Part 12

Sustaining the extension and full breath, laugh heartily, with little or no noise, chuckle to yourself persistently for several minutes. Centre the laughter in the breathing and the torso.

Joy and laughter must be considered the first condition of all exercise. The reasons have been explained. If you are still sceptical, observe and experiment. Everything that is truly scientific can be proved or in some way demonstrated. As this is one of the basic principles of this book and its companion volume, "The Smile," and as joy and laughter are met as the first exercise of our program, it may be well to summarize some of the arguments:

Exercise in laughter sets free the vital organs and brings all parts into harmonious, normal activity, stimulates the circulation, quickens the metabolism of the cells and causes elimination. Each of these topics might receive many pages of discussion.

You will be tempted to omit the practice of the chuckle, but it should be especially emphasized.

It expresses and accentuates the permanent possession of the joyous thought. No other exercise can so stimulate a right attitude toward life, as well as restore the normal condition of the vital organs.

It has also, as have all of these exercises, a beneficial effect upon the voice. In fact, all good exercises tend to improve the voice. This is one of the most important tests of an exercise,--does it affect easily, naturally and normally the vocal organs?

3. HARMONIC EXPANSION

Sustaining laughter and extension, sympathetically and joyously elevate and expand the chest as far as possible.

Feel the breast bone separate farther from the spine, easily and naturally as in the expression of joyous courage.

Expand slowly, sustain the expansion, gradually release, then rest, that is to say, perform the exercise in the same quadruple rhythm of the harmonic extension.

In this exercise you should feel a deepening of the chest chamber.

It is well at first, until you get the exercises correctly, to place one hand at the back, the other on the chest, and in expanding to feel the two hands separate.

This expansion should be sustained for several seconds. The release should follow gradually. There should be a repetition of the expansion; you should feel a sympathetic activity all through the chest and torso.

Sudden collapses should at all times be avoided, and they should especially be avoided in exercises of the chest and of the central organs.

The free, expansive facility of the whole chest is the measure of the health, strength, grace and normal actions of a human being. It is of primary importance.

4. RESPIRATORY ACCENTUATION

Keeping the body extended, the chest well expanded, take a deep, full breath, hold it a moment and gradually release it, then wait a second without greatly lessening the expansion of the chest

In this exercise be sure to accentuate the four elemental parts of an exercise. Taking breath, the active stay of the breath, the gradual release and then the complete surrender of the direct respiratory muscles: that is, accentuate the four steps or elements as in most exercises and avoid the temptation to jerk and to exaggerate minor parts or actions. Constrictions, inharmonious and unrhythmic jerks are always out of place in any exercise. The best results can be obtained only by observance of principles.

Do not force the breath out. Allow it to pass out easily and normally. Increase the inspiration rather than the expiration. The air will tend to pass out too quickly, reserve it and allow it to pass out steadily and regularly.

We find that the taking of breath is associated with the result of expansion and vitally connected with the conception of impressions and expression, and so is a necessary part.

The expanding of the chest causes greater room in the thoracic chamber and breath flows in naturally. This exercise, however, implies that we should consciously and deliberately accentuate expansion and the taking of breath. It aids in the realization of life and the diffusion of activity.

Man breathes over twenty-five thousand times in twenty-four hours. He can get along very well on two or three meals of food and six or eight glasses of water, but with as low as fourteen thousand breaths a day, he is flat on his back and has hardly enough power to move hand or foot.

We live on air. This is one reason why the expansion of the chest is so important. It gives room for breath. In fact, in breathing we do not suck breath into the lungs. Air presses fifteen pounds to the square inch to get into the lungs. Expansion is, therefore, the primary element in breathing. We should, however, at times not only expand fully but consciously draw in breath. We can expand the chest while sustaining it and drink breath into the very depths of our lungs.

Thus the exercise requires us to take as much breath as possible, to retain it a moment, then slowly give it up and at last to relax completely the diaphragm, all the time sustaining the chest expansion. Preserve still the quadruple rhythm. Of course the exercise can be done with dual rhythm, and it will be helpful, but the accentuation of all four of the primary actions will accomplish more than double the beneficial results not only for health but for the voice. It develops the retental action of the breath. A true use of the voice demands a full chest. This exercise strengthens the muscles that reserve the breath and support the tone.

The process of respiration is most directly necessary to all the actions of the human organs. It is an essential part of circulation. The breath we take meets the blood. The blood is carried from the heart through the lungs and back to the heart, then out through every organ of the body and back again to the heart. The whole circulation is a mighty process by which the blood receives sustenance, bears this to every organ of the body and carries back the refuse which is oxidized and given out by the lungs. The blood, according to the earliest tradition, is the life.

All ancient writers on long life "regard the control of the breath as a fundamental sign." A person with little control of his breathing is doomed to a short life.

Nature has so constituted us that at the moment of some excitement, or the reception of some impression, or the instant we try to do something unusual, we take a greater amount of breath. In any exercise, always allow the breathing to act freely. Observe that breathing is the initiatory act or condition of all human effort. It is a sign of the reception of an impression and is thus one of the conditional acts of expression. Breathe deeply and freely at all times. A deliberative breathing exercise, such as the preceding, strengthens all the respiratory muscles and corrects abnormal tendencies.

5. PRIMARY CO-ORDINATION IN LEVITATION