Instructors

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When skiing began in Australia, firstly at Kiandra in 1861 and later at the Hotel Kosciusko in 1909, nobody had any idea how to ski other than to schuss straight down the hill and hope to stop somehow at the bottom. As there were no instructors to demonstrate technique, books on ski instruction were very popular, particularly those by Vivian Caulfeild and E.C. Richardson.

Little by little, some of our skiers found their way to Europe and learned some basic skills.  The first to bring such skills to the Hotel Kosciusko was R.F. Angus from South Australia who had learned the basics of the telemark turn and stop which he was able to demonstrate to the locals as well as how to climb a slope with skis on, a great advance.

J. Jacobsen (Norway) happened to be at the Hotel Kosciusko in 1914 and was able to demonstrate cross-country technique and also jumping. This was fine since cross-country skiing dominated in Australia until 1930 when downhills and slaloms began to make real headway.

George Aalberg (Norway), a very fine cross-country skier and ski jumper, was Australian Champion from 1927-1929 and instructed at the Hotel Kosciusko for about 10 years.

In 1935 the NSW Government brought to Australia the first overseas qualified ski instructor, Ernst Skardarasy (Zurs am Arlberg), to teach the established Arlberg Technique. The standard of local skiing rose immediately and created a trend of foreign instructors which continues to this day.

Ernst returned in 1936 and 1937 and was followed in 1938 by Friedl Pfeiffer (St Anton) and Roland Cossman (Salzburg). Skiing then went into a hiatus during the second World War.

Following WWII the overseas instructors began to return , first as a trickle and later as a tidal wave and Australian resorts now have hundreds of instructors from all over the world.