Then make the same kind of jump on a fairly steep slope.
Then build your platform, still quite low, rather back from the edge of as steep a slope as you can find, the slope above it being a moderate one. Begin here with quite small jumps, and gradually start farther and farther back until you can make, with fair certainty of standing, as long a jump as the form of the hill and platform will permit; taking care, of course, that the lower slope is of ample length, and that there is no sudden change of angle where it joins the level, for this causes really bad falls.
After this you can make things more difficult for yourself in various ways, such as increasing the height of the platform, or building it at the very edge of a steep slope instead of rather back from it, or making it point upwards so as to form a “squirt jump.”
“A squirt jump” on a moderate slope is excellent practice. The considerable difference in angle between the platform and the alighting ground makes it necessary for the learner to throw himself well forward in making the “Sats,” and the fact that he drops from a good height on to comparatively flat ground makes the shock sufficient to compel him to bend his knees and take the Telemark position on landing. Only jumps of a few yards should be made in this way, however. The shock is too great for safety if the drop is a really long one.
On no account allow yourself to forsake easy hills for more difficult ones until on the former you can make your jumps in perfect style, correct to the smallest detail.
It is only by acquiring an absolutely perfect style that you can make anything but the smallest and easiest jumps with any certainty of standing, and for this reason the only way to gain confidence is to improve your style.
It may be a fine moral discipline to force yourself over jumps of an alarming size from the very first, but it will not make you a better jumper; for if you are very nervous you will be able to think of nothing until the jump is finished, and so will learn nothing and have no better prospect of standing at the twentieth jump than at the first.
After a course of this it is not unlikely that the last state of your nerve will be worse than the first.
It is a good thing to jump occasionally on big hills almost from the first if you can do so without feeling very nervous, but do not give up small jumps until your style is perfect, otherwise it never will be.