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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 manœuvre 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 manœuvring 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 manœuvres 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 manœuvres 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.