Chch girl ski instructor

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32629, 10 June 1971, Page 6

Chch girl ski instructor

A Christchurch girl | who is probably the first | New Zealander to gain I the Austrian profes- I sional ski instructor’s I certificate thinks that | women have qualities J which can give them an | advantage over men ski 1 instructors. "I think sometimes a girl I explains things better to her I pupils, and perhaps has more I patience,” said Miss Alison I Powell, who will be instruct- I ing at the Craigiebum Ski I Club’s field this season.

Older women, particularly, appreciated having a woman instructor. Many who would have felt embarrassed with a dashing young male instructor gained confidence in Miss Powell’s classes. Friends would recommend her, saying: “Alison will teach you everything, even if you are an absolute dunce.” Problems of discipline never bothered Miss Powell. "People are there of their own free will,” she said. “If they don’t like the way I teach, then they can go.”

NO PERSONAL PROBLEMS She also found her life as an instructor was not complicated by personal problems. “So many girls go on ski-ing holidays with the idea of catching the ski instructor,” she said. "Although some girls may have been disappointed I was not a glamorous man instructor, I think I had an advantage in that I could keep strictly to a teacher-pupil relationship. Also, I lived with a family while I was in Austria, and so I did not have to be socialising all the time.”

| Does Miss Powell consider I men ski instructors giamjorous? “Oh no,” she said. “I jam used to them as work mates. They do not seem a bit glamorous to me, though I can see why girls here fall all over them, because they are such a novelty.” Miss Powell believes that some young ski instructors have their heads turned by the admiration which may Come their way. “The ones who are chasing girls everywhere are usually the young boys who are not qualified,” she said. “By the time they pass their exams, they have usually settled down, and become more sensible.”

Miss Powell, who began ski-ing at Temple Basin when she was a pupil at St Margaret’s College, did not plan to become an instructor. It “just happened.” On her first trip to Austria in 1963, she took ski-ing instruction. When she returned in 1965, her instructor suggested she apply for a position in the ski school. Within two days, in spite of not being able to speak German, she had the job.

For six seasons, she has worked with the ski school—--12 qualified instructors, 25 instructors in the peak periods at Lanersbach village, in the Tuz Valley of the Tyrol. Now her German is fluent (she speaks English with a slight, charming accent), but the first two weeks at the school were especially hardj work. She had to demon-1

strate everything precisely, so that her pupils would understand a method however, that proved very successful with children, who grew tired of long explanations.

To enter the courses for her certificates, Miss Powell had to employ some slightly devious means. In the Tyrol, the certificate was firmly reserved for Austrians, and so Miss Powell wrote away to the highest-ranking “professor” and gained permission to apply. She passed the entrance tests, and the first 14-day course; then, a year later, after a six-month holiday at home, passed the second course.

The first course involved “practical ski-ing,” instruction in teaching the principles of ski-ing, and free ski-ing. To test their pupils’ effectiveness, the instructors would act as learners, deliberately making mistakes. “Of course, it is much more difficult to instruct an instructo: than a pupil,” said Miss Powell. The second course covered the theory of movement, avalanche and snow conditions, equipment, first aid, and English. “And I ended up taking the English lectures,” she said. About 70 instructors took the courses. Miss Powell was one of about three or four women.

For three summers, Miss Powell worked as a courier for two-week coach tours from Britain to Austria. She found the work “terribly exacting” but informative.

She had to be well informed about the various areas for the benefit of those tourists who were eager to learn. And she had to deal with all the “trying types.” Those she learned to recognise almost immediate they boarded the bus.

“At the end of the tour, I was usually glad to see the last of most of them, but it was an interesting job—and I certainly learnt a lot,” she said. Now that she has returned home, Miss Powell’s plans are uncertain. A science graduate of the University of Canterbury, she has qualifications to put to use when she gives up ski-instructing, but in the meantime she is not thinking too far ahead just looking forward to a good ski-ing season. She has been a member of the Craigiebum club for some years, and was secretary before going overseas.