Part 20

We should not only feel expansion of the chest in all exercises, but we should begin with exercises for the torso rather than with exercises for the limbs. We want to reach the deepest vital organs as a part of all exercises.

Sometimes a man goes into a gymnasium and works for the muscles of the arm, for example, while the muscles of his chest and around his stomach and diaphragm are weak. In this case the central muscles may grow weaker. Exercises, not properly centred, will decrease harmony.

I have found many people with lack of support of the voice and weakness of the diaphragm and the muscles relating to the retention of breath, but I have found very strong muscles in the arms, while the muscles in the center of the body were surprisingly weak.

In following "external measurements" too much attention is often given to the muscles of the limbs that can be measured. It is easy to discover the fact that the lower limbs have more muscular development than the arms, but this is of little consequence compared with the weakness of internal and hidden muscles like the diaphragm.

It cannot be too often emphasized that an organism necessarily is one. The parts sympathize with each other, and the higher the organism the more is this true. The voice expresses the whole being and body, and it not only calls for great activity of the central muscles, such as the diaphragm, but every part of the body seems to share in voice conditions.

A human being with his legs cut off can never sing or speak as well as he could before he lost them.

9. As far as possible, always feel in all the muscles a sympathetic action with certain opposite parts that support or naturally co-operate with these.

Specific exercises must be directed to central and harmonious effects. For example, expanding the chest and extending the balls of the feet downward as far as possible co-ordinates the parts that are used in standing, though in a different way. It gives extension to the parts; and to extend muscles is often the best way to bring activity into them.

Formerly a horse was fed in a high trough in order to make him hold his head high, but no horse carries his head so high or has such a beautiful arch to the neck as the wild horse, that feeds on the ground.

Weak muscles may often be improved by giving them extension. This eliminates constrictions and brings more rhythm or balanced activity in opposition to other muscles or in union with them.

The co-ordination must be felt. When there are co-ordinations there will be a sense of satisfaction in the vital organs. The exercises will not weary. They will not be a strain or tax the strength. They accumulate vitality rather than waste it.

Co-ordination must especially be studied and used consciously and deliberatively with reference to the chest. In the start of every exercise there should be, as has been said before, something of an increase of activity in the chest and the breath.

10. Practice all exercises as rhythmically as possible.

Rhythm and co-ordination are the deepest lessons of life and are necessary to each other. Activity and passivity must alternate in proportion as far as possible in all exercise.

Observe also that the active exertion of an exercise should determine the amount of the reaction. We should go as slowly in the recoil or eccentric contraction as we do in the concentric contraction.

Nature is always rhythmic. Notice the beating of the heart, going on constantly for eighty or a hundred years. It acts and then re-acts. Observe, too, the rhythm of the peristaltic action of the stomach.

An exercise must obey this universal law of nature.

Jerks should never be permitted; but all be easy and gradual. Even the surrender of a movement should be gradual.

The eccentric action which results is more important in many cases than the concentric. For example, in the diaphragm we make voice by an eccentric action of the inspiratory muscles. We take breath by a concentric action of the diaphragm, we give out breath in making voice by eccentric contraction.

Rhythm, therefore, means primarily that there should be a rest after each exercise. If we feel very weary we should especially emphasize this rest. It is lack of this rest that causes strain and weariness and makes a person nervous. The normal effect of the exercises when practiced rhythmically, is to eliminate fatigue, correct nervousness and weakness.

Rhythmic movements accomplish ten times more than unrhythmic ones, even if unrhythmic movements do not produce unhealthy and abnormal results.

Observe that nature always responds to rhythm. The body will respond to rhythm. Let the exercise be taken vigorously and definitely. Let also the reactions or rests be equally definite and decided. Vigor should never lead to constrictions or to great labor.

If we lie on our back and stretch one side and then the other it is easier and we accomplish better results as a rule than we do by stretching both arms and feet simultaneously.

It is hard to explain the sympathetic union of co-ordination and rhythm. I have never found any explanation or even reference to this. Even Dalcroze, who has so many good ideas regarding rhythm, has not grasped the principles of co-ordination of different parts of the body and especially the relation of co-ordination to rhythm.

Awkward people lack both co-ordination and rhythm and the two are vitally connected. By establishing co-ordinations we begin to establish rhythm, and by establishing rhythm we help in the co-ordinations.

The principle of rhythm applies to all our human actions. We should walk rhythmically, and we should stand allowing all the rhythmic curves of the body to have their normal relationship. We shall always have the right rhythmic curves if we have the right centrality and co-ordinations.

One of the greatest effects of music is due to the rhythm. All movements, however, have a rhythm of their own.

11. Use in every exercise, as far as possible, all the primary actions of the muscles.