PHYSICAL DIRECTOR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23274, 17 February 1939, Page 4

PHYSICAL DIRECTOR

WELLINGTON Y.W.C.A.

NEW TRAINING METHODS PROMOTING GRACE AND BEAUTY The appointment of Miss Helen McDonald, of Canada, as physical director of the Wellington Young Women's Christian Association has been made and Miss McDonald, who arrived in Wellington this week, has now taken up her new duties. Miss McDonald took a course in physical education at McGill University, and for the past three years has been working with the association in Canada.

"The present trend in physical culture is toward rhythm and grace," said Miss McDonald in an interview. The exercises which she sponsored were German and Danish in origin, and they were performed to music from the old classics. They had 110 basic idea of developing muscle, she said, but of promoting grace and beauty. They had a definite corrective value for such things as painful feet, double chins and the little hump at the back of the neck, which in some women is one of the tribulations of middle-age. They were excellent, too, for strengthening the abdominal muscles, which were so important a part of a woman's anatomy. A Definite Aim For children also the exercises had a definite aim'. Modern life was a great strain, even for a child, said Miss McDonald, and to counteract this the exercises laid groat stress on relaxation. Good carriage was another thing which the system aimed at, for modern thinkers considered that rather than continually Celling a child to keep its shoulders back and its head tip, it was better to give it games and exercises in which these things came naturally.

There is a great and unexplored field of physical training in which Miss McDonald is interested. Women, she said, should be taught how to sit in chairs, how to get on and off tramcars, how to move pianos and how to do their housework gracefully. "A waiter can carry a tray with perfect balance because he has been taught how to," she said, "but very few women can do so; and in the same way carters can inovo heavy weights without straining themselves, because they know which muscles to use, and how to use them." New Zealanders' Sports Instinct

Miss McDonald's course at the university was extensive, and included, in addition to direct physical education work, such subjects as physiology and anatomy, which were studied with the medical students, and psychology and English, which were taken with the science and arts students. Playground work was an important part of her training for, she said, in Canadian cities, there were only very confined places for children to play, so that games had to be organised. In this connection Miss McDonald's studies extended to musical appreciation, drama and folk dancing. Coming from a different country, Miss McDonald said she felt that she should have some real contribution to make to New Zealand physical culture, but even in the short time she had been here she had discovered new things. "New Zealanders have a much stronger sports instinct than the Canadians," she said, "and do; not seem to rely so exclusively on the commercialised forms of entertainment."