Something has already been said about the swift-growing jungles of frost-flowers that so speedily cause the lakes in Switzerland to be utterly useless for all purposes connected with skates. It suddenly strikes the writer that the inexperienced in these matters will have concluded that I mean that when once those frost-flowers have formed all skating is over, and that if they have gone to Switzerland for the indulgence of this taste, all that is henceforth to be offered them is the opportunity to admire this frozen vegetation instead of cutting figures. I therefore hasten to assure them that lake skating in Switzerland does not count; indeed most winter resorts have no lake at all; and even if they have, skating there is quite the exception and not the rule. In nine cases out of ten the snow spoils the ice before it bears, and the frost-flowers spoil the greater part of it, even if the snow has held off, almost immediately afterwards. Lake-skating, in fact, is of the nature of a bonus rather than a dividend: to be enjoyed if it happens, but by no means to be reckoned on.

But at every Swiss resort there are rinks made, which render the skater independent of natural surfaces of ice, and those, at all well-conducted places, are “new every morning,” because every evening they are swept and sprinkled with water, which by the ensuing day has frozen, and presents a fresh surface to the zealot. In fact, an artificial skating-rink is as necessary an equipment in the Swiss winter resort as is the hotel itself. The construction and renovation of these rinks is most interesting, and ranks among the fine arts, just as does the architecture of a fine golf-links or the preparation of good wickets. These rinks are used for two purposes: skating, including bandy or ice hockey, and curling. I do not count ice-gymkhanas or ice-carnivals, because anything is good enough for them. You can play the shovel-game or crawl through barrels among the jungles of frost-flowers. I do not imply that such entertainment is not exceedingly amusing; I only mean that the artist in rink-making paints his masterpieces primarily for the sake of the skater and the curler, not for the Pierrot with his Chinese lantern, or those who win three-legged races.

The technique of these ice-pictures is in brief as follows:

In the beginning of the creation (from the skater’s point of view) a piece of ground is carefully and accurately levelled. This, if it is to be the foundation of a well-and truly-laid rink in the ensuing winter, should be done early in the spring, because the ground will have then had time to settle down, and the inequalities which always occur in this settling can be made good, before the first frosts of the autumn begin, and the soil gets fixed and frozen. Also, so I am told, the fact that the ground will then be covered with a growth of weeds and grasses, causes the foundation of the rink to be of better quality. This is easily understandable: the base is matted, and is probably more coherent in texture and less liable to contain holes through which the water may drain away. Then, when the whole ground has been doctored, i.e. when the small inequalities have been corrected and it is as uniformly level as can be expected of anything in this shifting world, everybody sits down and smokes (as is the habit of the Swiss peasant) till the first good snowfall comes, probably in November or early in December. Then the merry peasant has to put down his pipe and work begins again.

A row of them (I am describing the most up-to-date method) stand close together with arms interlocked, in as straight a line as may be, and trample down all this beautiful fresh snow. Up and down they go, in slow time, stamping heavily with their great feet, and making out of perhaps a foot of snow some 3 or 4 inches at the most, of really compact and hard foundation. It will resemble at the best, as regards evenness, a lane over which flocks of ponderous sheep have passed; but the groundwork (this is the main point) will be of hardened snow, though extremely rough of surface. Then they may all sit down and smoke their pipes again—all, that is, except the headman and those who pull about, at his bidding, the yards of hose which at one end terminate in a brass nozzle, at the other in the water-supply, which should run in the main at high pressure. This water is then turned on to the compacted snow which gets soaked with it, and, if a few nights of hard frost follow the original snowfall, becomes gradually converted into a sort of rough but glazed and solid ice. Then, if nothing untoward happens, in the shape of thaw or further snowfall, the next step is taken. But if there is during these few days a thaw, they have to wait for more snow to fall, and do their trampling over again; while if there is more snow, the poor wretches have still to trample and get the foundations firm again. But if all goes well—and the experienced iceman will delay the original trampling until the barometer or his weather-sense (preferably the former) promises cold weather to follow—he makes his second operation. He will have built a small bank of snow perhaps 3 feet high and well-spaded down, round his rink, and have sprinkled that as well as his rink surface, so that it is at any rate glazed with ice and water-tight. Then, waiting for a bright sunny morning, he floods the whole rink with perhaps 2 inches of water. The sunniness of the day is most important for this operation: if he put on this flood on a cold day, or at evening when a frosty night was imminent, all the water he put on, lying on the cold frozen surface below, and with the frosty air above it would freeze solid without cohering to the original frozen foundation. But putting it on while the sun is hot, the top surface of the foundation is percolated with the flood, and when the frost of the night follows, the flood binds with it. One night possibly may not consolidate the flood: if it does not, he waits till another night completes the work. All the time, it must be remembered, the rink presents the most depressing appearance: little bits of frozen snow have floated up to the surface, frost-flowers perhaps have made their ill-starred appearance, and it still somewhat resembles a sheep-trampled lane. But then things begin to look better: and another inch of water is put on, and then another inch, and then another, each being consolidated before the next is applied, and each being applied not in the evening, but when the sun will slightly melt the previous surface. With each of these floodings the ice grows more desirably smooth, and more immaculately clean, till at the end of perhaps a fortnight there is something like 18 inches of solid ice over the ground that was levelled in the spring. At least this thickness is required if the ice is to last properly, for even in mid-winter the most sickening series of climatic catastrophes may occur, which, unless there is good thickness of ice originally built up, may spoil the rink altogether. For on hot sunny days, though the surface of the ice remains quite dry, very great evaporation occurs, and the dryness of the air drinks up the melted ice before it visibly or tangibly becomes water. Or again, even in the most well-conducted winters, at the most approved resorts, there may be a complete thaw, and “the pools are filled with water,” which also evaporates. In both these cases, there is a consequent loss of ice, and the bullion, so to speak, must be able to stand the drain upon it. Still worse, there may be a snowfall followed by a thaw, followed by a frost. The thaw has eaten into the ice; the frost has caused this rodent mixture to get encrusted again. And then, if there is not good depth of ice, the most excruciating events tread on each others’ heels. The ground below the thin ice is warmed with the penetrating sun, and begins to exude bubbles; the bubbles rise, and horrible water-blisters, skinned over with ice, appear. The skates crash through them (“and langwedge which I will not pollewt my pen with describing,” as Miss Fanny Squeers said) and cut into the half-frozen ground, which thereupon begins to leak. The most awful mess ... there are no words for it. Therefore it is necessary, as soon as possible, to get a good thickness of ice.

But this building-up of the rink requires immense patience and forethought. Night after night when the building is going on, and the weather is warm and beastly, the head iceman, if he is really competent, will sit up through the long tale of dark hours, keeping himself awake with coffee, and watching the thermometer to see when it registers sufficient degrees of frost to enable him to put more water on to the ice. He will wait all through a cloudy night, hoping for the sky to clear, in order to get a half inch more foundation. It is useless and worse than useless to apply more water unless there are several degrees of frost, for this only weakens his original trampled foundation of snow, and leads to the awful trouble of blisters coming up from the ground. But if even an hour or two before daybreak the temperature sinks, and there is a chance of gaining a further thickness of ice, he will rouse his men, and at any rate spray or sprinkle the whole surface of the rink, in order to get a little more ice, just a little more. Night and day, like a mother over a sick child (I am not exaggerating), a man like Rudolf Baumann, and others not so well known to me, will watch over their rink, to console, to fill up holes, to add another fibre of underlying muscle.

But even when a couple of feet of solid ice are built up over the ground, the trouble of the iceman is not over. Again a snowfall may come, followed by a thaw, and the removal of this reveals sometimes a terrible sort of chicken-pox on the ice. If the snowfall is followed by cold weather, not much harm is done, for the snow is removed by shovels and barrows, and a sprinkle of water over the whole rink—sprinklings being made at night, since a sprinkle freezes almost as it falls, opposed to the slower habits of a flood—shows next day that the rink is no whit the worse. But if a thaw follows a snowfall, the general laws of nature are suspended, in order to thwart icemen and skaters. Theoretically, the surface of the ice below the melting snow will thaw evenly. Practically, it does nothing of the kind. The surface is unaffected in one spot, and immediately adjoining it has thawed into a small round hole about 6 inches in circumference. Why this happens I cannot say, except that it is part of the general malignity of natural law; but the effect is apparent enough, and when the thawing snow is removed, the ice is found to be covered by numberless small holes. Each one of these has to be filled up by hand, with a freezing mixture of snow and water, or better of pounded ice and water.... There are rinks in Switzerland 300 yards long—I leave the consideration of these, in the matter of labour required, to mathematicians who like dealing with progressions that approach the infinite.

Now the shrinkage of the ice already gained goes on all winter long, owing to the evaporation of the surface, and owing to the cutting edges of skates, which cover it with a sawdust of frozen stuff that has to be swept off every evening. This perpetual loss must be made good, or else the rink would soon vanish altogether, and it is made good by floodings or sprinklings. A flood of a couple of inches over the whole surface is of course the easiest way of doing this, but it is far the least satisfactory. For, as I have said, the flood must be put on while the sun is still on the ice, to enable it to bind into the ice already formed, and thus hours of daylight are lost to the skater. Furthermore, unless a really severe night follows, it will not be all properly frozen. So the good ice-maker, instead of turning skaters off the ice, and getting by one flood sufficient thickness to last for three or four days more, sprinkles instead. This is a far longer and more troublesome process, for with his hose-pipe with its small nozzle he has to go over the ice again and again, six or seven times perhaps, or more, in a single night, if ice is badly wanted. If it is freezing hard, each sprinkle will solidify almost as soon as it falls, and sometimes he sprinkles all night long; while if it is far too warm for a flood to have a chance of solidifying, he will, unless a real thaw is going on, still find it possible to sprinkle once or twice before morning, even though there is but a degree or two of frost. Another immense advantage that sprinkling has over flooding is, that ice thus made, little by little, in exceedingly thin layers, lasts, for some reason, far longer than a greater thickness of ice frozen solid in a single night. Why this should be so, I do not know; but the fact is incontestable. Certainly also a flood of a couple of inches frozen solid is far more brittle in itself than ice built up in thin layers, and an awkward toe-strike with the tip of the skate will cut a great chunk out of flood-ice, whereas it makes far less impression on sprinkled ice. The sprinkle should be thrown far and high (as illustrated in Plate XIII), so that it comes down on to the ice in fine mist-like rain that freezes quickly and freezes tightly into the ice already there. Of course all these difficulties are not encountered in a perfectly cold winter. Given a hard frost every night, it is easy to keep pace with the daily evaporation. But even in the loftiest winter resorts in this excellent republic, mid-winter thaws occur.

Such in brief is the making of these rinks that seem such simple affairs when made, just a level piece of ice with a smooth surface. But the knowledge, the care, the watchfulness which are necessary to secure good ice that will last all winter and reasonably resist any thaws and snowfalls that may occur, are enormous. And the same care that is lavished on their making must be expended on their keeping. No one with soil on his gouties or a cigarette even in his mouth should be allowed on the sacred surface, for even a feathery ash of tobacco if allowed to lie on the ice will get warmed by the sun and gradually melt its way into the ice. The sprinkle that night covers it, and it is embedded in the ice like a fly in amber. Again the sun shines on it, it melts a little water round it, and forms the nucleus of what will spread into a blister in the ice. Any dirt in the same way makes similar holes, and nothing but the clean skate-blade and the necessary and privileged boots of the icemen should ever be allowed on the rink. How amazed would be the pioneers of outdoor artificial rinks if they could see the huge and perfect surfaces now yearly prepared for the hordes of foreign visitors who flock to Switzerland. Of those pioneers John Addington Symonds was one, and in his charming essays he recounts how at Davos he and a few enthusiastic friends took exercise by incessantly working the handle of a pump that stood in the middle of a level field, until, I think, the pump froze. Then greatly daring they proceeded to skate over the amazing ridges and shelves of ice which must certainly have been the result of this hardy undertaking. Nowadays a reservoir must be built at a sufficient height above the rink to secure a good pressure of water for the sprinkling, and patient laudable men sit up all night watching the thermometer to see if it is safe to offer water to the delicately-nurtured crystal. But from these fine-art rinks has fine-art skating been evolved, and if the pioneers of rink-making wondered at our reservoir, our cohorts of workmen, our huge glassy surfaces, still more perhaps would the skaters of those days be astonished to see some champion of the Continental execute his “back loop change loop eight” laying the loops on top of the other, or observe four gentlemen of the English swoop down at top speed and on back edges to their centre, flick out four creamy rockers and glide away again to their appointed circumference. So much then for the skater’s material needs; we pass on to consider the use he puts them to.

Now there are two styles of skating (I do not refer to good skating and bad skating), known respectively as the English and the Continental or International. In past days, certain exponents of one or the other school, with the mistaken idea that to belittle another was to magnify themselves, fell into the stupid error of comparing the two to the accompaniment of robust vilifications of that style which happened not to be so fortunate as to number them among its adherents. But it is no exaggeration to say that the two styles have nothing whatever to do with one another. It is true that the performer in each case is on skates, and that the skates progress over ice; but the very skates are different; so, too, is the whole mode, manner, style, and effect of performance, and it would be as reasonable for the Rugby football player to assert that Association is not real football, as for the English skater to label the International skater an acrobat or contortionist, or for the International skater to call his detested English brother an exponent of the ramrod school. Many flowers of speech bloomed in the gardens of these controversialists, the more exotic and violently coloured blossoms springing, I think, from

certain skaters in the International style, who were admirably industrious at one time in their denunciation of anyone who ventured to skate in the English style. The present writer, for instance, who, poor fool, thought he was amusing himself quietly in attempting unambitious feats in English skating, without interfering with anybody, had an open letter addressed to him in the Engadine Post, pointing out the vileness and wickedness of his heretic ways; and a precious little book, that now lies open before me, which did not attract as much attention as its unconscious humour seems to warrant, informs us that the theories on which English skating are based are “diametrically opposed to every principle of nature, science and art, and at variance with the unrestrained freedom of action and movement which prevails in every other branch of athletic sport.” Probably the writer felt better after that, for we have heard nothing of him since; while with regard to the above-quoted criticism, the only comment that need be made is, that on the same silly lines it would be reasonable to call lawn-tennis at variance with unrestrained freedom of action and movement, because it is not part of the game to slog the ball wildly out of court.

But of late this controversy has somewhat died down, the fact being that no one with the smallest knowledge of the difficulties and beauties of skating at all, in whichever of these two styles, ever joined in it, since, whether in personal preference he was English or Continental, he had sufficient acquaintance with skating matters to appreciate and admire the excellence both of his own school and of that to which he owed no allegiance. He saw also that the two schools had nothing to do with each other, and instead of jeering at the other, contentedly practised at the one he happened to prefer. Naturally, most Swiss resorts tend to one style or the other; but at Davos, the original cradle of the modern English style, the two schools flourish side by side, as also they do at MÜrren, one of the newly-opened Swiss centres. There particularly—at Davos there is a separate English rink, mainly occupied by English skaters—you may see the votaries of the different schools of this now obsolete controversy cheek by jowl on the ice, and lying down together, after a fall, like the lion and the lamb. At St. Moritz, similarly, both styles are bloodlessly practised, though the International style is the more popular; while Grindelwald is nowadays exclusively International, after having been exclusively English. So, too, is Wengen. On the other hand, at Villars, one of the largest skating resorts in the country, there is scarcely an Internationalist to be seen, and ChÂteau d’Oex, Montana, and Morgins are similarly almost entirely English in their leanings. But without more enumeration it is sufficient to say that both schools flourish exceedingly, and will undoubtedly continue to do so, and nothing that anybody says will detract from the prosperity of either.

Now skating, in both these styles, is largely a matter of form, and herein it differs from nearly every other sport. It does not suffice in skating, whether you are English or Internationalist, to do certain things, to cut threes, to execute rocking-turns, or loops or back-brackets. All these things have to be done in the manner prescribed by the Vedas, so to speak, of your school. Without doubt there is reason at the base of these methods, for it is clear that if, in a combined figure, four English skaters were

allowed to fly into their centre on a back edge with their unemployed leg waving, and there execute a rocker, there would immediately be a heap of mangled bodies on the ice, a result which is not recognised as being among the objects of combined skating; and similarly, in the International style, the graceful poses of arm and leg, which ignorant English skaters look upon as mere display, are designed to assist the movement. But in all other games (and this is where skating differs from them all) the point is to achieve a certain object, and the achievement of that object, however attained, renders the achiever a notable performer if he consistently attains it. The golfer, for instance, who consistently drives a long straight ball, puts his mashie shot near the hole, and generally putts out, is a magnificent golfer, in whatever manner or style he executes these tyrannously difficult feats. There are a hundred and a hundred hundred styles and modes of putting, and they are all good, provided only they enable the putter to hole his ball. At cricket, similarly, a man may bowl fast or slow with any sort of break, and with any sort of action (provided his shirt sleeve is not wantonly flapping), and he is a good bowler if only he gets wickets cheaply. But at skating the prescribed thing has to be done in the prescribed manner, and the prescriptions of the English school are, broadly speaking, all of them diametrically opposed to the principles of the International school. In the English style the employed leg (i.e. the one which for the moment is being skated on) must be straight; in the International style it must be bent. In the English style the unemployed leg must be close to the other, and hang beside it, loosely and easily; in the International, wherever the exigencies of the movement demand that it should be, it must at any rate never be there. In English the arms must not be spread and swung abroad to assist the movement, but must be carried inactively by the side, whereas in International, as long as the skate moves the arms must be engaged on their assigned activity. In both schools, in fact, every movement must be executed in a given way, but in no case is there the smallest resemblance between those ways, though both should result in clean edges and clean turns executed at defined places.

It is not my intention to give here a manual of English skating, beginning with instruction to beginners and ending with timorous hints to experts, but any book on Winter Sports would necessarily be incomplete unless it babbled to some considerable extent about skating, which, without doubt, is the sport in pursuit of which the large majority of English folk visit the High Alps in winter. From whatever cause, this slippery art exercises a unique spell over the able-bodied and athletic section of Anglo-Saxon mankind. It may be that this is partly accounted for by the comparative rarity of the occasions on which we can skate, owing to our Gulf-Stream-beridden and generally pestilential climate, and it is sufficient that some puddle-place in a village green should be half-frozen to cause the majority, not only of youth but of sedate men and women, to hurry down to the spot, and there slide about on both feet with staggerings and frequent falls and the ever-present possibility of occasional immersions. But the rarity of even half-frozen puddles in England does not wholly account for the transcendent spell: there is something in the quality of motion which is started by a stroke of the tense muscles, and then continues of its own accord, without effort or friction, until the impetus is exhausted, that appeals to our unwinged race, who must otherwise keep putting foot before foot to get anywhere. The sensation itself is exquisite, and the sensation is rendered more precious by the fact that from the days when the tyro slides cautiously forward on both feet, to the days when, having become a master in his art, he executes back-counters at the centre in a combined figure, there is always a slight uncertainty as to what is going to happen next. The tyro rejoicing in the unaccustomed method of progress is conscious of a pleasing terror as to whether he will not fall flat down, and glows with callow raptures all the time that he does not; while the finest skater who ever lived, will never be quite sure that he will flick out his back-counter cleanly and unswervingly. We can all walk pretty perfectly—at least, there is no pleasing terror that we may be going to fall down—but none of us at our respective levels as artists in skating can skate pretty perfectly. We can only skate moderately well, considering how well we can skate. And the joy of it! The unreasoning, delirious joy of the beginner who for the first time feels his outside edge bite the ice, and, no less, the secret elation of the finest performers in the world, when they execute their back-counter close to the centre, at high speed, and without the semblance of flatness in the edge! And even if any of us was so proficient as to perform such a feat with absolute certainty, there is no doubt whatever that we should find some further feat that would put us back into the dignified ranks of stragglers again. And the same holds good with regard to International skating: at least if there is any among those delightful artists who will execute the Hugel star first on one foot and then on the other without a pleasing anxiety gnawing at his heart, I should very much like to know his name and black his boots for him.

To go more into detail with regard to the manner and style of these antipodal twins, we will take first the twin known as English skating. This falls into two broad classes, namely, single skating and that which is the cream and essence of English skating, combined skating. A further development of combined skating, namely, combined hand-in-hand skating, has not long ago been undergoing a successful evolution, under the auspices chiefly of Miss Cannan, Lord Doneraile and Mr. N. G. Thompson. Without doubt it holds many charming possibilities, and very likely there is a great future before it, but owing to right of primogeniture we will first consider the two elder branches. In both the technique, so to speak, is the same. The object is to skate fast on large bold edges, to make turns of all sorts and changes of edge cleanly and without effort, and to skate all these turns and edges in a particular and prescribed manner.

The first consideration, therefore, is the manner. The stroke must be taken, i.e. impetus must be set up, not with a push of our skate-toe into the ice, but from the inside edge of the skate blade. The reason is obvious, for if a skater thrusts his sharp skate-toe into the ice he will make a hole in it, and damage the ice. That is sufficient: I think there are probably four or five other reasons, which in a general and unspecialised treatise like this need not be gone into.

The skater having got his impetus by leaning against the inside edge of one skate, launches himself on the other. Now there are two edges to a skate, namely, the inside and the outside. There is also the flat base of the skate. Both theoretically and practically, he never uses the flat of the skate in his actual progress. When he turns, whether the turn is a three-turn or a rocker, or a counter or a bracket, he comes up to the flat for a moment, but instantly leaves it again. He progresses on one edge, the inside, or on the other edge, the outside. And while he progresses, he must progress in the prescribed manner. And the prescription is this:

I. His head must be turned in the direction of his progress, whether he is progressing forwards or backwards. Again common-sense is at the base of this rule. For if his head is turned in the direction of his progress, he is looking, unless unfortunately blind, where he is going. This avoids trouble to himself, if there are holes in the ice, and trouble to other people if there are other people on the ice.

II. He must be standing erect with his shoulders and body sideways to the direction of his curve, not facing square down it. In other words, he must, among other things, be travelling not further forward than on the middle of his skate, otherwise he will not be standing erect, but leaning forward. This attitude is that which is referred to, in the humorous book I have already quoted, as characteristic of the ramrod school. But the author, in his blissful ignorance of skating matters, is not aware that it is impossible to execute a long smooth circumference of curve if you progress on the forepart of your skate. If you are on the forepart of the skate, you must be leaning forward, and no one of known anatomy can lean forward and execute a long smooth edge. The balance is unsteady, and the edge wobbles. Commonsense, then, again endorses this rule. In order to be steady on a long edge, your balance must be of the established order. You must be upright, and travelling without muscular effort to retain your position. This is only attained by travelling on the middle or the aft part of the skate. For nobody can stand still on their toes. But standing on the middle part of the foot or with the weight on the heel it is perfectly easy to do so. But when this humorous author (whom I drag out of his obscurity for the last time) calls this the ramrod school, he proves himself ignorant of the first principles of English skating, or perhaps has only observed himself in some mirror at Prince’s Club attempting to assume the correct attitude himself. As a matter of fact, the proper attitude of the skater in the English style is exactly that of a man who is well made and master of his limbs standing still with the weight chiefly on one foot. While skating, it is true, the weight is entirely on one foot, and the performer is moving, and not standing still. But the pose necessary to smooth and swift progression is exactly that. It no more resembles a ramrod, when decently done, as every good English skater does it, than it resembles a coal-scuttle or a pince-nez, or what you will.

III. The unemployed leg, i.e. the leg of the foot which is not skating, must hang close to the employed leg. Again the reason is obvious. If four persons came into their centre with a waving unemployed leg, they would hit each other. Also, if the unemployed leg is put out behind, the skater must lean forward in order to counteract its weight. He will then tend to skate on the forepart of his skate. In a series of long edges this attitude is impossible to maintain except by effort. Nobody could skate for a quarter of an hour in combined skating, accurately and largely on such a principle.

IV. The arms must hang by the side, and be carried loosely easily, close to the body. Again the explanation is obvious. There is no need for their flying abroad, since a long edge is most easily accomplished with the limbs and body in rest after the stroke, and these long smooth edges are part and parcel of English skating: it is founded on them. English skating postulates so perfect a balance, travelling on the middle of the skates, that it chooses (this is the reason for the rule) not to let that balance be assisted by the added or subtracted weight of a correcting arm. It says (this is what it comes to) that you must be so firm on your travelling root, so to speak, of balance, that you dispense with all adjustments of weight. The weight has to be practically perfectly adjusted. There must be no adjustments adventitiously obtained.

Now these four rules are at the base of English skating. If you happen to play a game, you conform to the rules, and you do not argue, for instance, when you are playing cricket, whether you should be given out, when quite clearly you have been caught at the wicket. If you are at all sensible, or in any way like cricket, you pocket your duck’s egg and retire. Superb strokes may be made at cricket, which nevertheless are fatal to the striker. Superb attitudes, similarly, may be made in the International style, which are quite completely wrong. They may be supremely statuesque, but they are not skating. The case is exactly the same with the English style. Certain canons have been laid down, all of which seem to be necessary to the attainment of excellence. It is no doubt possible to skate charming “threes to a centre” doing everything quite wrong from beginning to end. But if you choose to adopt a style, you must conform to the rules of that style. Similarly, it is quite possible to skate the same “threes to a centre” in the International style, which shall leave the same mark on the ice (though the skating of them broke every possible rule) as the most finished performer could leave there. But who would not applaud the International judge who ruthlessly ploughed such a candidate? He has not kept the rules, which in contradistinction to other games prescribe not only what the object in view is, but the manner in which the performance is to take place. But this manner, we venture to point out, has not been laid down in an arbitrary way: it is the manner, both in International skating and in English alike, in which the feats demanded can alone be properly performed.

Now if the skater will take the trouble to conform to the four rules given above, he will find that even at the outset of his career there is great fun in store for him. Should he conform to them completely, when the complication of turns is added, he will quite certainly find that there is a championship, if he cares for that, in store for him also. The rules were not negligently made; indeed they were never made at all, but are simply the condensed experience of the best skaters, the methods by which the fittest survived. And the fittest did, and always will do, that which is recorded in these rules, and the ensuing complications, even the most complicated of them, are comparatively easy to those who can maintain the proper travelling position. But nobody who cannot hold a long firm edge, for which the proper travelling position is essential, need ever trouble his dreams with the notion of becoming a good skater. And no one’s edges approach perfection, if he cannot traverse, on backward and forward edges, outside and inside alike, a distance of at least a hundred yards, given that the ice is reasonably good, without stirring from the attitude he has taken up after his stroke. A really fine skater will traverse much more, and be still as a rock throughout his travel; but no good skater will be so unsteady that he will not easily traverse that. In his actual skating he will, probably, never be called upon to make so lengthy an edge, but its accomplishment should present no difficulty to him, if he aspires to be a fair performer. Even as the pianist, when performing, is not called upon to play simple scales with both hands, so the skater will not be called upon, in his combined figure, to skate for a hundred yards on one edge. But both pianist and skater ought to find no difficulty at all in executing these simple feats.

The beginner is advised to get a fair mastery of all the edges before he begins to attack the fortress of the turns. He should be able to progress steadily and smoothly both on the outside edge and the inside edge forward, and to make some progress also on the back edges, namely, outside back and inside back. This last is far the most difficult of the edges, and it will be a long time before he is able to take fast bold strokes on it. But he should have some acquaintance with it before he attempts to make the turns that necessitate its employment, and be able to hold it in the correct position. He can then set about turns and changes of edge, which all imply correct travelling.

Now there are four groups of turns, common both to the English and International styles, each group of which contains four turns to be executed on each foot. Altogether, therefore, there are sixteen turns to be learned which employ each foot singly. These with the four edges, executed in the prescribed manner, form the material of the art. These turns are common both to English and International skating,

I. The first group is known as simple turns, and consists of turns (or changes of direction, from backwards to forwards or forwards to backwards) from:

(i)	Outside forward to inside back.
(ii)	Inside forward to outside back.
(iii)	Outside back to inside forward.
(iv)	Inside back to outside forward.

They are all of the same shape with regard to the marks they leave on the ice, and from their shape are known as “three” turns, or “threes.”

Thus:

The arrow shows the direction of progress: the turn is the cusp in the middle between the two curves. Thus if the first edge is outside forward, the second is inside back: if the first is inside forward the second is outside back: if the first is outside back the second is inside forward: if the first is inside back the second is outside forward.

II. The second group of turns is known as rocking turns, or more generally as “rockers.” Like the “three” turns, they are all of the same shape, thus:

and are four in number, namely:

(i)	Outside forward to outside back.
(ii)	Inside forward to inside back.
(iii)	Outside back to outside forward.
(iv)	Inside back to inside forward.

Now, in both these groups the body revolves or rotates at the moment of making the turn in the direction indicated by the dotted lines; it revolves, that is to say, outside the direction of the first curve. But it is possible for the body to revolve in the opposite direction, that is to say, inside the direction of its first curve. This makes possible the third and fourth groups of turns.

III. This group, which is known as brackets, from the mark left on the ice, corresponds to Group I, and the edges employed in it are the same, namely, outside forward to inside back, &c. But in this group the body revolves on the inside of the direction of the first curve, and the mark on the ice, consequently, is as follows, the dotted line again indicating the revolution of the body:

IV. The fourth group is known as counter-rocking turns, or more generally as counters. It corresponds with Group II, for the marks on the ice are approximately the same, and the edges employed are outside forward to outside back, &c. But here again the revolution of the body, as in the brackets, takes inside the direction of the first curve, thus:

These sixteen turns, or changes of direction while skating on one foot, comprise all the varieties of so doing that seem theoretically possible, since they include every forward edge to every back edge and every back edge to every forward edge, skated with rotation of the body both outside and inside the direction of the first curve, and until somebody discovers a third edge to a skate, or a third direction of rotating the body, it is not possible that they will be added to.

But changes of direction may be made by the employment, not of one but of both feet, and though these might be more properly described as strokes rather than turns, there are two groups of them which enter largely into English skating. These are known as mohawks and choctaws.

I. Mohawks consist of either forward edge combined with the corresponding back edge taken up by the other foot. Thus if the right foot starts as an outside forward, the left, to complete the mohawk, is put down on the outside back edge, thus:

Here the rotation is made, as in the brackets and counters, on the inside of the direction of the first curve, and the figure is known as the outside forward mohawk. Similarly, the mohawk can be skated on the inside edges, i.e. the right foot starts with an inside forward, and the left completes with an inside back. Here the rotation, as in the threes and rockers, takes place on the outside of the direction of the first curve.

II. Choctaws also employ both feet, but the second curve of a choctaw is on the opposing edge to the first curve. An outside forward choctaw thus consists of an outside forward on one foot completed by an inside back on the other, thus:

In this, as in the corresponding mohawk, and the brackets and counters, the rotation of the body takes place inside the direction of the first curve. Similarly, the inside forward choctaw consists of an inside forward on one foot and an outside back on the other. Here, following the corresponding mohawk, the rotation of the body takes place outside the first curve.

Theoretically, of course, there are corresponding mohawks and choctaws starting from the back edges, i.e. outside back to outside forward, &c., but though these strokes are constantly used, both in single and combined skating, they are never dignified by this sounding title of “back mohawk” or “back choctaw,” merely because the manoeuvre is so simple and common a one, that it needs no name at all, and if, for instance, in combined skating, the caller (who directs what shall be done) has his skaters on a back edge, and desires that the next stroke, let us say, shall be an inside forward edge, he calls “inside forward” merely.

Finally, in giving this catalogue of material out of which all English skating is built, there remain only the changes of edge, made on one foot, to enumerate. They, as must naturally be the case, are four in number:

(i)	Outside forward to inside forward.
(ii)	Inside forward to outside forward.
(iii)	Outside back to inside back.
(iv)	Inside back to outside back.

With regard to the cross-mohawks and cross-choctaws—in case the skater ever “hears tell” of them—he need not worry himself even to remember their existence, since, most rightly, they have been blotted out of the book of English skating, owing to their clumsiness and the fact that to skate any of them violates some canon of the essential form of English skating. Apart from them, the whole material of English skating has now been stated, namely, the four edges, the sixteen turns, the two mohawks, the two choctaws, and the four changes of edge.

But when we consider that the first-class skater must be able to skate at high speed on any edge, make any turn at a fixed point, and leave that fixed point (having made his turn and edge in compliance with the proper form for English skating, without scrape or wavering) still on a firm and large-circumferenced curve, that he must be able to combine any mohawk and choctaw with any of the sixteen turns, and any of the sixteen turns with any change of edge, and that in combined skating he is frequently called upon to do all these permutations of edge and turn, at a fixed point, and in time with his partner, while two other partners are performing the same evolution in time with each other, it begins to become obvious that there is considerable variety to be obtained out of these manoeuvres. But the consideration of combined skating, which is the cream and quintessence of English skating, must be considered last; at present we will see what the single skater may be called upon to do, if he wishes to attain to acknowledged excellence in his sport.

Now the National Skating Association of Great Britain encourages both the English and International styles, and for each there have been instituted certain graduated tests, not competitive but standard, of three orders. The third or lowest test in the English style is broadly designed to encourage skaters, the second to discourage them again (i.e. begin to make them feel the difficulty of the whole affair, just when they thought by passing their third test they had broken the back of their difficulties), and the first or highest to give them healthy occupation for a few winters, and fit them for becoming really first-class skaters. All of these tests must be passed before at least two qualified judges, appointed by the N.S.A., and they are as follows:—

THIRD-CLASS TEST

Here, it will be seen, is the beginning, the ground-work of English skating. The easiest turn has to be skated, the four edges have to be skated; also the easiest “8” has to be skated, in order to familiarise the beginner with the idea of leaving a point on one stroke and continuing to travel on that stroke (with turns to punctuate it, as he will see later) until he arrives back at that point again. The point in question is marked for him on the ice with an orange or a ball. And whether in single skating or in combined, it is called the centre. Simple as this third test is, it has to be skated in proper English form, which the learner should begin to acquire from the first moment he takes a serious stroke on the ice. For it is vastly easier to acquire good form at the beginning of his education, than to acquire bad habits which must subsequently be got rid of.

SECOND-CLASS TEST

Here, it will be seen, the test begins with a combined figure. The whole subject of combined figures will be treated of separately, and for the present we need only remark that this is a very simple one. Then follow the inside back edge, which, as I have said, is the most difficult of the edges, skated larger than before, in curves of 20 feet, and the cross-stroke on the outside back. This means that the stroke is taken with the feet crossing, the one that is taking the stroke being crossed behind the other. As a matter of fact, this stroke, which at one time played a considerable part in English skating, since in combined figures all strokes from outside back to outside back were bound to be taken from the crossing position, is now not obligatory. But it is a pretty stroke in itself, and necessitates the skate being placed on the ice on the edge. Then follow the two forward turns, skated rather large, in order to begin to familiarise the learner with the feeling of turns taken at a high speed. This necessitates clean skating of the turn itself, since if a turn is skated fast, and not clean, it is quite possible that the skater may fall, and he will in any case make a blur instead of a sharp cut turn. Also these turns teach him to hold his edges out after the turn, the tendency being to let the body rotate, whereby the curve curls in, and the skater soon finds himself in a position that it is impossible to maintain. But if he skates his turn, and then can hold an edge for 50 feet away from it afterwards, he may congratulate himself on the fact that he is beginning to skate his edges big and in the proper style. For these cannot, practically speaking, be held out, unless the rules for position are being conformed with. Then follow four simple figures of the class known as 8’s, of which the simplest is that required in the third-class test, namely, an outside forward 8. All 8’s, as their name denotes, are of the same general shape, i.e. the shape implied by their name, but between the edges that trace the shape of the 8, the skater is now required to put in certain turns. He starts, for instance, on an outside forward edge, when half round his circle makes a three turn, and comes back to his centre on the inside back edge. Or he starts on an inside forward edge as in the third 8, and has to make two turns before he arrives at his centre again, which he reaches as an inside forward edge. Or, more searchingly, he has to start his 8 on an outside back edge, and make two turns and aim at his centre again on an outside back edge.

The remainder of this test is taken up with the figures known as Q’s. In these the skater is required to start, at some speed, on any edge forward or back, and after travelling on it for varying distances, as laid down, to change his edge (from outside to inside, or inside to outside) and after holding that edge for the prescribed distance make the three appropriate to that edge. The Q’s are very largely used in combined skating, the change of edge being coupled not only to “three” turns, but to rockers, counters and brackets. Here the name “Q” is becoming obsolete, and indeed has become so in combined skating, the figure being called “forward change three” or “inside back change three,” &c.

Now, as I have said, while the third test is supposed to encourage the skater, the second is supposed to discourage him. What is meant is that he has now run up against the really crucial difficulties in English skating, of which perhaps the greatest of all is to stand still, as the Irishman might say, while moving rapidly. As will be already seen in this test, he is required to do this for somewhat extensive travel: in his outside forward turn, for instance, he has to proceed for at least fifty feet on his forward edge before making his turn, and the same distance on his back edge after making his turn. And though this present disquisition is intended to be a statement of English skating and not a book of instruction, the writer cannot bear to let this one opportunity slip of giving just one hint. It is perfectly impossible to travel steadily for distances like these—and the skater will have to learn to go much further yet on his edges—if he is travelling on the forepart of his skate. All forward turns, by the slight check they give to the speed (I am not now talking of those ideal skaters who actually get speed out of a turn), tend to put the skater further forward on his skate. He must therefore approach all forward turns on the back part of his skate, so that by this tendency to rock forward he will make the turn itself on about the middle of the skate. Never for a moment, if he can help it, must he get on the toe of his skate, and if ever he does, he must regain position again by leaning fearlessly back. And in this second test, he will find that the difficulty of travelling well back on his skate is at first appalling. But having learned that, and learned it thoroughly, he will probably not come across any subsequent requirement which appears to him so clearly impossible.

FIRST-CLASS TEST

Section A

This section consists of the combined figures in Parts I and II. The judges may also give such simple calls as they think fit, to enable the candidate to recover his position, to alternate the feet, &c.

The figures shall be skated with another skater, to be selected by the judges, but if there are only two judges, neither of them shall skate.

Each call must be skated at least twice, beginning once with the right foot and once with the left.

Subject to these conditions the calls shall be skated in such order and with such repetitions as the judges may, while the set is in progress, direct.

In calls introducing “twice back” the candidate must recede at least 35 feet from the centre.

To pass this section the candidate must satisfy all the judges in the manner in which he skates each set considered as a whole, and also in the manner in which he skates each individual call.

The judges may pass a candidate in Part I, notwithstanding a reasonable number of errors on his part in the course of the set, provided that he ultimately skates all the calls to their satisfaction; and in Part II, notwithstanding errors, provided that the candidate has shown competent skill in skating unseen calls.

Part I

1. Twice back—and forward three—and forward inside three, off meet.

2. Twice back—and forward three threes—and back meet—and back two threes—and forward two threes, meet.

3. Twice back—and forward three about, change, meet.

4. Twice back, about—and back off meet.

5. Twice back—and back inside centre three, change—and forward meet.

6. Twice back three, centre three, off meet.

7. Twice back centre change, three, meet.

8. Once back—and forward—and forward inside two threes centre change meet.

9. Twice back—and forward two threes, pass, meet.

10. Twice back two threes, off pass, meet.

11. Inside twice back—and forward inside two threes, meet.

12. Forward change, three, change, three, circle—and forward three, change, circle—and forward about change, three, off meet.

Part II

In addition to the above, the judges shall call a further set of not more than six or less than four “unseen” figures of moderate difficulty, in order to test the candidate’s knowledge of calls and power of correct placing. This unseen set must include rockers, counters, and brackets, and shall be skated by the candidate alone.

Section B

No candidate shall be judged in Part II of this Section until he has passed in Part I.

The judges may allow a candidate any number of attempts at a given figure which they consider reasonable.

Part I

The turns, mohawks, and choctaws of this part must be placed close to and on the near side of an orange or other fixed point on the ice. They must all be skated on each foot to the satisfaction of the judges.

The curve before and after the turn or change of foot must be 40 feet long at least.

Threes	{ Outside back. { Inside back.
Rockers } Brackets } Counters }	{ Outside forward. { Inside forward. { Outside back. { Inside back.
Mohawks } Choctaws }	{ Outside forward. { Inside forward.

Part II

To pass in this part, a candidate may select not more than one figure in each group, and must score forty-five marks at least. A selection once made by a candidate must not be altered.

No marks shall be scored in respect of any one-footed figure unless it is skated on each foot, and the number set against each figure represents the maximum that can be scored for that figure.

A candidate shall not score for any figure on which he shall not have obtained at least half marks.

Eights.—In marking these figures, the judges will take into consideration the general symmetry of the figure, and the approximate equality of corresponding curves.

In each figure the complete 8 is to be skated three times without pause.

The figures need not be commenced from rest.

In groups D and E the turns and choctaws respectively are to be made on the near side of the centre.

The following eights are to be skated to a centre on alternate feet:—

Group A
	Max. Marks
Outside back two threes	4
Inside back two threes	13
Outside forward bracket	6
Inside forward bracket	4
Group B
Outside forward two brackets	6
Inside forward two brackets	10
Outside forward bracket, three	9
Inside forward bracket, three	5
Outside forward three, bracket	4
Inside forward three, bracket	12
Group C
Outside back two brackets	14
Inside back two brackets	11
Outside back bracket, three	16
Inside back bracket, three	8
Outside back three, bracket	5
Inside back three, bracket	14
Group D
Outside forward rocker	8
Inside forward rocker	4
Outside forward counter	8
Inside forward counter	4
Outside forward centre choctaw and inside forward centre choctaw, beginning on each foot	4
Outside forward mohawk and inside forward mohawk to a centre, beginning on each foot	4

Reverse Q’s

The turns and changes are to be made on the near side of fixed points determined by the candidate; the distance between these, and the lengths of the first and last curves, are to be each not less than 50 feet beginning on forward edges, 35 feet beginning on back edges.

Group E
	Max. Marks.
Outside forward three, change	2
Inside forward three, change	3
Outside forward rocker, change	3
Inside forward rocker, change	3
Outside forward bracket, change	5
Inside forward bracket, change	4
Outside forward counter, change	5
Inside forward counter, change	3
Group F
Outside back three, change	5
Inside back three, change	8
Outside back rocker, change	6
Inside back rocker, change	8
Group G
Outside back bracket, change	16
Inside back bracket, change	8
Outside back counter, change	16
Inside back counter, change	8
Group H
Grape Vines
Single, each foot leading	2
Double forward	3
Double backward	3
Pennsylvania	5
Philadelphia	6

Now, again omitting for the moment the subject of combined skating, we see that in Part II the rest of the groundwork of English skating is very thoroughly traversed. To pass this final test the skater has to be able to execute all the threes (the two simple ones are omitted, as they have already been required in the second test), rockers, brackets, counters, mohawks, and choctaws at fair speed and on large edges at a given point on the ice. Having done that to the satisfaction of the judges, he has then to make his selection from a large number of 8’s, which include practically most possible 8’s comprising one or two turns, excepting these simple ones with regard to which he has already satisfied the judges in his second test. Here he has to score marks, selecting not more than one 8 of each group, and by the devilish ingenuity of those who drew up this test, it is impossible for him to get through unless the majority of the 8’s he selects to skate are really difficult. He may then add to his marks by executing what are called reverse Q’s at two given points on the ice. At the first of these he has to make his turn, whatever it is, and at the second to change his edge. This requires a considerable degree of accuracy, for in order to arrive smoothly and still at a fair travelling pace at the second point, he will find that he has to have a practically perfect control of the edge, which has not been disturbed by executing a difficult back turn, let us say, at the first given point. Finally, if he is still in want of marks, he may earn a few more by a grape-vine. This latter does not properly belong to English skating, since it is a two-footed figure, and those responsible for the test might have omitted this group with advantage.

The Combined Figure.—Probably no branch of sport—except, perhaps, flying—has undergone such improvement and revolution within the last fifteen years as this art of combined skating. Not only are there a vastly multiplied number of competent and even first-rate combined skaters, but the skill demanded of a first-rate combined skater, and the variety of the manoeuvres he may be called upon to execute, is immeasurably greater than a decade and a half ago. I do not mean that there were not in 1897 a certain number of skaters who might have been able to execute a difficult set as directed by a caller of to-day, but these were, in golfing parlance, “plus players,” and the ordinary “scratch” skater—one, that is, who had passed his First Class N.S.A.—would have had no more chance of getting through such a set without throwing everybody out, and himself down, than he would have of flying. Both the speed and the size of these combined figures has greatly increased, and the whole of the material of English skating is employed. And the main reason for this improvement and revolution is due to the greatly augmented number of English skaters who now go to Switzerland in the winter, and the multiplication there of really large rinks.

That this immense improvement has taken place in combined skating is proved, luckily, not only by the fallacious memory of individuals, but by printed records. I have before me the Badminton volume on skating (edition 1902), in which, for instance, we find the following figure (among many others like it).

“Forward two turns. This movement skated to a centre is very difficult, and is a great test of good skating, and many men make a practice of devoting five or ten minutes to skating it every day when they come on the ice, feeling that if they can skate it, making the curves between the turns of equal length and making the turns clean without any scrape and yet coming true to the centre, they are in good form and equal to skate anything that may be required of them.”

Now no doubt two turns to a centre, as required in the second-class test, is a very good elementary figure, but it no longer has anything whatever to do with combined skating, whether it is skated with a partner or with a second pair, or simultaneously with other skaters. Speed and size and difficulty (as demanded by the scale on which combined skaters now move) are necessarily absent from it, and from a hundred others of these calls which then were the last word in combined skating. A man who had passed his second-class test would be capable of doing this, which was then considered a criterion of good combined skating, whereas the same man could not live for two calls in a combined figure of moderate difficulty to-day. The whole nature of the business has changed: turns have to be executed at high speed far away from the centre, and the curliness and smallness of such skating as is here implied and necessitated has vanished altogether, giving place to a far more difficult style and speed.

Nor, again, in this respect, is Part I, in the first-class English test, up-to-date in requirements of size. Here we read that on a “twice back” the candidate must recede at least 35 feet from the centre. That no doubt was laid down because on the artificial rinks available in England, such a distance took the skaters nearly to the bounds of the space at his disposal. But any candidate who, on the Swiss rinks, where nowadays almost all first-class tests are passed, receded but 35 feet from the centre would have, practically speaking, no chance of getting through. His lawless judges would inevitably tell him to skate larger. Still less would he be able to take part in any combined figure-skating for amusement by skaters who had any pretension to be of the first-class. With these big surfaces of rink, the whole style and method has become larger and faster, and therefore more difficult.

A third instance, to prove how greatly the art of combined skating has progressed, has the ring of pathos about it, and, though only oral, is trustworthy. A friend of mine, who resides at that excellent English skating centre, Oxford, told me that in old days he could scarcely get a combined figure, since the most elementary calls were sufficient to floor his partners. But not so long ago he told me he could scarcely get a combined figure, since nobody cared to skate such elementary calls as he was capable of. But he assures me that he skates just as well now as he did in the days when there was nobody up to his standard. Perhaps in twenty years more, no first-class skater will care to engage in such simple stuff as we now think rather advanced. And dearly will such present-day skaters who are fortunate enough to be alive then, love to see the newer and more arduous manoeuvres! But since it is impossible to prophesy about the things we cannot imagine, it must be sufficient to give the outlines of combined skating as practised by fairly expert gentlemen to-day.

There are two manners of combined skating, called respectively pair-skating and simultaneous skating. The first of these (which we will first consider) is the more difficult, and, so to speak, the more classical. Theoretically it can be skated by two, four, six, or eight persons: practically it is skated by four persons, grouped, at the beginning of things, at right angles to their neighbours, and at a few yards distant from their centre. One of these, who skates in the first pair, is known as the caller, and he announces (in a loud mellifluous voice) what he is about to skate, and what the trembling gentleman opposite, who is his partner, must also skate. They advance to the centre, from opposite sides, and begin skating whatever is ordered. The moment after they have left their centre, speeding out to the circumference of the huge imaginary circle, of which their orange or india-rubber ball, from which they have started, is the centre, the second pair (at right angles to them) proceed to do exactly the same. The size and pace of the figure, as well as its details, depend entirely on the caller: as he skates, so must his partner skate, putting down his edges and turns simultaneously and at like speed to him, and as the first pair skate, so (with certain modifications) must the second pair skate.

Now, the whole material of skating is at the caller’s command. He can (and does) order threes, brackets, rockers, counters, mohawks, choctaws and changes of edge to be skated when and how he wishes them. He can (and does) couple any pair or any three of these movements, to be skated on one foot or on both, one after the other. He directs, with a word of power, from the elaborate vocabulary of combined skating, the length of an edge, and can command it to be held so long that the direction of progress is reversed, or to be further continued till a complete circle is made and the original direction of progress resumed again. Then, with another word, he brings himself and his partner (followed closely by the second pair) back to their centre again, on the off side or the near side of it, and orders that they shall start a fresh figure there, or that they shall make a turn there, or scud by it like four express trains which just, and only just, arriving from the four parts of the compass, do not collide with each other, and scatter again to east and west and north and south. Sometimes he brings them in simultaneously, so that they converge till they almost touch, and then spread out again. And if the figure is going decently well, there is no pause, no foot without its edge and turn assigned to it. This mystic, swift, interweaving dance lasts perhaps a quarter of an hour of hard, enraptured skating.

Simultaneous combined has this advantage, that an uneven number of skaters can take part in it. The caller’s duties are the same, but there are no pairs of partners. All leave the centre simultaneously, all (it is hoped) arrive back at it simultaneously. Since there is no crossing of pairs at the centre, a far larger number of skaters can take part in it, as they have not to wait for a prior pair to clear, and if elementary calls only are ordered, upwards of ten or twelve skaters can join the dance with effect. No one of them, as in pair skating, crosses the path of another skater: they leave and arrive at the centre on converging not crossing lines. Thus it is an easier sport than is crossing pairs, since in the latter case the edges that leave and approach the centre intersect each other. Vastly enjoyable as it is, it lacks to the present writer that classical distinction that characterises pair-skating.

The final item in English skating is hand-in-hand skating in the combined figure. Here, instead of single skaters combining to perform in unison, pairs take the place of units. Necessarily the figures compassable by a man and woman hand in hand are fewer in number, as at present worked out, than those which can be skated by single skaters, and the speed at which such figures are skated is less than in the combined skating of single skaters. Hand-holds have to be changed, and partners brought into the new position required by turns, &c., by pulls, or by what in the nomenclature is called “steps”—i.e. single strokes and edges. Already this style has taken the place in the annual championship of English skating, and without doubt it will grow both in the number of its practitioners, and in the force and speed of their movements. It is scientifically based, being evolved from the charming movements that are possible to hand-in-hand skaters when going free on the ice, and not bound to consider their opposing partner, or to arrive in a given manner at a given point. But it resembles, at present, in the opinion of the writer, the performance of a yearling. It requires the devotion of a dozen first-class skaters of both sexes to determine its possibilities. His wish is, that it will get them. His fear is that the necessarily cramping influence of conjoined hands will prove to debar it from the speed and largeness of other branches of English skating. He sincerely hopes that his fears are quite unfounded.

International Style

It has been already remarked that the two styles, English and International, have nothing to do with each other, and that the practitioner of one who is so imbecile as to belittle the other, is no less crack-brained and idiotic than a Rugby football player who calls Association a “rotten game.” Personally, I do not skate in the International style, but to attempt to depreciate the beauties of it would be to me as unthinkable as it would be to run down polo. To the spectator, whether of polo or of International skating, the skill and the splendour of these sports are, unless he is entirely lunatic, beyond any question at all. But it is as an admirer, pure and simple, that I venture to embark on a subject with which I have no practical acquaintance.

Spectacularly there is no doubt that to the ignorant the International style rightly makes the most powerful appeal. A simple manoeuvre, as for instance a forward three to a centre, looks far more difficult and hazardous when executed even only moderately well in the International style than when executed almost perfectly in the English style. In the one case, to the ignorant, arms and legs are flying: it seems impossible to maintain a balance, and the attitude itself is charmingly graceful: whereas in the English style the whole difficulty of the manoeuvre, such as it is, lies in the necessity of making it look easy, and standing quite still and at rest.

But the difficulty of doing it perfectly in the English style is, as a matter of fact, far greater than that of doing it properly in the International style. Of that there is no question whatever. A good English skater will put down his turns and edges one over the other, in the accurate fashion so rightly demanded by the International style, without producing half the effect that a good International skater will produce. But the English skater has done the more difficult feat. On the other hand, I do not think that the skater in the English style is ever called upon to do anything so difficult in his highest test as the back-loop 8, or perhaps the rocker 8, as required by the first-class International test. And then I think of a back bracket, executed at good speed at a certain point, in the correct style. Really I do not know.... Also I do not care. The back-loop 8 of the International skater is altogether lovely, which is all that matters.

But, as I have said, the two styles have nothing to do with each other, either as regards tests or as regards the general sport of them. I can imagine no more glorious athletic feat than that of four first-class English skaters performing a really difficult combined set properly, a set that is as far away from the compulsory set of the first-class test as is the first-class test from the second; nor, on the other hand, can I imagine a more glorious athletic feat than the free skating of some champion of the International school. But when Mr. Grenander or Herr Salchow are so kind as to show me the Hugel star, I no more think of comparing that with the combined skating of fine performers in the English style, and others, than I compare it with Mr. Baerlein in the tennis court or Mr. Jessop slogging his sixes. They have nothing to do with each other.

As in English skating, I propose to lay before the reader the tests of the International school, and in contrast to the rule of English form, I subpend the essential requirements of International excellence, as laid down by the collective experience of its senators. Proper form is no less essential in one than in the other, and the same sternness of requirement is insisted on in both. But the effect is poles apart: in the International style a fixed freedom of the unemployed limbs is necessary, in the English a fixed quietness and immobility. Neither is laid down in an arbitrary manner: it is impossible to perform the necessary evolutions in first-class skating otherwise than is provided by the rules. No English skater could, in his prescribed form, execute the International figures: no International skater in his could do what is required of his English brother. Here, then, are the essentials of good form as demanded by the International school:

There are also the following directions for correct tracing, i.e. the marks left by the skate on the ice.

In this form, then, and with this accuracy of tracing, the following figures must be skated for the third test:—

Eight	Rfo—Lfo
Eight	Rfi—Lfi
Eight	Rbo—Lbo
Change	{(a) Rfoi—Lfio {(b) Lfoi—Rfio
Threes	RfoTbi—LfoTbi
R = Right. L = Left. T = Three.	f = Forwards. b = Backwards. o = Outside. i = Inside.

Into the system of marking—candidates have to get a certain proportion of marks in each figure—we need not go. It will be sufficient to say that it is necessary to skate each figure passably, and to earn more than half marks on the whole.

Second-class Test

This has to be passed before three judges, and is divided into two parts—(1) Compulsory Figures; (2) Free Skating. The regulations for them are as follow:—

(1) Compulsory Figures.—Each figure may be marked up to a maximum of 6 points. The marks given for each figure are multiplied by the factor of value for that figure. In order to pass, a candidate must obtain a minimum of 2 marks out of 6 in each figure, and an aggregate of 130 out of the maximum of 234 marks.

(2) Free Skating.—The candidate will be required to skate a free programme of three minutes’ duration.

This will be marked:

(a) For the contents of the programme (difficulty and variety) up to a maximum of 6 marks.

(b) For the manner of performance up to a maximum of 6 marks. In order to pass, a candidate must obtain 7 marks for (a) and (b) together.