the making of the turn.

As I find that beginners learn the swing more easily if told to do it in the first way, I have given these directions first, but I should have thought myself that the swing was easier to understand, and therefore to perform, when considered from this second point of view.

Before going any further let me warn the reader, if he is a beginner, that the next three pages or so are not strictly practical, but are rather meant to elucidate the theory of the swing. If after glancing at them the reader does not feel very hopeful of enlightenment, he may safely skip them.

I have so far talked about steering action starting the turn. When the swing is looked at from this second standpoint, one can say that stemming action starts it—or rather prepares for it.

Suppose, for instance, you are traversing to the right at a gentle gradient, and wish to turn uphill in this way. You are in the normal position, left foot weighted, and right foot leading; in order to prepare for the turn keep the left ski edged normally and weighted, slide the right a little farther forward, turn it rather away from the other, i.e. point it about horizontally across the slope (the gradient of your course being very slight), and nearly flatten it by keeping the right knee and ankle a little inwards. What you are now doing is actually stemming—divergent stemming, not convergent like ordinary or Telemark stemming, but still stemming; Christiania stemming if you like to call it so. As long as you hold this position with the left ski edged and weighted and the body facing towards its point you will go straight ahead at a reduced pace. You can now stop either by stemming alone or by stemming and turning.

(1) Keep the left (running) ski normally edged, and gradually edge and weight the right stemming ski more and more until you come to a standstill without a change of front—a true stemming stop, but awkward, because the skis tend to run apart as the upper ski receives the weight.