Part 7
You must, as I have said, hold the lower foot exactly below the upper one, because in that position you can push along the stemming ski with least effort, and most quickly throw the weight on it if the other ski side-slips or you want to stop suddenly. This means that the more directly downhill you go the farther forward you will have to hold the lower foot, and the more, consequently, you will have to bend the upper leg (in order still to keep the weight on the upper ski), eventually having to lift its heel and finally to _sit_ on it, if you are to stem almost or quite directly downhill, as it is quite possible to do.
If you find you can do all this fairly comfortably, by all means do so; if, however, you find that at a certain angle your position on the upper leg becomes very tiring or unsteady, leave this manoeuvre and try stemming with _both_ skis, which is also called
_Snow-ploughing._--Start straight downhill, where the slope is quite gentle, in the normal running position. The moment you are moving bring your feet level, put the weight on both, raise the outer edges of the skis by bending your knees inwards a little, and, _without letting the ski-tips separate, push their heels as wide apart as you possibly can_. The legs must now be _absolutely_ straight at the knees.
If you keep your knees straight and ankles relaxed the skis will travel nearly flat--they should _never_, as I have said, be _quite_ flat or their outer edges will catch and trip you--and there will be but little braking effect. If you bend your knees inwards a little, and edge your skis strongly, you will, if the slope is moderate, reduce your pace gradually and stop. On very icy snow, unless the slope is very gentle, you cannot stop by snow-ploughing, however hard you edge, but can only reduce your speed more or less. The [V] position is then, however, a very useful alternative to the position with the skis slightly apart and parallel as a safeguard to the balance in case of side-slip. It of course gives the utmost lateral stability (if the straddle is very wide, as it always should be), and the straight knees prevent it from being in the least tiring, while, when the skis are flattened, the reduction of speed is hardly worth considering. It is therefore usually preferable to the other position, with its tiring crouch, unless the slope is steep (and the speed therefore very high) or the ground rough, when it becomes unsafe on account, not only of its rigidity, but of its greater fore and aft instability, for with the legs in this position one cannot move the feet quickly backwards and forwards in the way described on p. 113. On ground neither steep nor rough enough to make it unsteady, one can, if the snow is hard, safely take the snow-plough position quite suddenly when running at full speed. This is very convenient if when running in normal position one suddenly runs on to an icy patch.
On hard snow, then, snow-ploughing is only effective for braking purposes under certain conditions. In soft snow, if that is at all deep, it is almost useless--except for those who can make an abnormally wide straddle--for if in soft snow the skis are put in the [V] position, the inward pressure of the snow against them is so great that unless the legs can resist it almost _directly_ they are forced together at once, or, at the best, have to let the skis run almost parallel, in which case there is not much object in holding them apart at all. If, however, you are one of the fortunate few who can straddle more than three quarters of their height and point their feet almost directly inwards, you will find that snow-ploughing gives you perfect control, even in soft snow, on all but the steepest slopes, and that even there you may be able to manage by throwing most of the weight on one ski and making it slide nearly broadside on while the other points almost straight downhill, the line of your _course_ being still directly down the slope, and the legs still straddled as widely as possible, and straight at the knees. You will, however, only be able to do this by paying particular attention to the edging of the weighted ski, for if it is edged either too much or too little it will not slide at all when you try to move along slowly, and will check you suddenly and throw you down when you try to stop.
It is important to remember in snow-ploughing that, whether you want to brake hard or only slightly, the straddle must _always_ be as wide as possible; the speed should depend on the flattening or edging of the skis, not on the angle between them. Moreover, if when running free with skis together you want to take the [V] position, you must always--even if running fast--do so as _quickly_ as possible (not forgetting just to lift the outer edges of the skis _before_ you push them out). Remember also that it is no use putting the feet wide apart unless _the tips of the skis are close together_ (closer than Plate XX., p. 139).
You can start snow-ploughing from a standstill on a steep slope either by taking the position of Plate XIII. and pushing the upper ski round to the proper angle _as_ you throw your weight on to it, or simply by thrusting both sticks into the snow below you and leaning on them while you put the skis in position.
If, for structural reasons, you have only been able to take an academic interest in the instructions for snow-ploughing in soft snow, you can now learn a manoeuvre which will enable you in soft snow of any depth to stem as gradually or as steeply as you choose down a slope of any steepness.
_Telemark Stemming._--Find a steepish slope which is soft enough to prevent the least tendency to side-slip. Stand with the skis horizontal. Weight the lower, and place the upper one at an angle which will let it slide freely, as you did in learning ordinary stemming, but this time with its front bend touching the lower ankle, and its tip rather across the lower instep. Edge it normally, _kneel down on the front of it_, and slide off by flattening the other (Fig. 30). You are now stemming in what is practically Telemark position; the object of actually _kneeling on_ the upper ski is to save effort, which, of course, it does completely. It also gives the utmost steadiness. The centre of gravity being so low, you can in this position stop yourself much more suddenly with safety than you can in either snow-ploughing or ordinary stemming, and can also more safely take up the stemming position while running freely--if, of course, you then take the ordinary Telemark position and kneel right down first. In order to stem straight downhill you must place the upper ski _at right angles_ to the horizontal lower ski (you may have to get it in position with your hand before starting from a standstill on a steep slope); its point will then be right across the front instep. The front leg will be quite straight and the foot, of course, turned right inwards--a position which may sound awkward, but which most people find surprisingly easy, especially on a steep slope. If you want to stop suddenly, straighten--or rather, diminish the bend of--the upper leg, lifting its knee from the ski and throwing yourself well forward on to the lower one. And always remember to face round quickly towards its point as you do so, and to bring the other ski smartly to normal position by its side.
Telemark-stemming straight downhill is not only easy in the softest snow, but also on everything but the very hardest, no matter how steep the slope.
This manoeuvre, in fact, is an extremely useful one (though neither I nor, I believe, any other writer on ski-ing had the sense to realise its value until Herr Bilgeri pointed it out), and you should lose no time in mastering it--not that it takes much mastering, for the average beginner can do it with ease at the first attempt. It is no use, however, for _traversing_, either steeply or gradually, on _hard_ snow, for the upper ski is then very apt to side-slip and upset the runner. Nor on _very_ hard and slippery snow is it suitable even for a direct descent, as it is then difficult to hold enough weight on the stemming ski to keep the pace down. On this sort of snow, however, as long as it gives any grip at all--and, when it does not, it is no longer snow, but _ice_, for which skis are not intended--you can descend the steepest slopes either directly or obliquely with your speed under perfect control by
_Side-Slipping._--In order to side-slip straight downhill you simply stand with your skis horizontal and rather apart, and start by flattening them a little and throwing your weight well outwards, as if you wanted to go _fast_ down the hill, not _slowly_. You will then _not_ go fast, but _will_ keep your weight over your skis and be able by edging them again to check your pace or stop when you want to. If you want to stop suddenly, give a little jump and stamp the ski edges hard into the snow. Do not be too anxious to go slowly, or in the effort to edge the skis extra hard you will probably lean towards the slope, push them from under you, and fall down. The skis must remain horizontal as they slip; if they begin to turn upwards or downwards, put weight on the toes or heels respectively. If by weighting the toes you make the skis point downwards a little they will slide forwards as well as sideways, and the more they are then edged the more they will move forwards in comparison with their sideway motion. By side-slipping, therefore, you can traverse slowly at any angle you choose if the slope is fairly steep.
You can also stop yourself by side-slipping if you wish to when running a free traverse in normal position. You merely have to make the skis side-slip and instantly put your weight on the heels until they turn uphill a little, when you can again edge and stop them.
A little practice will make the whole manoeuvre almost instantaneous; it is then really a Christiania swing (see p. 175), and, if the snow is not very soft, is a far quicker and easier way than ordinary stemming or stopping or checking the pace for a moment. Throw your weight well outwards to keep it over your skis as they side-slip; your tendency at first will be to fall towards the hill.
If you ever wish to make a stemming traverse at a _steep_ angle on a _moderate_ slope where the snow though hard is not quite slippery enough for you to side-slip down it, you may be somewhat at a loss. In the Telemark position you will find a tendency to side-slip, and you may, in the ordinary stemming position, with the lower ski held horizontally and the weight on the upper one, be unable to manage the necessary squatting attitude comfortably. You can then traverse in something between the ordinary stemming and the snow-plough positions with the upper ski edged outwards and pointing the way you are going, but with the weight almost equally distributed between it and the lower, which points somewhat downhill instead of horizontally and is held with its tip level with the other's, not ahead. The upper knee must be bent, the lower straight.
We have so far talked only of hard and soft snow, but the snow surface is sometimes a breakable crust, into which the skis cut, and in which no sort of stemming is possible. Your only way of going slowly in this is to traverse at a very slight angle; if you then want to stop, you must _step round_--that is, you must lift the upper ski, put it down again pointing horizontally across the slope, and _instantly_ lift the lower and bring it down parallel with the first. Be careful to throw your weight well upwards and forwards as you put down the upper ski, and not to let the lower remain on the snow for a _moment_ after the first has been brought to it again; it is safest to give a little jump from one to the other.
Either by stepping round, or by any sort of stemming, you can of course make a change of direction when traversing if the gradient of the slope varies; as you pass on to steeper ground, for instance, you can weight the heel of the stemming ski for a moment until it is again horizontal, at the same time flattening the running ski a little and letting it slip down to the angle at which it was pointing before. This is really an embryo swing, as you will see later; one important reason, in fact, for learning all the methods of braking thoroughly is that they are the elements of which the swings are composed, each variety of swing or turn being either a development of one method of braking, or a combination of one with another.
When you become more expert you will not often have to stem while _traversing_ if the ground is open, though even then you will often find it convenient to brake in one way or other when going straight downhill. In thick wood, however, you will find it indispensable to be able to go at a moderate speed in all sorts of snow and at any gradient. It is also worth remembering that to stem straight downhill at an ordinary pace is a comparatively _fast_ process. It is not so pretty and needs much less skill, but it is _quicker_ than running freely in tacks of an ordinary gradient and connecting them by downhill turns (explained later).
When running down a narrow path or the like it is sometimes impossible to brake effectually, as there is not room to put the skis in a wide [V] position or to Telemark-stem; it may then be permissible to use the stick or sticks as an aid. Plate XXI. shows a way of doing this. The arm supported against the thigh gives a firm purchase--firm enough, in my experience, to hurt the wrist a good deal if the points of the sticks catch something hard. This manoeuvre is hardly ever necessary unless the path is very icy; if there is much of this, and you want to go slowly, you may just as well walk with your skis on your shoulder.
When you can do all that has been explained so far, you may (if you have steadily refrained from using your stick except as I have directed) consider yourself quite a respectable ski-runner in a small way. There will be nothing to prevent you from going for any expedition of which the uphill climb is within your powers, for whether you are going uphill or downhill, there is no sort of ground that cannot be negotiated by one or other of the manoeuvres that I have described.
But, though a perfectly efficient tourist, you will not be a very fast one downhill until you have learnt how to stop and steer yourself in any sort of snow, _when running fast_, and will tire yourself unnecessarily on steep or difficult ground until you can run in zigzags without coming to a standstill between each tack.
The different ways of doing these things are described in the following sections.
THE STEMMING TURN
I must here apologise for the extreme ambiguity of ski-ing terminology, which, however, as I did not invent it, I have not the moral courage to try to improve. The term "stemming" may be used in several different senses. In its narrowest sense it means holding the skis in the [V] position and braking with _one_ of them. More broadly it means braking with _both_ in the [V] position. It also means braking with the skis in Telemark position. In fact in its broadest sense it means any sort of braking except side-slipping with the skis parallel.
In this sense almost any method of turning on skis might, as we shall see later, be called a "stemming" turn. The expression "stemming turn," however, is generally used in a special sense to denote a turn during which the skis are held in the [V] position with the feet nearly level.
By means of a "stemming turn" you can, as you already know, turn _uphill_ or stop when traversing; you can also do so from a direct descent. You can, moreover, turn _downhill_ from a traverse until you face in the opposite direction and run off on a new tack.
This turn is effected by putting the skis in a more or less wide [V] position, and either simultaneously or immediately afterwards _weighting_ and slightly advancing the one that is to be outermost in turning. To show how in this as in all turns the various factors of side-slipping, with the weight variously distributed, combined steering action of both skis, edging, &c., come into play according to circumstances, it will be necessary to describe in detail the two different uses of the turn.
For practising these turns find a moderate slope and snow in which it is easy to stem when running straight downhill; a much trodden practice-ground is the very thing.
_Uphill Turn to the Left._--You already know how to turn uphill from a traverse by stemming; the following way of doing it is slightly simpler. Traverse to the left at an easy gradient in normal position, weight on right foot. When you want to turn, draw the upper ski a little to the rear (Fig. 31, _1_) and then push the heels wide apart, straightening both legs and putting all the weight on the lower heel (Fig. 31, _2_ and _3_). As the lower ski begins to turn uphill, bring the other one smartly to its side again in normal position.
This is much the same thing as stopping when stemming with the lower ski, as described above (page 121), but is rather simpler, for the uncomfortable crouching position necessary when stemming with the lower ski is avoided, there is no shifting of the weight from one ski to the other, and the preparatory movement of drawing back the upper ski can perfectly well be made simultaneously with the actual turn.
To make an uphill stemming turn when running across a slope in normal position is rather a clumsy process, and it is quite unnecessary to spend much time in practising it, for an uphill turn from a traverse can be made more easily and effectively by the Christiania swing, in the way already explained, or the Telemark, which will be described later. Just make sure, however, that you _can_ turn uphill in this way from a traverse in either direction, and then try the turn from a direct descent, as follows.
Run straight downhill in the stemming position with the weight equally on both skis and the feet as wide apart as possible, taking care that the legs are quite straight at the knee, and rigid (Fig. 32, _1_).
In order to turn to the left (most people find it easiest to learn to turn to this side first) you have simply to throw all the weight on to the heel of the right foot and turn the body to face the point of the right ski. You will begin to turn to the left, and as you do so the left foot will involuntarily fall slightly to the rear (_2_), when the steering action due to the relative position of the skis will help the turn.
If you keep all the weight on the heel of the right foot you will go on turning until the right ski points slightly uphill, when you will come to a standstill (_3_). As you do so, be sure to bring the inner ski quickly to the normal position.
This is extremely simple, and, if you keep both legs quite straight and the feet wide apart, you can hardly fail to do it correctly.
The mistake you are most likely to make is that of letting the left knee bend as you begin to come round. If it does so the left ski will get on its outside edge, and, instead of continuing to skid round, will only run in the direction in which it is pointing, so that if it does not run across the other (Plate XXV.), and throw you down,[8] you will find yourself running obliquely across the slope, stemming with the right ski only instead of turning uphill and stopping.
It is not sufficient, however, to keep the inner leg straight, for unless at the same time you keep nearly all weight off it, either the left ski will get in front and you will begin to face downhill again, or it will get too much on to its inside edge, and will at least prevent you from finishing the turn, even if it does not trip you up.
As soon as you can turn to the left in this way, learn to turn to the right, of course substituting "right" for "left" and "left" for "right" in the directions.
If, while running straight downhill, you turn and come to a standstill in the way I have described, you will, when you have stopped, find yourself a certain distance to one side or the other of your original course.
This may not always be convenient; you may, for instance, want to stop while running down an icy road, fenced on each side, and so narrow that you have only just room enough to stem, and would run into the fence if you swung to one side in stopping.
In a case of this sort you can turn suddenly and stop in your tracks in the following way:--
Suppose you are running straight downhill in the double-stemming position; when you want to stop, give a vigorous push with one foot--say the left--and so throw all your weight _suddenly_ right outwards on to the heel of the right foot, turning the body quickly well round to the left as you do so. If this is done with force and decision the right ski skids round quickly to a horizontal position, and as it does so, the left ski comes into the air, is lifted smartly round, and brought down parallel with and close to the other one. You then find yourself at a standstill, facing to the left across your original track, but without having moved to one side of it (Fig. 33).
Just at first you may fail to do this properly through giving a timid, jerky push with the left foot instead of a steady thrust. This will prevent your weight from going sufficiently outwards over the right ski, and the left ski will come to the snow again before you have had time to lift it round to the side of the other one and before that one has had time to skid round to right angles with your course. After a very few trials, however, you should be able to do it correctly, and you will then find that no great force is necessary, and that the movement need not even be made particularly quickly provided it be done with a free swing. In order to give the push you must, of course, bend the inside knee slightly.
Provided the inner ski is brought _parallel_ to the outer one, it does not matter if it comes to the snow again _before_ the latter has skidded round to right angles, for then the turn can be finished with both skis side-slipping together--that is to say, the turn can begin as a stemming turn and finish as a Christiania, a most useful combination which is beginning to be known by the dreadful name "Stemmiania," which I only quote in order to record my dislike for it.
This way of making the turn is practically instantaneous, and is so convenient that when you have once learnt it you will hardly ever use the one I described first. By means of it you can stop suddenly when moving at a very fair rate, especially if you stem hard with both skis well edged inwards just before making the turn.
Practise this movement without skis at first, and then at a standstill with skis, on the most slippery snow you can find, trying to make the outer ski spin right round to right angles.
These uphill stemming turns enable you to stop yourself wherever the quality of the snow and the gradient allow you to hold the double-stemming position while running straight downhill. It is no use attempting to make them on very steep slopes or in snow into which the skis sink deeply; in either of these cases you will have to stop yourself by means of the Telemark or Christiania swings, described later.