SPORT OF SKI-ING.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20295, 3 May 1934, Page 11

SPORT OF SKI-ING.

“ Not for Acrobats and Tough People.” APPOINTMENT AT MOUNT COOK “ Ski-ing is not a sport for acrobats and tough people, as most of the public seem to think.” Mr Barry Caulfeild, one of the three English ski-ing instructors in Switzerland, who has been engaged by the Mount Cook Tourist Company, is most anxious to correct the mistaken ideas held by many people in New Zealand, regarding one of the most exhilarating sports in the world. Ilis first remarks, when interviewed this morning, were devoted to proving its simplicity.

“ One can make ski-ing tough by going fast, but one can also make it easy by going well,” said Mr Caulfeild. “ The beauty of the sport is that there is not much difference between these two.”

Mr Caulfeild said that ski-ing would become much more popular if it was understood that falling was only an occasional accident, and that even the beginner need not fall more than a few times if he followed the advice of his instructor. The sport was one for young and old, but, like any other sport, it had to be learned, and learned under instruction if the novice was to obtain the fullest enjoyment from it. Modern methods of teaching were so developed that, given correct tuition, a man could stand up from the beginning, and need fall very seldom. As an example of the ease with which ski-ing could be learned under the tuition of modern instructors, Mr Caulfeild described how his father, one of the most famous ski-ing instructors, had to learn alone for eight years to reach the same standard which could be achieved in six weeks nowadays.

Mr Caulfeild expressed the hope that as ski-ing progressed in New Zealand it would not follow the same lines as in Switzerland, where there were a vast number of instructors all teaching more or less different styles. Austria had been fortunate to escape this, owing to the fact that Schneider, one of the leading instructors, had standardised a style of teaching, which had a great psychological effect on other instructors. “ I hope that New Zealand will take warning by this and control its ski-ing instructors from the very beginning,” said Mr Caulfeild. He described how in Austria instructors now had to pass a very severe test in which they were examined, not only on their powers of teaching, but also on their ski-ing ability and mental capacity. On an average only 20 per cent of the entrants passed this test. Mr Caulfeild said that the effect of the depression on the Continent had been to bring down the cost of instruction, and popularise ski-ing schools from which people were turned out by massproduction methods. English learners were not so numerous, but the numbers of Austrians and Swiss were growing daily. There were only three English instructors in Switzerland—-W. Bracken, who conducted a ski-ing school at Davos, Mr Caulfeild’s father, who was at Wenglen, and Mr Caulfeild himself, at St Moritz. Mr Caulfeild’s engagement is of much interest to ski-ers in Canterbury, and should help to improve the standard of the sport in the Dominion. He is a young man, tall and slim, and it it not hard to picture his grace and skill on skis. He passed his first-class test in 1923 at Davos, and since then he has won a number of the noted competitions in Switzerland.