After learning the basics of the diagonal stride in cross-country skiing, I’m actually regretting the approach of warmer weather this week.
“Diagonal stride” refers to the way cross-country skiers are encouraged to move their arms and legs. In a “Cross-Country Skiing Glossary” on REI.com, author T.D. Wood’s definition of the term is descriptive: “The body weight is thrust onto the front leg/ski as it glides forward with the rear leg/ski extended naturally behind with the ski tail lifted slightly off the snow. The arms move in opposition to the legs, just as if you were running.”
Well, I have done my share of running ”¦ but the diagonal stride seems a bit harder to learn. And one reason might be that in skiing, there is a factor that makes us more tentative ”¦ the feeling that if you stride the wrong way, you’ll take a spill.
On Saturday, I learned this firsthand when my girlfriend Laura and I went skiing in the Amherst area. After lunch at the Esselon Café on Route 9 in Hadley, we walked right across West Street to a nice, small, flat field. (This is one of the great things about cross-country skiing ”¦ you can more or less ski anywhere there’s snow.) This particular field seemed well-used by both human and animal visitors, as we skied through snowmobile tracks and passed imprints left by the local wildlife. One snowmobile actually zoomed by us.
The going was a bit icy at first, but soon the surface became softer and I felt more comfortable going faster. A bit too comfortable, because I started teetering like the Leaning Tower of Pisa and realized what was going to happen (good thing the snow was soft). I let gravity take its course and went down on my right side for my first fall of 2013.
Maybe it was good to get that out of the way. It helped me understand how to control my stride better and how to shift my weight from one foot to another while moving forward. Perhaps, if the sun didn’t begin to set, we would have gone all the way down the field. Instead, we made it about three-quarters down before going back.
In more recent skiing along the Minuteman Bikepath in Cambridge, I have continued to practice the diagonal stride, going forward with the front knee bent and trying to get as much glide as possible. I find that coordinating arm and leg movement is a challenge when skiing, and have to make sure that when my right leg is going forward, the left arm is accompanying it, and vice versa.
Here’s hoping the snow will stick around just long enough for me to fully get the hang of the diagonal stride. Otherwise, it’s back to the fields of Western Mass.
Rich Tenorio can be reached at [email protected].
