Part 10

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--_di_vergent stemming, not _con_vergent 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.

(2) You can stop more neatly by shifting the weight _all at once_ to the stemming ski, facing towards its point as you do so and instantly bringing round the lower ski--lifting it if you like, or at any rate flattening it--to the side of the upper. This is something between stopping by stemming and stopping by a step round. There is no swing about either process, and although the last may be called a turn because there is a change of front, it cannot be more than a slight one, because one cannot safely point away the upper ski at more than a slight angle.

Apart from the question of speed, with the increase of which the insecurity of any sort of stemming always increases, you cannot, of course, stop in either of these ways if traversing steeply enough for the divergent upper ski to be no longer pointing quite horizontally. You must then do so either (3) by _flattening_ the lower ski, putting half the weight on the upper, _holding_ the divergent position until the consequent steering action brings the upper ski horizontal again, and _only then_ putting the whole weight on it and bringing the other parallel to it--a pure "steered" turn, with the inevitable accompanying drawback of the tendency of the skis to run apart; or (4) by shifting the weight _all at once_ to the stemming ski--_facing towards its point as you do so_, bringing the other (flattened) quickly parallel to it, and _instantly weighting the heels of both_ (see p. 131), when they will turn upwards in side-slipping and come to a standstill. If before you make the turn you only point the stemming ski at a _very slight angle_ away from the other, and if you throw your weight on it and face towards its point _as_, and not _after_, you point it outwards, you will, by the method just described, make what, for the sake of distinction, may be called the "steered" Christiania in the best way that it is possible to make it.

In coming to a standstill on a gentle slope from a slow traverse by any of the methods just described, you will find that the practical differences between them are very small indeed; but if running very fast you would find that the first two were impossible, and the third awkward and unsafe, but that by the last (which, as I have said, is practically the same as the method described at the beginning of the chapter) you could, if your balance were good, turn and stop with perfect ease and steadiness. What I have called Christiania stemming, though possible, is of so little practical use that, in that respect, it is hardly worth considering; but to understand how it may be done, and its exact relation to steering, side-slipping, &c., makes it so much easier to master the difficulties of the swing, that I have risked exasperating the reader by describing it at length.

The upshot of all this is that when the Christiania is made in either of the ways so far described in this chapter, whatever steering or divergent stemming there is in it should be reduced to a minimum.

In this turn, by whatever method it is made, the main difficulty--apart from the question of balance--is in getting the turn _started_. If once the heel of the leading ski can be got fairly outside the track of its point, it is easy enough to keep the turn going. It is the _starting_ of the turn that is the main object of the divergent position of the skis; in fact, although this position produces _some_ steering effect as long as there is any forward motion at all, it produces less and less as the skis move more and more broadside on, and is only really efficient as the turn begins. This divergent position, indeed, although on the whole, I think, the best possible way of starting the swing, becomes more hindrance than help as the turn proceeds, owing to the accompanying tendency, if most of the weight is on the _inner_ ski, for the outer one to run away from it; or, if the _outer_ ski is most weighted, for the inner one to whip round at right angles and cross the other's heel (Plate XXXIX.). You should be careful, therefore, not to let the skis point much apart, and not to let them do so _at all_ for a moment longer than you can help, but as soon as you are sure the steering has done its work thoroughly, and the heel of the front ski has fairly begun to side-slip, should quickly bring the skis parallel, and carry through the rest of the turn simply by weighting both heels.

In the case of an uphill turn made while running fast, you will generally find that the skis can be brought together again almost instantly. The separation of the skis is then almost imperceptible, and no doubt many runners do it quite unconsciously. The skis merely make, as it were, a quick snip, like a pair of scissors.

In order to get the skis parallel, some people find it easier, instead of keeping the outer ski unweighted and pressing its _point inwards_ again, to shift most of the weight back and out on to it, and so thrust its _heel outwards_. The latter method puts the skis parallel a little more quickly than the former, but is apt to get them rather wide apart in doing so.

The two methods just described are, as I have said, identical in principle; the divergent position of the skis, with its accompanying steering effect, being the main characteristic of each. In each method, moreover--apart from the question of balance--the only muscular effort necessary (which should be very slight) is that of checking and reducing the divergence of the skis; the runner, as soon as the skis are parallel, being carried round without any effort whatever.

A third method--the one usually taught--is quite different in principle, being precisely similar to a skating turn; that is to say, the runner uses the inertia, or rather momentum, of his upper body as a purchase from which, by a muscular effort--though not necessarily a great one--he throws both skis simultaneously more or less athwart the line of his course; the skis remaining parallel throughout and acting practically as _one_. I said a muscular effort--I ought rather to have said "_two_ muscular efforts," for the movement which causes the skis to turn, though it may be very slight, and may then appear to the onlooker--and even feel to the expert performer--quite simple, is really a compound one that consists of two distinct parts, and should be learnt as such.

Supposing you are running straight downhill and want to make a turn to the right in this way, the preparation is as follows: either slightly advance the right ski, or hold both skis level, place the weight equally on both, edging them very slightly to the right, bending the knees a little, keeping both them and the skis in close contact, and leaning well forwards. These relative positions of the skis and legs are, if possible, held unaltered throughout the swing.

You can now make the double movement that produces the turn.

(1) Without letting your head turn or straightening yourself up, _swing the arms, shoulders, and upper body well round to the right_. This swinging movement should be easy yet decided, starting gently and increasing in force as it proceeds--in fact, as Mr. Richardson says, it should be made "crescendo," not "sforzando." It should bring you to the position of Fig. 40, A, right arm well back and left well across the front of the body, which should be leaning more to its right than in the drawing, with the hips, therefore (to keep the centre of gravity exactly over the skis), projecting more to their left. At the instant that the swinging movement of the arms and shoulders brings you into the above position--_i.e._ just before the movement reaches its extreme limit and while its force is still increasing--make a sudden effort to reverse it--that is, simultaneously _make a vigorous stroke to the left with the arms, and jerk the hips and knees round to the right_ by suddenly twisting the body at the waist.

This reverse twist of the body has practically no effect upon the shoulders--being there neutralised (though this may not be obvious at first sight) by the back-stroke of the arms--but acts almost entirely on the _hips_, turning them until they face even farther to the right than did the shoulders at the end of their previous swing. The result, therefore, of the whole double movement, if made with force and precision, should be that you find yourself in the position of Fig. 40, B, or Plate XLIV.--the skis having whipped round to right angles, or thereabouts, with their original direction--and that, after more or less side-slip, according to your speed and the quality of the snow, you come to a standstill.

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.

The Christiania can also be started, as Bilgeri and his school advise, and as I have practically said already, from a very undeveloped ordinary stemming turn. In order, for instance, to make a swing to the left, one can advance the _right_ ski, push out its heel a little, throw the weight on it, and face towards its point, and can then, by instantly bringing the left ski parallel and to the front and weighting its heel as well as the other's, finish the turn as a Christiania. This is very easy to learn, and, if the preliminary stem is reduced to a minimum, is quite effective; but it is a much less steady way of turning at a very high speed than a Christiania started with the inside ski leading, and high speed is the real test.

Having said that a "jerked" Christiania is like a skating turn, I think I had better insert the following quotation from Mr. Richardson's "Shilling Ski-runner," with the sentiment of which I heartily agree. "The beginner should remember that turns are only a means to an end, and not, as in figure skating, an end in themselves. The real object of all ski-ing technique is to enable the runner to cross the snow as fast as possible, with as little effort as possible, and as safely as possible."

Any beginner who has followed me through this chapter on the Christiania swing will probably think that a manoeuvre which takes so much description must be appallingly difficult. I can assure him that it is nothing of the sort. Indeed the expert, who does it instinctively, will no doubt wonder why on earth I have made such a fuss about it. I do not think, however, that I could have said much less and yet have given a really complete explanation of how it may be done.

The only authorities, as far as I know, who have said that there is more than one way of making the swing, are Richardson and Hoek in _Der Ski-lauf_; they do not explain the difference in the making of it, but only in its results, giving a diagram of the tracks of two swings, one "gerissen," and the other "gezogen," _i.e._ "torn" and "drawn," which, I suppose, are equivalent to "jerked" and "swung."

Some writers having given directions for one variety of the swing and some for the other; their instructions at first sight appear so extraordinarily contradictory that I am almost afraid of confessing that I agree with them all, lest the reader who knows something about ski-ing should set me down as an amiable idiot. As soon, however, as one understands the cause of it, this contradictoriness is seen to be more apparent than actual. The difficulty in realising the existence of these variations of the swing is, no doubt, due to the fact that between the pure "jerked" Christiania at one end of the scale, and the pure "swung," "steered," "drawn," or whatever one likes to call it, Christiania at the other, there are an infinite number of gradations, one of them being a form of the swing that is often seen, in which the turn is started by a slight jerk _and_ a slight separation of the ski-points, and is carried through by the weighting of the heels.

When one is running _across_ the hill an uphill Christiania of any kind can be made with perfect ease on any sort of snow short of breakable crust; when one is running _straight downhill_ it is less easy, if the snow is very loose and deep; while to make a downhill turn in deep loose snow by means of a Christiania is decidedly difficult, especially if the slope is steep, though on hard snow and a moderate slope this downhill turn is easy enough and safer than a stemming turn, if the speed is at all high.

But although at first, when out on a run, you will be wise if you only use the Christiania for making uphill turns, and that on snow which is easy for it, you should when practising keep on trying it in deeper and deeper loose snow, and should turn downhill as well as uphill, not being satisfied until you can make fairly short downhill turns in deep loose snow on a really steep slope, as it is perfectly possible to do.

As in the case of the Telemark, the beginner can of course learn to make an uphill "steered" Christiania from a standstill by holding himself back with his sticks while he places the skis in the divergent position, and then letting himself go and swinging round immediately. This is in fact a very good way for him to begin to learn it, for he can thus find out in a very short time exactly how to hold his skis and distribute his weight; nor need he be afraid of contracting any bad habit by learning the swing in this way, for though he may find it rather easier to learn the Telemark by making it clumsily at first, he will find nothing of the sort in the case of the Christiania.

Before leaving the subject of the swings, let me impress upon the reader that in every swing or turn the runner at first _starts_ the side-slip by stemming or steering with one ski held at an angle with the other or by moving both with a jerk--in short, by a _muscular effort_, however slight a one--and that having started the side-slip he lets his weight do the rest, and is carried round without any effort at all. It is the effortless side-slipping that gives a well-made swing its characteristic feeling and appearance.

The whole difference between a novice's turn and an expert's is that in the former's the preparatory stemming or steering preponderates, in the latter's the finishing side-slip; and that, moreover, in the novice's swing the initial and final movements are seen (and felt) to be distinct and separate, while in the expert's swing the preparatory movement merges imperceptibly into the final side-slip. The more the preparatory steering, stemming, or jerking is eliminated, the more comfortable--I will not say the easier--is the swing, and the steadier the balance if the swing is made at high speed.