PROGRAM OF EXERCISES

As all training is a reaching upward towards an ideal so an exercise is a single step and the first exercise should be the most primary action.

The primary condition of all growth is a certain joyous awakening, an expansive enjoyment of life.

Take a joyous thought and express it in active laughter.

No matter how dull or weary you feel when you first awake, joyously accept the new day. Use the following exercises and actions as you would a cold wet towel on your face or hands. Look on the sunny side at once and laugh. We can possess a feeling only by expressing it; we enter into possession of the day only by using it.

It is easy to look at the light, easy to breathe, easy to stretch, to expand, easy to remember something joyous, easy to smile and easy to laugh.

If your body feels weak and sluggish, and you have great indifference to movement there is all the more reason for promptness. If you will joyously extend your arms, expand, breathe deeply and laugh, you welcome life and joy and give them a chance to take possession of your being and body and you will soon feel courageous instead of gloomy, strong instead of weak, rested instead of weary.

None of these exercises require a great expenditure of vitality.

Performed, as many of them are, lying down, however energetically you may do them they will bring little or no weariness. Though the exercises do not require much vitality they should be practiced vigorously to accomplish the best results.

1. PRIMARY EXPANSION AND EXTENSION

On waking, take a courageous, joyous att.i.tude of mind. Chuckling deeply, actively expand the whole body, take a deep breath and co-ordinate harmoniously as many parts as can be brought into sympathetic activity. Stretch the arms upward and the feet downward as far as possible, and repeat at least twenty times.

An old writer gave dilatation as one of the primary characteristics of life. A certain distention of all parts of the body is the beginning of the renewal of energy and a primary manifestation of life. We must give room to the life forces, feel the diffusion of energy into every part.

The sense of constriction, due to lying in a cramped position, can be easily removed by this primary exercise.

The chief elements in this primary distention of the body are found in the stretch and expansion of the torso, in deeper, fuller breathing, in the sense of diffusion of life, in greater satisfaction and in laughter.

These elements should be practiced on waking up.

The stretch should be in the nature of an indulgence, an instinctive longing on first awaking, a longing in common with all animals. It ought to be enjoyable and a help to sustain the laughter.

Count one for the active movement, or stretch, two for the staying of the active conditions, three for the gradual release of activity, and four for complete relaxation.

The exercise, as most of the others, should be repeated twenty to twenty-five times, counting four for each of the preceding movements.

This will require eighty to one hundred counts. Each of the four actions of the muscles should be carefully distinguished and accentuated.

Counting four in this way for an exercise and for each of the first steps obeys the law of rhythm, accentuates all the elemental actions of the muscles and establishes primary conditions of healthful activity in all the vital organs.

The simultaneous elements or actions in this first exercise are of such importance that it is well to practice each one separately, either before or after the general exercise.

This distinct practice prevents the slighting of any of these elemental conditions, restores harmony and stimulates normal functioning of all organs. In fact, all these actions are really necessary conditions and should be present as elements of all exercises.

The following exercises (2-5) are important, individual accentuations of the essential actions of this general exercise, and the conditions of all exercises.

The student should carefully study his tendencies to omit or slight any one of these elements and accentuate carefully not only every step separately, but observe with especial care the one most needed.

2. INITIATORY EXHILARATION

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 att.i.tude 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 repet.i.tion 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 pa.s.s out easily and normally.

Increase the inspiration rather than the expiration. The air will tend to pa.s.s out too quickly, reserve it and allow it to pa.s.s out steadily and regularly.

We find that the taking of breath is a.s.sociated 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 gla.s.ses 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.