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