16458 system 57

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lialf hours elapsed aftcr the last meal, and if therc is a tendency to indigestion, two fuli hours.

Sonie people take two bathsdaily, viz , a cold douche in the morning and a warm or hot bath w hen coming home from business. Tliis is a splendid plan. and they might arrange to do sonie of the excrcises with each bath.

I thitik the reader will understand that it is not necessary for a water bath to immediately prccedc the rubbing exercises, as, when strippcd. thcse exercises form in themselves an air bath.

While learning, the time used in doing all the eighteen exercises will be about twenty-fiyc to thirty minutes, on account of the necessary reference to the tcxt or iliustrations. If morę time is spent. then the pauses of *' thinking ” are rcally too king. When the pupil is thoroughly conversant with the " System,” howcvcr. the whole series can be easily performed in twenty minutes, with bath included. And extraordinarilv strong and practised individuals can do it in exactiy fifteen minutes, as I personally have proved morę than 1,400 times at public demon-strations (400 times in Great Rritain).

The " slow ” exercises rnust never be hurried, but the " quick ” ones must, of course, be done yery quickly in order to make this fifteen minutes' performance possiblc.

The whole " System ” bcing known by heart. unnecessary pauses are never tnade. Each excrcise ends by an exhalation. during the last part of whicll one takes up the position of the next exercise—or of the special deep-breathings when such are wanted—so that the following inhalation naturally forms part of the next exercise. Thus the whole series “ flows" steadily and uninterruptedly, disturbed ncither by fussiness nor hesitation.

The rubbing excrcises, Nos. 9 to 1S. form a stnall " System ” in themselves ; hut it is wrong to confinc oneself to the F.xercises Nos. 1 to S, whicll 1 know some people do. They will sorely miss some quick trunk moyements, and a deep kncc-bcnding as well, and some knee-bendiugs (see page 60 of the yolume in band).