Stem

Stem may refer to:

Stem Christie

Stemming is a technique used in skiing for turning. The modern version is usually credited to the Austrian Mathias Zdarsky who developed it in the 1890s by combining stemming with a variation of the Christiania technique, producing the stem Christiania, or stem Christie for short. Its variations gradually replaced the telemark technique in alpine skiing.

Basic stemming consists of rotating the back of one ski, the tail, so it is at an angle to the direction of movement. This causes sideways forces that push the skier in the direction opposite of the motion of the ski. For instance, if the skier pushes the tail of the left ski outward, they will turn to the right. The Christie variation has the skier wait for the turn to commence and then lift the non-turning ski off the snow, or simply lift their body weight off of it by stepping harder on the turning ski, and rotating it to match the original turn, resulting in the two skis once again being parallel.

The stem Christie was the primary skiing technique into the 1960s, when greatly improved skiing equipment led to the widespread adoption of the parallel turn for intermediate and expert skiers. Since then the Christie has been used primarily as an beginner and intermediate technique, and was an important step in the progressive Arlberg technique that dominated ski schools until the 2000s. The introduction of parabolic skiis and new carve turn teaching methods have greatly reduced the importance of the stem Christie, but it remains common on the ski hill and is still taught at many ski schools.

Stem (Ringo Sheena song)

"Stem," also known by its Japanese translated title "Kuki" (茎) is a song written by Japanese singer Ringo Sheena and released in several versions.

Background

It was first released as a single in 2003, as "Stem (Daimyō Asobi-hen)" (茎(STEM)～大名遊ビ編～, "The Daimyō's fun version") as her 8th single and it was released on January 22, 2003 by Toshiba EMI / Virgin Music. The single version is sung in English, and was orchestrated by Toshiyuki Mori. The B-sides "Meisai" and "Ishiki" were arranged by Bakeneko Killer, a production team Sheena and Inoue formed. Nobuyoshi Araki, the prominent photographer, took the album cover.

The version featured on the album Kalk Samen Kuri no Hana, "Kuki," (茎) is sung in Japanese and arranged by Bakeneko Killer. A further version found on the vinyl edition of Kalk Samen Kuri no Hana called "Stem," (茎(STEM)) featured the album arrangement with English lyrics. It was also featured on the film Casshern's official album Our Last Day: Casshern Official Album. An English language version of "Stem" also appears on Sheena's 2007 soundtrack Heisei Fūzoku, orchestrated by Neko Saito.