PRIDE OF BODY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1126, 29 July 1913, Page 4

PRIDE OF BODY.

A writer in the London Daily Mail under the above heading, refers to the necessity for exercising the abdominal muscles. He says : “Get up every morning ten minutes earlier than usual ; you will open wide the window at the bottom ; you will strip and perform exercises until your body is in a glow and fresh with the fresh air blowing in upon you. There are many sets of exercises which have been thought out and arranged, and which I shall describe later, or if you are ingenious you can no doubt invent your own. But there are certain essentials, to my mind, on which I should like to insist, besides regularity, which is the soul of discipline, and these are the open window and the development of the abdominal muscles. The ancient Greeks, the Samurai of Japan, the Indian Yogi, and all peoples who have raised the culture of the body to a fine art have declared that the seat ot courage lies in the abdominal region, a fact which anyone who has been madly frightened will not need to be told. Now, no form of athletics develops these muscles properly ; even golf and rowing only do so partially. No form of athletics in the least takes the place of this naked fresh air discipline, and every form of athletics is immeasurably helped by it. I do not speak from theory; I speak from experience. But this is childish, you may say this is silly. So said I, too, before I started practice. But the effect of this discipline is magical, and if people realised it, as the ancient Greeks realised it, as the Samurai realised it, they would as soon neglect the practice of it as they would neglect cleaning their teeth. The virtue of this training should be known throughout the land.