Probably every one likely to read this book knows that a ski is a
snow-shoe or skate, and that it is a long narrow plank turned up in
front, but he may not have a very clear idea of the use of it.
It may not have occurred to him, for instance, that in a country which
is deeply covered with soft snow (the surface of snow is sometimes a
hard crust) a man without snow-shoes of some kind is not merely unable
to move quickly, but is unable to move at all outside the cleared roads
and beaten tracks.
Merely to prevent sinking into the snow the ski is just as useful
as a snow-shoe of the racquet form, such as the Canadian, and it is
never _less_ useful than the other even when it seems most likely to
be. For moving through dense underwood, for instance, when its length
would appear likely to be awkward, or for hauling sledges, when its
slipperiness would seem a disadvantage, experience shows that the ski
is fully as useful as the other type.
As a means of locomotion it is altogether superior. Over level open
country a man can slide along on skis a great deal faster than he can
walk (or run) on Canadian snow-shoes.
In hilly country the ski-runner has a further advantage. If a hill is
not steep a man may walk straight up it on racquets rather more quickly
than a man on skis can climb it by zigzagging (as he is obliged to do
on all but the most gradual slopes); but on the descent the ski-runner
more than makes up the time he has lost; for, helped by gravity, he
slides down the hill at least three, perhaps as much as thirty, times
as fast as he climbed it, according to his expertness and the nature of
the ground, while the other takes almost as long to _walk_ down as he
did to walk up.
On very steep ground the ski-runner has a still greater advantage, for
here the narrowness of the ski allows him to move across the steepest
snow slopes with little or no discomfort to his ankles, while on a
steep slope the man on racquets is practically helpless, for, on
account of their shape, it is only with the utmost difficulty, if at
all, that he can move either up, down, or across the hill.
A moderately expert ski-runner can manoeuvre on any sort of ground
which is covered with snow, provided that the surface of the snow
be not so hard that the edges of his skis can make absolutely no
impression in it. The steepness of a slope, no matter how great, is
in itself no obstacle to his manoeuvring with perfect freedom; it
need only be reckoned with in so far as it relates to the danger of
avalanche.
This should give some idea of the scope of ski-running considered
merely as a means of locomotion.
With regard to the possibilities of ski-running considered purely as
a sport, it may be said that a good runner, descending a steep hill
where the ground is open, will often cover a considerable distance at
an average rate of 45 miles an hour: that when moving at half that
speed he can thread his way among obstacles or stop suddenly; and that
the present record for a jump on skis is about 154 feet. I need hardly
say, therefore, that the opportunities afforded by the sport for the
exercise not only of the runner's nerve, but of his skill and judgment
are almost unlimited.
Now it is only by learning the best methods and style at the very
outset (or by changing them if he has started with bad ones) that a
man can develop to the utmost whatever latent capacity for ski-running
he may possess, and only in this way that he is ever likely to become
expert enough to have any right to the title of a good runner.
At this point I had better, for the benefit of those readers who have
already used skis, give some sort of definition of good ski-running as
I understand it.
It is not quite easy to do so, but I take it that the best judges
would hardly call a man a good runner unless he could run steadily,
quickly, and easily down any hill on which ski-ing was possible at
all--no matter how difficult the ground might be as regards obstacles,
gradient, and condition of snow--_without ever using his stick as an
aid to the balance or for steering, or, except on the very rarest
occasions, for helping him to slow up or stop_; and unless he could,
on an ordinary jumping hill, make jumps of fair length without falling
very often.
Such a man would probably be able to make, in that kind of snow which
is appropriate to each, all the swings and turns to either right or
left while running at a good speed, and would almost certainly both
run and jump in really good style.
A good runner, indeed, can nearly always be recognised by his style,
although, of course, a man cannot be called a bad runner, however bad
his style, if he is really fast and steady downhill, and can make long
jumps with certainty. But a ski-runner with a bad style is below his
proper form; if, with a bad style, he is fairly fast and steady, and is
good at jumping, he would with a good style be exceptionally so.
Among the Scandinavians or the best continental runners, no one would
be considered at all good on skis unless he more or less fulfilled
the above definition. Among English runners, I am sorry to say, the
standard, not only of performance, but of criticism, is far lower,
and although there are by this time many Englishmen who are capable
tourists and mountaineers on skis, there are almost none who can be
called good runners in the above sense, or who can be compared with
the best continental runners even, while to compare them with the best
Scandinavians would be ludicrous.
Among the English at Swiss winter-places a man is often spoken of
as "good at ski-ing" for no better reason than that he spends most
of his time on skis and has climbed several hills on them, or has
crossed several passes; while if it is known that, as a rule, he gets
through a day's run without falling, he is sure to be considered a
most accomplished ski-runner. Quite as reasonably might a man gain a
reputation for fine horsemanship simply through being able to make long
journeys on horseback without falling off or getting exhausted. Just as
the latter may easily be a poor horseman, so may the former be a very
poor ski-runner; the fact that he may happen to be a great mountaineer
gives him no more claim to the title of a fine ski-runner than does the
fact of his being a fine ski-runner to the title of a great mountaineer.
If asked his opinion of some such champion, a good Swiss runner will
usually answer tactfully, "He is good, for an Englishman." The full
value of this compliment can only be appreciated by some one who, like
myself, has overheard Swiss runners criticise an exhibition of unusual
awkwardness and timidity on the part of one of their own countrymen in
the words, "He runs like an Englishman."
It would be very nice to think that jealousy of our prowess in ski-ing
made them talk like this, but that, unfortunately, is out of the
question.
The fact is that most English runners seem to be perfectly contented
with just so much skill as will enable them to get up and down a hill
at a moderate speed and without many falls. Having acquired this, they
give up practising altogether, and devote the rest of their ski-ing
lives to making tours, never attempting to become really fast or
skilful runners or to go in for jumping, even in its mildest form.
It is rather curious that this should be the case, for most English
ski-runners are young and active men, accustomed to other sports and
games, who, I suppose, take up ski-running at least as much for its own
sake as with the object of using it as an aid to mountain-climbing and
touring.
Surely, then, one might reasonably expect that a fair number of them
would become really fine runners, that nearly all of them would try to,
and that even those who had no ambition to excel in the sport for its
own sake would be anxious to increase their efficiency as mountaineers
or tourists, and would therefore, at the very least, try to run in
good style; for good style, in ski-running as in every other game or
athletic sport, means economy of muscular force, which is surely an
important consideration to the mountaineer.
Most good Swiss runners, I am sure, think that the Englishman is
constitutionally incapable of becoming really good on skis. To me,
at any rate, it is by no means surprising that they should think so,
for, taking any average pair of ski-runners, Swiss and English, who
are about equally matched in age, physique, and ski-ing experience,
even if there be little to choose between them in the matter of skill,
there is in one respect a very marked difference--the Englishman nearly
always running more slowly and cautiously and altogether with less
dash than the Swiss. In fact, not to put too fine a point upon it,
the Englishman, as compared with the Swiss, generally shows what an
unsympathetic critic might call a distinct tendency to funk.
How English and Swiss ski-runners compare, in this respect, with those
of other countries I have had no opportunity of judging, but that,
when compared with each other, there is this difference between them
must be obvious to any impartial observer. If the Englishman's lack of
dash arises entirely from poorness of nerve, he is, of course, very
heavily handicapped, though not, perhaps, hopelessly so, for patience,
determination, and careful training will do wonders in the improvement
of bad nerve. I should like, however, to think that there may be some
more flattering explanation of this phenomenon--I have, for instance,
heard it said that the fact that most Englishmen are unaccustomed to
steep slopes may have something to do with it--but I must confess that,
so far, I have not hit upon one that entirely satisfies me.
I have heard two excuses given (by Englishmen) for the low standard of
English ski-ing as compared with Swiss. One is that the Englishman gets
less practice than the Swiss. This is a mistake. The average English
runner perhaps gets only three or four weeks each winter, but the
average Swiss gets no more, for he has his work to do, and though he
spends his winter in the snow he usually only goes ski-ing on Sundays.
The best Swiss runners no doubt are usually guides, or men who spend
most of their time in the winter on skis; but this is not always so,
and I know more than one first-class Swiss runner who gets little more
than one day a week. Among English runners the proportion of those
who spend most of their winter on skis is much greater than among the
Swiss; yet there are now many really first-rate Swiss runners, but, as
I have said, hardly any English ones.
The other excuse is that most English ski-runners have taken up the
sport comparatively late in life.
No doubt they have, and so, for that matter, have many of the
continental runners--and a few of the best of them. But to begin late
is much less of a handicap than might be imagined, for a man may become
a skilful ski-runner without possessing any of the characteristics of
extreme youth.
That is to say that, provided he has a fair stock of intelligence,
patience, and nerve (and a good teacher), he need have no special
aptitude for picking up the knack of unaccustomed movements, nor need
he have more than ordinary strength and activity.
The games and sports which are most difficult to learn late in life
are those which call for "knack"--in other words, the ability to
perform easily a rapid and accurate co-ordinated movement of a number
of muscles. If this movement is an unaccustomed one, the ability to
perform it properly is only attainable by long practice.
The action of throwing, for instance, requires knack. It is this which
makes it so difficult to learn to throw with the left hand, even though
one already has the ability to move the left arm with quite sufficient
strength and speed, and not only knows how the movement should be
made, but even _how it feels_ to make it with the other hand. Writing
is another excellent example of knack.
In ski-running nothing which can strictly be called knack comes
into play. In this sport the _voluntary_ muscular movements (as
distinguished from the involuntary ones used in keeping the balance)
are neither complicated nor unusual, and, except in jumping, they need
seldom be rapid. Any difficulty in learning them is due partly to the
disturbing effect on one's clear-headedness of the speed at which one
is travelling, and partly to the fact that some of the movements,
though simple in themselves, are almost the reverse of those one's
natural instinct would prompt one to make in the circumstances. This
difficulty, of course, diminishes with practice, but an effort of will
goes just as far as, or even farther than practice towards overcoming
it. Were it not for this difficulty, a man who had been told the right
way to perform the various manoeuvres employed in ski-ing might very
well do them fairly correctly the first time he tried (as many people
actually do), while no amount of strength, activity, intelligence, or
confidence would enable him, if right-handed, to throw or to write
properly with his left hand without long practice.
The balancing difficulty is far less serious than is usually supposed.
It is the _unexpected_ movements of the skis which generally upset
the balance; and if one has a clear comprehension of the way in
which various combinations of gradient, speed, quality of snow, &c.,
affect their motion (see p. 74, &c.), one will seldom be taken by
surprise. Any one who can stand steadily on one leg, when not on skis,
for a quarter of a minute, without waving his other limbs about,
has sufficient sense of balance to become a first-rate ski-runner.
Intelligence and nerve--the latter including both coolness and
dash--are the main factors in good running. It is hard to say which is
the more important. Most of one's mistakes in ski-ing can perhaps be
traced to want of nerve, but the most perfect nerve will not compensate
for lack of intelligence. The intelligent man will soon see that there
is very little to be afraid of, that the risk of injury from falling
(on snow), even when running fast or alighting after a long jump, is
very slight, and that to run with confidence and dash will lessen
the danger rather than increase it. When he has thoroughly realised
this, the intelligent man, though his nerve may be none of the best,
will probably, if he has any determination, soon beat the absolutely
intrepid but stupid one.
Unless, then, we are to believe that a man loses most of his nerve,
intelligence and will-power with his first youth, there is nothing to
prevent him from learning to ski well when no longer very young.
My own belief is that the best excuse for the low standard of British
ski-running is ignorance and bad tuition.
A few English runners have learnt a good system of ski-ing; but these
have generally had bad teachers--Swiss guides, very likely, who, though
first-rate runners themselves, had more instinct than science, and were
quite incapable of imparting clearly to a beginner whatever knowledge
they possessed. The majority of English ski-runners have learnt a
thoroughly _bad_ system, and have very likely learnt at the same time
to believe that it is an exceptionally sound one.
The members of both these classes are, as a rule, profoundly ignorant
of what an expert can do on skis, of the real advantage of becoming an
expert--or, at any rate, as skilful as possible--and of the best way
to set about doing so.
There is no reason whatever why, with practice and good teaching, any
man should not become a fairly skilful runner; even if he cannot run
with great dash and speed, he can, at least, learn to do so in good
style, without--or practically without--any help from his stick.
Very few Englishmen try to do this; indeed, next to caution, the most
prominent characteristic of English ski-running is bad style.
Now nearly all the continental runners--certainly all the best
of them--have taken the Norwegians as their model, and have, in
consequence, aimed not only at running as fast and steadily, but also,
in one sense, as easily as possible; that is to say, with the least
muscular effort compatible with a perfect control of their skis, or, to
put it more simply, _in the best style_.
Most Englishmen, however, have learnt a very different method of
ski-ing. This system also teaches the beginner to run as easily as
possible, but in quite another sense. The whole aim of the system is to
dispense as far as possible with skill rather than with effort. That is
to say, it directly encourages bad style.
The system is the invention of an Austrian, Herr Zdarsky, who, having
never seen a ski-runner and knowing nothing about skis or their
management, got a pair from Norway, and reasoned out a method of using
them, eventually altering them to suit his method.
This was certainly a very surprising achievement, as every one will
agree who realises not only the practical difficulty of ski-running,
but the complication of its dynamics.
What is less surprising, when one remembers the origin of Zdarsky's
system, is that it teaches not one simple method of controlling the
skis that had not been discovered long before, and but few of those
that had been. It must in fact be regarded, not as a new and different
system, but as a small part of an old one--the whole Norwegian system
of ski-running.
The distinguishing features of Zdarsky's system are an almost exclusive
reliance on the snow-plough position (or an approximation to it), for
either braking, turning, or stopping, a deliberate use of the stick to
assist these manoeuvres and to help the balance on all occasions, an
extreme dislike to going fast, and, in general, a pronounced tendency
to avoid difficulties of balance rather than to overcome them, and to
encourage timidity as well as clumsiness.
The main object of Zdarsky's system is to enable a beginner to run
safely on steep and difficult ground with the least possible
preliminary practice; and so far, no doubt, it is successful. But its
very weakness is what makes it successful, for it turns out ski-runners
quickly by allowing them to run badly. It is the very worst school for
a beginner who takes up ski-ing no less for its own sake than as a
means to an end, for if he begins in this way, sooner or later he will
have to alter his methods entirely, and get rid of a lot of bad habits
which he would never have acquired if he had, from the outset, learnt
his ski-ing in the Norwegian manner.
To become a fairly proficient stick-riding and zigzagging crawler is a
very simple matter; but to get beyond this point, and, discarding the
help of the stick, to learn an _equally safe_ but considerably quicker
and more comfortable style of running, is impossible without devoting
some time and pains to practising, though far less of both than is
usually supposed.
Every one, of course, has a perfect right to choose the style of
ski-ing that suits him best. If a man looks upon ski-running simply as
a means of locomotion, or if he dislikes the trouble of practising, or
has exceptionally poor nerve, or is extraordinarily clumsy, he will
very likely be perfectly satisfied with a slow stick-riding system, and
will quite reasonably refuse to try anything else. So far there is no
harm done.
Unfortunately, however, many of those who choose this primitive method
of ski-ing make the absurd mistake of thinking that their method is a
particularly sound and practical one, and delude the innocent novice
into thinking the same.
Realising that without the stick they themselves would be helpless,
they say that its help is indispensable for safe running. Anything
which they cannot do themselves, such as running with the skis together
so as to leave a single track; turning or stopping by a free use of
the different swings, &c., instead of by their own dreadful imitation
of the Stemming turn and Christiania; fast straight-running; jumping,
and so on, they condemn as showy, unsafe, and of no practical use,
and class under the general heading of "fancy tricks." The absurdity
of this standpoint will be patent to any one who knows the immense
superiority of good running to bad, as regards ease, sureness, and
speed.
Let us compare ski-running with horsemanship. Just as the ski-runner
undoubtedly finds it easier at first to run with the aid of the stick
than without, so the man who mounts a horse for the first time will
certainly find it a good deal easier to keep in the saddle if he holds
on to it by the pommel or cantle. I believe, however, that there is no
school of horsemanship which advocates this method of riding as being
particularly practical.
The reasons against the use of the stick as an aid to the balance in
ski-running are much the same as those against using the saddle for the
same purpose in riding. There is a waste of energy in each case, for
it is doing clumsily by brute force what can be done more comfortably,
gracefully, and effectively by skill. Moreover, the balance, when
helped in this way, never improves, but remains permanently bad.
Correct position, narrow track, complete command of the different
swings--all those things, in fact, which distinguish good style from
bad--mean economy of force, and are therefore eminently practical. To
say that jumping is a useless accomplishment may at first sight appear
justifiable. In one sense there is not much practical use in jumping,
for occasions are not very often met with in the course of a tour where
a jump is the only way, or even the safest way, out of a difficulty.
But in another sense jumping is extremely practical. It accustoms a
runner to moving at the highest possible speed, and shows him that he
need not mind taking a fall at this speed; moreover, to quote from Mr.
Richardson's excellent jumping chapter in "The Ski-Runner," "the first
thing which a jumper has to learn is how to keep calm and collected and
to make up his mind instantly what to do next when travelling at top
speed--just the very things, in fact, which he must learn if he wants
to be a good cross-country runner. For these reasons it is the very
best and quickest way of generally improving a man's running."
A very common attitude of Englishmen towards ski-jumping is to treat it
as a showy and dangerous acrobatic display, all very well for reckless
and athletic youths, but out of the question for any one else. Yet I
suppose that among the men who take up this attitude there are many who
ride to hounds, and very few who, though they may not themselves hunt,
would dream of attributing to men or even women who do so either undue
recklessness or unusual acrobatic ability.
Though there may be a doubt as to whether making a jump of moderate
length on skis or riding a horse over a fence is the more difficult
feat, there can be none whatever as to which is the more dangerous.
Ski-jumping, indeed, is so safe that perhaps it could hardly lay
claim to the title of a great sport but for the fact that it is not
only difficult, but also exceedingly, if unreasonably, alarming--at
all events to the beginner. It seems strange that so many able-bodied
English ski-runners never so much as give jumping a trial, unless they
have an altogether wrong idea of its danger.
I spoke just now of the ignorance which made many bad runners condemn a
better style of ski-ing than their own. It is not easy, at first sight,
to see why this ignorance as to the comparative advantages of good and
bad running should be so common as it is, for at most of the Swiss
winter places there are among the natives some really good performers.
The English, however, get few opportunities of watching the Swiss
runners, except on the jumping hill, and seldom see them doing their
best across country, for these men, unless they happen to be guides, do
most of their ski-ing with their own countrymen, the members of their
own local ski-club.
Moreover, a good ski-runner is not seen at his best when acting as a
guide, for he has to go slowly, and look after the weaker members of
the party, and there is no element of competition to put him on his
mettle.
Whatever may be the reason, the fact remains that the average British
ski-runner has little or no idea of the superiority of good running to
bad as regards safety, comfort, and speed--to say nothing of interest
or beauty. He would probably be surprised and somewhat sceptical if
told that by learning a good style of ski-ing he would find it possible
to do the downhill portion of his tours in about half the time (or
less), with half the fatigue, with just as few falls (if he wished
to avoid them), and with far less chance of hurting himself when he
did fall--for bad style means awkward falls; that he would thus get
infinitely more pleasure, interest, and excitement out of his ski-ing,
and that, moreover, by going in for jumping he would still further
increase all these benefits without increasing his risks.
I hope that by means of this rather rambling discourse I may have
managed, not only to show what, in my opinion, are the reasons for the
low standard of English ski-ing, but at the same time to implant a
conviction of sin in the conscience of the average English ski-runner.
The object of the rest of this book is to show him what, to my
thinking, is the way of salvation, and to place the innocent novice in
the path of virtue at the very outset.