How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions, S. S. Curry [best romance books of all time TXT] 📗

extension of the body, expand the chest and torso as much as possible.

(3) On waking up, take a thought of joy, of courage, of love toward all mankind, toward the day and its work.

(4) Maintaining all previous conditions, take a full, deep breath.

(5) Set free with the simplest movements every part of the body.

(6) Co-ordinate the parts of the body concerned in every-day work, and sustain them with primary and normal activities.

(7) Bring all the parts of the body into normal rhythm by alternative activity of the parts and in other ways.

To have good health we must rejoice, laugh, extend, expand, breathe, co-ordinate the primary parts of the body, act rhythmically, set free all the parts of the body and all the primary activities of function.

In short, this book tries to move everyone to study the simplest things, the simplest actions, the most normal duties of a human being, and to assert these and to exercise them the very first thing in the morning.

III WHAT IS AN EXERCISE?

On account of the many misconceptions of the nature of human development, will it not be well, before beginning our program to consider seriously—What is training? What are some of its principles? What can we do with ourselves by obeying nature's laws? Or, if these questions are too serious, too difficult for a short answer, should we not, at least, try to realize what is an exercise?

To many persons, any kind of movement, any jerk or chaotic action, is an exercise. They think that the more effort put forth, the better. Thus some teachers of voice contend that, to be an exercise, there must be muscular effort in producing tone. On the contrary, many movements are injurious; unnecessary effort will defeat some of the most important exercises.

The exercise must obey the laws of nature. It must fulfill nature's intentions, stimulate nature's processes, awaken normal, though slumbering activity.

An exercise is of fundamental importance to all human beings. Man comes into the world the feeblest of all animals. He has the least power to do anything for himself, but he comes with possibilities of higher love and union with his fellow-men. He comes into the world with a greater possibility of unfolding than any other created being.

Accordingly an exercise is a means of progress, a simple action which a man must use for his own unfoldment.

An exercise is a conscious step toward an ideal.

Man is given the prophetic power to realize his own possibilities. We can hardly imagine an exercise independent of the conscious sense of the highest and best attainments, of thereby making ourselves stronger and in some way better.

This ideal is instinctive, even on the part of animals, in fact, the animal instinctively regards its own preservation, its own unfoldment and the reaching of its ideal type.

A tree will cover up its wound and reach out its branches freely, spontaneously in the direction of the light and toward the attainment of its own type.

With man the ideal is a matter of higher realization. We have the lower instincts in common with the animals but we have also something higher. There is inborn in us a conception that man transcends all present conditions.

An exercise is a step towards the attainment of a chosen end.

Accordingly we have high exercises and low exercises; exercises on a mental and on a physical plane; exercises that may train men down to an abnormal type; exercises also that are intellectual, imaginative and spiritual.

Everywhere in nature there is a low and a high. In animals of a high order of unfoldment there is specific functioning of every part but in those of a low order the functions are confused. The organs are not so well differentiated.

Even in human beings, in the process of degeneracy a man loses a greater variety of his powers, and his very voice and body lose some of those characteristics which belong to the ideal member of the race.

A true exercise always brings sound and specific parts into action. Part is differentiated from part. All parts are made more flexible and more capable of discharging a function distinct from all other parts of the body. A true action of the hand cannot be performed by the foot nor can a foot become a hand except by a process of degeneracy.

An exercise implies a struggle upward over against a drift downwards.

An exercise is an aspiration.

An exercise is a demonstration, it reveals a man's best to himself. It is a process of translating his dreams into reality. It is the only proof of himself, his intuitive language.

An exercise is not physical but mental.

Never regard your exercises as merely physical. The expression "physical training" is a misnomer. All training is the action of mind. It may manifest itself in a physical direction, but training itself,—the putting forth,—is mental. It is the emotion we feel more than the movement that accomplishes results.

No matter who laughs, consider your morning exercises sacred to you. Make them a part of your very life and habits, and put into them your thought and the attitude of your mind toward your fellow-beings.

You will be tempted to regard such movements as merely mechanical and artificial. You will be tempted to think they are just the ideas of some crank. Put all this aside. Begin your exercises joyously and happily, for the very pleasure of the action.

Remember that you are not a body in which you have a soul; you are a soul and have a body. The cause of everything, even of health, is in our minds. Our awakening is not a physical matter.

There is no power in the material body to move a finger. An exercise is bringing a mental action into manifestation. However physical an action may appear, its only significance is as an act of mind.

An exercise is an expression.

It is an act of being, not of body; it is activity of being in action of body. There is no such thing as physical expression.

Expression is not merely a reflex action. It is the emanation of activity. It is the union of thinking, feeling and willing.

An exercise implies that we can choose what we are to express. It implies also that we can consciously regulate, guide or accentuate our mental, imaginative and emotional activities.

Here we find the importance also of expression as an educational view. Repression and suppression may be injurious to health. Expression is necessary even for the proper functioning of the vital organs. Impression implies the conscious use of an impulse. It implies the ability to share our ideas, feelings or experiences with others.

An exercise is a means of turning an impulse in a higher direction. It implies also the curbing of abnormal impulses.

Exercise implies stimulation of normal functioning. It is an endeavor, but one in accordance with principle.

Thus, an exercise is an expression of an aspiration. Exercise implies many things. It implies that a man may be low down but that he can rise; it implies that if he begin early and work patiently enough he can control, soon or late, his nature. He can control the expression of his being and every manifestation of life if he will only come close enough to the fountain-head of thinking and feeling. He must be willing to demonstrate on an humble plane, and, while striving for the highest ideal, take the simplest exercise as the first step of the ladder.

An exercise localizes function. Every part of the body, even every muscle has certain functions to discharge. Awkward men use the wrong part to perform a certain action; part interferes with part. A true exercise will train each part to discharge its own function and bring it into harmonious co-ordination with other parts. It will stimulate both growth and development but make growth precede development.

While aspiration is universal it becomes conscious in a human being. We have definite ideals and not only instincts for their attainment, but we can adopt rational methods for their realization. We have not only an instinctive consciousness of what is normal but a deep intuition that we can improve every power of our being, every agent of our body and every tone of the voice.

A simple, a most commonplace action, when done with aspiration becomes an exercise. In fact, everything that man does is part of the training. A true list of exercises must reflect the spirit of all life.

A normal man can distinguish between a wrong and a right exercise, between that which will lift him upward and that which will cause degeneracy. When men give up to their lower appetites they strengthen the downward impulses, but the mind can be awakened and every little step will become a demonstration of higher possibilities. An exercise is a demonstration to a man of his possibilities.

Sometime the science of sciences will be that of training and education.

All over the organic world we find tendencies toward degeneracy or downward; and we find everywhere aspirations or activities upward.

Every bird, every rose, every blade of grass is trying to reach an ideal. This universal upward tendency or process we call by some big words which confuse our minds and obscure the facts.

An exercise is not only mental but emotional, not only expressive of thought but of normal emotion.

The wise doctor looks at his patient. He does this not only to recognize the patient's condition but to see how much courage he has, how much joy, how gladly he accepts life.

An exercise demands accentuation of extension.

Muscles should have a certain normal length and the power of relaxation to take a certain length. On account of abnormal positions, such as obtain during sleep, certain muscles become unduly elongated and others too short. To restore the balance of proper proportions those shortened need extension and the elongated need shortening. Accordingly the so-called extensor muscles of the body need frequent action.

The effect of these stretches is to harmonize the vital forces. When a man lies upon his bed, as has been said, he breathes less, the circulation is more or less impeded; hence, the dull feeling and unwillingness to rise.

The stretch also equalizes the circulation. It affects the veins where the pressure of blood is weakest, where there is a more immediate indication of congestion, so that the bad blood flows away, and the good blood from the arteries where the pressure of blood is strong, flows in, and the processes of life go on with more decision.

There is still another explanation why the stretch is so important. It is primarily activity of the extensor muscles and is vitally connected with all true expansion. The flexor muscles on account of the position in sitting and because of a lack of expansive activity, often become too short. They can be extended only by activity of the extensor muscles. The stretch is the special and instinctive action of the extensor muscles in response to a distinctive demand for freedom of the organs, or harmony of the whole myological mechanism. It is also, as has been said, closely connected with the circulation, and the activity of the vital organs.

There is no more important exercise than stretching. Its neglect is one of the strange things in training. One who wishes to be stronger, to have the normal possession of all his faculties, powers and organs, can be initiated and secure the result most rapidly, by the use of this simple and elemental exercise.

An exercise is an act of expansion.

The action of man's body consists of expansion, contraction and modulation, the latter being the union of the other two.

True energy expresses itself primarily by expansion. Life expands and any increase of new life and all positive emotions cause an increase of expansive activity in the body.

The study of expansion reveals to us the fact that expansion and contraction furnish the many elements of all human action,