Stone Skipping Is a Lost Art. Kurt Steiner Wants the World to Find It.

Meet an amazing man who has dedicated his entire adult life to stone skipping, sacrificing everything to produce world-record throws that defy the laws of physics.

认识一位了不起的人，他将整个成年生活奉献给了跳石，牺牲了一切，创造了违反物理定律的世界纪录。

To hear him tell it, he has no choice.

听他这么说，他别无选择。

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On a clear-skied morning in March, Kurt “Mountain Man” Steiner stood at a lonely bend of Sinnemahoning Creek, deep inside Pennsylvania’s Elk State Forest .

三月一个晴朗的早晨，库尔特“山人”施泰纳站在宾夕法尼亚州麋鹿州立森林深处辛尼马霍宁溪的一个偏僻的河湾处。

He was dressed in a black hoodie and Dollar General jeans that hid his athletic 56-year-old frame, and wore a brown beanie that pressed his long gray hair and Rasputinesque beard into a single wild mane.

他穿着黑色连帽衫和 Dollar General 牛仔裤，掩盖了他 56 岁的健壮身材，戴着一顶棕色无檐小便帽，将他长长的灰色头发和拉斯普廷式胡须压成一头狂野的鬃毛。

Steiner stared across the creek and raised his right arm into an L, clasping a coaster-size sliver of shale the way a guitarist might hold a plectrum during a showstopping solo.

斯坦纳凝视着小溪对面，举起右臂，形成“L”形，紧握着一块过山车大小的页岩，就像吉他手在精彩的独奏中握住拨片一样。

But rather than fold his torso horizontally, as you might expect somebody skipping a rock to do, he stretched his five-foot-nine-inch body vertically, and then squeezed down like an accordion and planted his left leg to crack his throwing arm, placing the rock under so much gyroscopic force that it sputtered loudly as it left his hand, like a playing card in a bicycle wheel.

但他并没有像你想象的跳石头的人那样水平折叠他的躯干，而是垂直伸展他五英尺九英寸的身体，然后像手风琴一样向下挤压，并用他的左腿踩住他的投掷手臂，使石头受到如此大的陀螺力作用，以至于当它离开他的手时发出巨大的溅射声，就像自行车车轮上的扑克牌一样。

The rock appeared for a brief moment to fly.

岩石出现了短暂的飞行状态。

Then it dipped and plunged, kicked up a wave, rode it like a surfboard, and became airborne again.

然后它不断下沉，激起波浪，像冲浪板一样驾驭它，然后再次升到空中。

Standing behind Steiner, I counted at least 20 skips before the rock slowed, scrolled gently right, and sank in the calm water some 50 yards away.

站在斯坦纳身后，我数了数至少有 20 次跳跃，然后岩石减慢了速度，轻轻地向右滚动，沉入了大约 50 码外的平静水中。

This would have been the greatest throw of my life.

这将是我一生中最伟大的一次投掷。

To Steiner it was a bullpen toss, and an average one at that.

对于施泰纳来说，这是一次牛棚投球，而且是一次普通的投球。

He grunted disapprovingly, then stooped to grab another stone from the small pile he’d gathered from a 25-gallon tub sitting in the bed of his 1989 Toyota truck—one of the quarter-million rocks he estimates he’s thrown in his lifetime.

他不以为然地咕哝了一声，然后弯腰从他那辆 1989 年丰田卡车后备箱里的 25 加仑桶里收集的一小堆石头中抓起另一块石头——他估计自己一生中扔了 25 万块石头。

One hour and dozens of stones later, we headed back to Steiner’s tiny, Walden -like home, 30 minutes down back roads and dirt tracks into the bowels of the forest.

一小时后，我们搬了几十块石头，回到了施泰纳的瓦尔登湖般的小家，沿着小路和土路走了 30 分钟，进入了森林深处。

His shoulder was stiff, and the biggest throwing season of his life loomed.

他的肩膀僵硬，他一生中最伟大的投掷赛季即将到来。

“This could be bad news,” he told me.

“这可能是个坏消息，”他告诉我。

Kurt Steiner is the world’s greatest stone skipper.

库尔特·施泰纳 (Kurt Steiner) 是世界上最伟大的石头船长。

Over the past 22 years, he has won 17 tournaments in the United States and Europe, generating ESPN coverage and a documentary film .

在过去的 22 年里，他在美国和欧洲赢得了 17 场锦标赛冠军，并引起了 ESPN 的报道并制作了一部纪录片。

In September 2013, he threw a rock that skipped so many times it defied science.

2013 年 9 月，他扔了一块石头，但石头却跳跃了很多次，这违背了科学规律。

This year he hopes to smash records on both sides of the Atlantic, giving him a platform for sermonizing about a sport he believes is nothing short of a means for the redemption of mankind—“a legitimate path to an essential inner balance,” he says.

今年，他希望打破大西洋两岸的记录，为他提供一个宣讲这项运动的平台，他认为这项运动无异于救赎人类的一种手段——“一条通往基本内在平衡的合法途径，”他说。

Skipping has brought Steiner respite from a life of depression and other forms of mental illness.

跳绳让斯坦纳从抑郁症和其他精神疾病的生活中得到了喘息的机会。

It has also, in part, left him broke, divorced, and, since the death of his greatest rival, adrift from his stone-skipping peers.

这也在一定程度上让他破产、离婚，而且自从他最大的对手去世后，他就与那些跳石的同龄人渐行渐远。

Now, in middle age, with a growing list of aches and pains, he must contemplate the reality that, in his most truthful moments, he throws rocks not simply because he wants to, but because he has no choice.

现在，人到中年，身体的疼痛越来越多，他必须思考这样一个现实：在他最真实的时刻，他扔石头不仅仅是因为他想这么做，而是因为他别无选择。