Sliding

“ PRACTISING STROKE (3) .
PRACTISING STROKE (4) .
[111] In 1871 Goldie’s (third) crew were supposed to do wonderful time (20 min. 11 sec.) , on a good spring and smooth day. It sufficed to make them hot favourites. In these days a sliding crew that could not beat 19 min. 40 sec. on a smooth spring tide would be reckoned to have a bad chance of success.
[112] The value of slides is therefore beyond dispute, but the oarsman should realise that good sliding distances bad sliding quite as far as bad sliding can beat fixed seats.
Hence the importance of using the slide to the best advantage. ”

“ On the sliding seat, you row against your stretcher (that’s the foot-board) and the legs furnish most of the power. The skill comes in in blending everything together in one easy, natural motion, and getting back to take your next stroke without checking the boat by the return of your slide. I could feel all along that I was gaining, though I was slow on the recover, and bungled my oar still. The fellows all seemed to think I was going to make good in the second, and I was delighted, for our second is about the best second on the river, and Mac sets a perfectly wonderful stroke. ”

“ Towards the end of the slope the scree grows larger, and whether sliding or plunging, we have to look out for knee and ankle twisting. We go cautiously, but [Pg 367] driving always harder with the heel, until the stones refuse to yield to the thrust; and then we call in our loose legs under control, and proceed to stumble or dance down the rest according to the perfection of our ankles and balance. ”

“ Left foot to the side. Half the length of first slide.
When dancing the two-step, never hop. Always slide the feet. Keep the weight on the balls of the feet; this makes the sliding much easier and destroys the tendency to hop. ”

“ Since the back swing should be longer in sculling than in rowing, and as there is a limit to the length which any pair of legs can slide, and since also it has been laid down as a rule that both when sculling and when rowing the slide should be economised so that it may last as long as the swing lasts, the reader will gather that the legs will have to extend more gradually when sliding to sculls than when sliding to oars. ”

“ Legs.—Where a sliding seat is used the object is to combine the use of the arms and legs in making the sweep of the oar longer, at full reach the body being doubled up with the knees under the chin, the stroke consisting of catching the water with the back and forcing it through to the finish by combined action of back and legs. When the finish is reached the legs are straight, the hands and oar are against the chest, and the body slightly back of the perpendicular. ”

“ Hopkins that the lines of maximum strain and of maximum sliding cannot coincide; indeed, if all the particles be urged by the same force, no matter how strong the pull may be, there will be no tendency of one to slide past the other. ”

“ Corrective measures must be left to the firm balance on a good step or on fast claws, and to the spring that the arm, holding the slack, may be able to give to the rope before the jerk of a man sliding comes upon our waist. If a man slips, our natural inclination to lean inwards towards the slope and get some clamp with the axe or hand must at all costs be unlearned and avoided. Once the body is no longer in balance, nor weighing upon the steps, the feet are easily snatched from their hold. ”

“ In trying to save a party which has fallen off a ridge, either by the breaking of a cornice or by a slip, I am told by first-rate guides that the proper thing to do is to jump straight out into the air on the opposite side. You thus bring a greater strain on the rope, and are more likely to check the pace at which your companions are sliding. I had a very awkward experience myself on one occasion when, owing to the softness of the snow, we started an avalanche, and the last guide, failing to spring over on the other side, we were all carried off our feet. ”

“ Mud-sliding is usually the first item of the programme. Taking a long run over the firmer ground, the performers reach the mud-bank with considerable velocity, and in consequence of this, they [74] slide over the slimy surface in much the same style as our children in the Old Country do over the ice. They maintain their balance with their arms. The sliding is effected either singly or in long chains they form by joining hands. They endeavour to make their slide reach the water, which, if they are successful, they enter with no end of splashing and shrieking “Ai! ”

“ Again, the boys have their sleds; and sliding down hill is splendid fun. But they trip up some grave citizen, who sprains his shoulder. What is the result? Not the provision of a safe, good place, where boys may slide down hill without danger to any one, but an edict forbidding all sliding, under penalty of fine. ”

“ Slī′ding, act of one who slides: falling: backsliding.—p.adj. slippery: movable, changing.—ns. Slī′ding-keel, an oblong frame let down vertically through the bottom of a vessel in order to deepen the draught and sustain against a side-wind; Slī′ding-rule (see Rule) ; Slī′ding-scale, a scale of duties which slide or vary according to the value or market prices: a sliding-rule; Slī′ding-seat, a kind of seat for racing-boats, moving with the swing of the rower's body; Slīdom′eter, an instrument indicating the strain put on a railway-carriage by sudden stoppage. ”

“ Indeed, to my mind, there must always be the man who will prefer the reins to the driving wheel. And who can blame him for the choice?
Footnotes
[1] “In Europe, sledge is the name applied to a low kind of cart, but in America the word has been abbreviated to sled or changed to sleigh, which in either case involves the idea that a sliding vehicle is meant. In the rural districts, the farmer employs a machine we call a stone-sledge. This is commonly made from a plank, the flat under surface of which is forced along the surface of the ground by ox-power.” The World on Wheels. Ezra N. Stratton. ”

“ The word 'slide' is of a punning nature, and in conjunction with the easy moveability of the microscope-barrel suggests a meaning akin to that of dreams of skating and sliding, which are usually sexual. ”

“ It teaches to feather the oar correctly, it gives the dip of the oar, it has the sliding seat, it can be regulated for heavy or light, short or long stroke, and is manufactured for either open or cross-handed rowing, and the pressure can be changed to suit the weak or the strong. ”

“ So the two cripples race each other on slides, before they have acquired the barest [233] rudiments of swing, and as a natural result they can never be expected hereafter to progress beyond mediocrity.
Now, if there were prizes offered for rising professionals, subject to the condition that sliding seats should not be used, these tiros would have some chance of being induced to study the art of using the body for swing, and of mastering this all-important feature in oarsmanship, before they ventured to fly so high as to race upon slides. ”

“ Capers, are when in rising or leaping from the Ground, one Leg beats against the other, which we call Cutting.
Fallings, are when the Body, being out of its proper Poise, falls by its own Weight.
Slidings, are when, in moving, the Foot slides on the Ground. ”

“ The natural world may be conceived of as a system of concentric circles, and we now and then detect in nature slight dislocations, which apprize us that this surface on which we now stand is not fixed, but sliding. ”

“ 2 thirds ov the pleasure in sliding down hill consists in drawing the sled back. I don’t serpoze thare would be enny fun in sliding down a hill 34 miles long. ”

“ A man falling into dark waters seeks a momentary footing even on sliding stones; ”

“ Moreover, in the event of a slip behind us, we have not only the sound of the slide as warning, but the time taken by a slide down ice, perceptibly longer than by a fall over rock, gives us extra seconds to brace at our strongest. We are more prepared to do this if we keep our body and head turned in the same direction as our feet, than if we first turn round and then have to recover the best holding position. ”

“ I just wish there was a slide near Calumet, so that I could take you down and let you see how splendid it is. Why, it's just like—let me see—I've got it! It's just like tobogganing on water. You jump on board the crib at the mouth of the slide, you know, and it moves along very slowly at first, until it gets to the edge of the first slant; then it takes a sudden start, and away it goes shooting down like greased lightning, making the water fly up all around you, just like the snow does when you're tobogganing. ”

“ Couldn’t leave the trail between the Cache and the bend. Ask any one in the crowd. It’s all straight rock-wall on one side, and there’s been a snow-slide hanging hair-triggered for thirty-six hours on the other. No sane man would sneak out and hide under a slide. And if he had sneaked out, he’d have brought down the slide. I tell you no sane man would try it. ”

“ The great slide is like common slides in that when once you have started you have to go on to the end—unless you fall down—and then it hurts just as much as the smaller kind on ponds. The great slide runs downhill all the way, so that you keep on going faster and faster and faster. George and Jane went so fast that they had not time to notice the scenery. ”

“ If there was a drum upon the heap, should not first a tune be played—softly lest it rouse the house? Or if a velocipede stood beside the fender, surely the restless creature chafed for exercise and must be ridden a few times around the room. Or perhaps a sled leaned against the chair (it but rested against the rigors of the coming day) and one should feel its runners to learn whether they are whole and round, for if flat and fixed with screws it is no better than a sled for girls with feet tucked up in front. ”

“ Raise, lower, or roughen this slope, increase or decrease the annual snow-fall, or change the direction of the wind,—and thus the position of snow-drifts,—and there will follow corresponding slide-action. Wind and calm, gravity, friction, adhesion, cohesion, geology, temperature and precipitation, all have a part and place in snow-piling and in slide-starting.
The Century slides are the damaging ones. These occur not only at unexpected times but in unexpected places. The Century slide is the deadly one. ”

“ Blocks of ice are laid on the slope; water is poured over them to be converted into ice and make a smooth surface; and when the slide is completed and opened it is thronged by patrons. It takes away one's breath at first when he is pitched over the edge of the slope and finds himself rushing with a speed surpassing that of a railway -train. The impetus gained in the first part of the descent is sufficient to carry the sled a long distance on the level. ”

“ The weather was stormy, and the mountain brook which ran along the slide concluded to waste no more labor in carving out a bed for itself in the rock, when it might as well be using the slide which it found ready made. And one fine day it broke into the slide and half filled it, so that the logs, when they were started down the steep incline, sent the water flying, turned somersaults, stood on end, and played no end of dangerous tricks which no one could foresee. ”

“ When we are roped together, and one slips, he generally saves himself by rapidly sticking the sharp pick of his axe into the snow. He gives the others ample warning by this that something is wrong before the jerk and strain come upon the rope.”
“And what do they do?”
“Drive their ice-picks right into the snow, hang back against the slope, and tighten the rope from one to the other. So that generally, instead of a fall, there is only a short slip. Do you understand!” ”

“ The number of steps which a person can take in a given time in walking depends, first, on the length of the leg, which, governed by the laws of the pendulum, swings from behind forwards; secondly, on the earlier or later interruption which the leg experiences in its arc of oscillation by being placed on the ground. The weight of the swinging leg and the velocity of the trunk serve to give the impulse by which the foot attains a position vertical to the head of the thigh-bone ”

“ A long-legged man, sculling, may use a much longer slide than a short man. But in an eight, if the long man fits his stretcher as if for sculling, he will be doing more than his share, and may be unable to shoot so long a slide through in the required time, except by dint of ‘hurrying’ it; and, if he does this latter, the result is to cripple his swing, as shown supra. There must be a certain amount of give-and-take in arranging slides in an eight or four oar. That length of slide is best which all the crew can work simultaneously and effectively, preserving uniformity of swing and slide. ”

“ When the slide is well worn and slippery, these funny little beasts go down with great velocity, and seem to take as much pleasure in their frolicsome antics as if they were a crowd of boys and girls. ”

“ All one had to do was to sink an axe into the dry trunk a dozen times, and it would fall to the ice and most probably smash conveniently to pieces. This Clay had figured on when confidently limiting the trip to half an hour.
He studied the cliff thoroughly before attempting it. So far as he was concerned, the longest way round was the shortest way to the tree. Twenty feet of nearly perpendicular climbing would bring him to where a slide sloped more gently in. By making a long zigzag across the face of this slide and back again, he would arrive at the pine. ”