How To Ski and How Not To

by Vivian Caulfeild

This movement, which, if timed properly, is completed at the instant that the jumper’s feet come to the edge of the platform, has two objects—to increase the length of the jump, and to bring the jumper’s body into a position at right angles with the slope below at the moment of landing.

The latter is the more important, for unless it is effected, the jumper is of course bound to fall.

Now, if the surface of the platform were inclined at the same angle as that part of the slope below it on which the jumper lands, he might run down to the platform and into the air without ever moving from the normal position, and though he would not increase the length of his jump, he would have every chance of keeping his feet on landing, for his body would be at the correct angle ([Fig. 45], a).

But the platform itself, no matter how low it may be, and no matter how steep the slope above it, is nearly always less steep than the slope below it, often a good deal less. This, of course, means that the jumper in making the “Sats” must not only spring, but must throw his body forward, or he will land as in b and c, and fall instantly on his back.

Fig. 45.

It depends almost entirely on the angle of the jumper’s body on landing as to whether he shall fall or keep his balance, and that angle depends absolutely on the way he makes the “Sats.” Indeed, at the moment of leaving the platform and completing the “Sats,” the jumper usually is almost certain whether he will stand or fall. It follows, then, that the correct execution of the “Sats” is the most important part of the jump. It is certainly the most difficult, and I think you will find it much easier to overcome its difficulty if you realise at the outset that the necessary forward tilt may be effected in two perfectly distinct ways.

The jumper may make the “Sats” either so that he leaves the platform tilted at exactly the angle at which he will land, or so that he is at right angles to the platform when leaving it and changes the angle of his body by degrees during his flight through the air. (See [Fig. 46].)