How To Ski and How Not To

by Vivian Caulfeild

In saying that this double movement should be made with force, I do not mean that it should be made violently. If the turn is to be made very suddenly, so that the skis whip round instantly to right angles, some force is certainly necessary, for then the whole of the turning movement of the skis is carried out by the double muscular effort of the body and arms. But this double effort—the swing of the shoulders and the immediately following jerk of the hips—may be, and indeed usually is, used merely to start the turn by getting the heels of the skis outside the track of their points; the rest of the turn being carried through by the weighting of the heels, in the same way that, as I have already explained, the greater part of a steered Christiania can so be carried through. In this case the “swing-and-jerk,” which takes the place of the “snip” of the skis in the other method, may be an almost imperceptible effort, the most obvious part of which is a slight twisting of the hips. As absence of effort is of the greatest importance in ski-ing, one may perhaps say that in a sense this is the best way of making the turn. But even though you may seldom want to make the turn fully and instantaneously it is extremely useful to be able to do so in case of need, and if you have learnt to complete a turn forcibly you will find it all the easier to start one gently. If, however, you never try to do more than start the turn with a gentle swing-and-jerk, it is quite likely that you will never do even that with real certainty—the subtlety of a gentle movement making it more difficult to learn correctly than a forcible one. You are still more likely to be unsuccessful if you leave out half the movement, as is sometimes directed, and only try to swing the shoulders, or to twist the hips, or if you try to move both round simultaneously, or if, as I myself used wrongly to direct, you treat the double movement as two quite separate ones—a merely preparatory turn of the shoulders with a pause between it and the hip-jerk. Not that the turn cannot be made in either of these ways; it can in all, but only awkwardly with the help of a good deal more force than would otherwise be necessary. An expert making a “jerked” Christiania—as this sort may perhaps be called, since the jerk round of the hips and consequent thrusting forward of the ski-heels is the crucial part of it—whether he makes it powerfully or gently, will do so with just the force needed and no more; in other words, he will do it gracefully. The essential points of the movement so made are—(1) that it is a double one, (2) that the second part of the movement follows the first without the least pause, (3) that the force used, however small, is gradually increasing in the first part, sudden in the second, (4) that each part of the movement is made with about the same strength; for feebleness in the one part has to be compensated for by undue violence in the other. If these four conditions are complied with the movement will usually need very little force.

You had better try this swing-and-jerk movement, first without skis, on a smooth floor, then with skis, but at a standstill, on the slipperiest bit of hard snow you can find—slightly convex, for choice, so that only the middles of the skis rest on it—before trying it while actually running. The first time you try it you will probably find that, in spite of the many words I have managed to use on it, it is just what you would do by the light of nature if asked, without letting your face turn, to hold your feet together and make them turn suddenly as far round to the right as possible. You will also find that in order to do it quickly you will be inclined to make the movement with a bit of a jump, and this, in fact, is the best way to do it when on skis. There should always be some dipping of the knees with the swing and the least suspicion of a spring with the jerk, just sufficient to take most of the weight off the skis for a moment and enable them to come round with less effort from the body. This spring may, if the snow makes it difficult to start the turn, be made strongly enough to lift the skis clear of it.

This is the only turn on skis in which the arms are used as an aid to turning. In the stemming turn, the Telemark, and the other variety of the Christiania, the arms will very likely wave about involuntarily to help the balance, but as far as possible they should hang quietly by the sides, a moderately expert runner being able to make either of these turns with his hands in his pockets or clasped behind his back.

In this form of the Christiania, however, the double swing of the arms—especially their back-stroke—is the greatest help, for it practically holds the shoulders at the end of their swing, and enables the body muscles to use them as a purchase from which to pull the hips round. You can easily convince yourself of the value of free and correct arm-action in this turn if, after making it as I have directed, you try to turn either with your arms tightly folded, or clasped behind your back, or by swinging them to the right only and then holding them in the position of [Fig. 40], a, instead of bringing them back again.

It is naturally far easiest to make a turn in this way on a hard smooth surface which allows the skis to skid round freely. It is only on this sort of snow, in fact, that the whole turn can be jerked; in deep soft snow it is hardly possible to do more than just start the turn by swing-and-jerking; the heel-weighting must then do nearly all of it. If this heel-weighting is not timed and adjusted quite nicely, or if the skis are edged at all hard before they have made a considerable change of direction, the turn is apt to miss fire altogether; it is therefore, I think, a far less useful one to the average performer than the “steered” variety, which will almost always get him round somehow, even if clumsily.

For anyone who can make both kinds perfectly, the “steered” turn involves just as little effort as the “jerked,” and I certainly advise the beginner to get thoroughly accustomed to starting his turns by “steering” before he learns to “jerk” them.

I have only given directions for making the “jerked” turn from a direct descent; “jerked” turns, either uphill or downhill, can of course be made from a traverse in just the same way. Downhill turns are always rather more difficult than uphill turns, whatever be the method of turning; downhill “jerked” turns have the added difficulty that if, as is generally the case, the angle between the two tacks is a small one, the skis have to be jerked round farther than would usually be necessary in an uphill turn, and the jerk therefore takes more effort.

In snow which allows you to make a complete jerked turn you can, if not running very fast, practically stop dead, or change your course instantaneously, by making the Christiania in this way, for the edging of the skis, after the turn has been made, stops the side-slip almost before it has had time to begin.

If, on hard snow, you make a Christiania (of any kind) sharply while travelling at a high speed, you will often find that, after you have come round, the side-slip, which will then be very great, will be too irregular to allow you to keep your balance without holding the skis at some distance apart. Even a good runner is sometimes compelled to separate his skis in this way, but you should not do it if you can possibly help it, and if compelled to, should always bring the skis together as the side-slip grows less, not for the look of the thing, but because, though possible, it is difficult, if the skis are apart, to start a swing instantly in the other direction, as you may often wish to do.