PHYSICAL CULTURE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3032, 31 October 1908, Page 6

PHYSICAL CULTURE.

This column is conducted by Mr R. 6. Jarrett, Physical Culturist, late supervisor to the Wanganui Education Board, Principal of the Wanganui, .Feilding, Palmerston North and Foxton Physical Culture Schools, who will be glad to hear from beginnersin Physical Culture, and will reply to questions in the following Saturday's istfue. Initials and address only will be used when answering questions. Thus: W. McK, Carterton, or G. H., Featherston, as the case may be. Most students, especially beginners, have little difficulties which beset them, and it will be a pleasure tojhelp these along. Upon receipt of a penny stamp, Mr Jarrett will post to any address his book on "Exercise for Health and Brain," which contains a useful chart and valuable information for young and old. ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. ■' D.L.C., Masterton.—Letter received, book posted. This week I purpose dealing with what may be termed the base of • physical culture, (i.e.), the science of breathing. In successive Saturday issues of the Age I hope to deal with the following subjects:—Physical Culture for ! Children, the age at which to begin, with illustrations of exercises; Physical Culture for Ladies, some useful exercises for women illustrated; .Physical Culture for the Middle-aged, some exercises for the middle-aged illustrated; Round Shoulders, exercises for their correction illustrated; Physical Culture for Farmers; A Plea for Physical Advancement; The Skin and Kidneys, and the value of bathing; Curvature of the Spine, exercises for the cure of same, illustrations of suitable exercises; The Abuse of Physical Culture; The Abuse of Athletics—is training injurious; The Danger of High-gear-ed bicycles, heart strain, etc.; The Value of Weight-litting. SCIENCE OF BREAiTHING. We all breathe, of course, but the question that has often been asked is: Do we breathe correctly— Errors in eating and drinking are commonly committed, and many a dyspeptic, in consequence of committing them, has had to adopt a rigid dietary treatment. But how seldom do we hear of errors in breathing, cjr of the adoption of a new way of performing the seemingly simple operation of filling the lungs with air? Like most simple things, it is often passed over as not worth troubling about, or looked upon as the fad of a new school of physical culturists. Yet scientific breathing is really as old as the hills. It is extensively practised by certain castes in India, who make claim to a wonderful increase in their powers through tie exercise of it. And everyone who has taken singing lessons from a competent teacher knows the stress laid on proper breathing, and the part which breathing exercises play in the course of instruction". The trouble is that breathing—true breathing—has been confined to the few, while the rest of the world has never known or have forgotten it. And it is to make the practice of it more universal that is the aim of so many physical culturists to-day. Most people, of course, agree readily enough that deep breathingfilling the lungs to their full capacity —must be more beneficial than the tiny proportions of air which so many draw in with each inspiration. But the popular idea of deep breathing seems to be the distension to bursting point of the thorax, or upper chest, the only result of which, if it be continued, is the straining of muscles, lungs, and heart, disgust on the part of the breather, and a .final abandonment of practice as somethir.g of no account. Then, it may be asked, if we are not to breathe with the "chest," what are we to breathe with? The answer is simply to breathe "all" of the chest, and not with only part of it. The lower chest must be utilised; in other words, we must breathe with the abdomen. "Breathe with the stomach?" cries someone. No, gentle reader, not "with," bat "from" the stomach. And in considering abdominal breathing, there is this to be taken note of: That many people taking it up work their abdominal muscles too much, producing what is popularly, if inelegantly, termed a "corporation." While the abdomen is to be used perhaps the more, the thorax — the upper chest —must not be neglected. The aim should be a proper distribution of work for the breathing organs, and the production of a just balance between them, thus ensuring development and symmetry of form, together with efficiency of the breathing apparatus. Between the lungs and the stomach is the diaphragm, a kind ef partition between the breathing and the digestive organs. In correct breathing, the diaphragm is depressed, pushing out the muscles of the abdomen and flanks, and it is thus obvious that the latter's movements are due, not to their own inflation, but to the movement of the diaphragm. It will, we hope, be clear from the above that "deep" breathing is different to the popular conception of it, viz., the swelling out of the thorax, or what Tommy Atkins calls "chuckring a chest." That, if you like, may be called "wide" or "thick" breathing, or anything else that implies distention in a lateral direction. But "deep" breathing is breathing deep down in the chest, by filling the lower part first, and the upper part last. Reversing tbiß process, by far the larger number of us fill —or half fill—the upper part first, and give the lower chest nothing at all.