Tdl'H #8

[Phil]

From E.C. Richardson's Ski-Runner 1909

[Phil]

I'm succumbing to the overwhelming desire to comment without being asked to. It's pretty obvious from these two sets of photos, found on opposite pages in a 1909 instruction manual, that the fallacy that the Telemark was used until the heel became locked down, when lifts were invented, and then parallel turns became the norm, is being overturned. Both turns were in use and found application in everyone's ski journeys. They had their particular strengths, and weaknesses, and you used them to their best advantage and avoided using them when a better turn was indicated. The Telemark was a better turn in soft snow where a banked turn could be made more easily than a skidded one. The Christiania was better on a harder surface where you scrubbed off speed by skidding sideways. You can tell by the amount of snow being thrown up by the edges of the skis in the respective shots. The Tele was not as dependent on skidding to work well. In fact on snow where sideways slip was more likely, you avoided Telemarking in those days. 

The Kandahar binding changed the picture more than ski lifts did. With a binding that provided some resistance to heel lift, the need to adopt a position that countered the forces that might throw you forward, as happens in softer snow conditions, was lessened. Metal edges weren't particularly useful until such a binding was invented. Once it was, they became a powerful addition to the ability to control skis on the harder surfaced snow. If you wanted the ability to control your skis to the maximum extent and deal with a range of different conditions, either soft or hard, keeping your heel close to the ski was the best all round solution. They had already discovered that before lifts became common.