power while
neglecting entirely flabby, undeveloped muscles. The only difference is
that in the motions for this training and for the perfect co-ordinate
use of the muscles, there must be a certain amount of even, muscular
development; whereas although the vigorous exercise for the growth of
the muscles often helps toward a healthy nervous system, it more often,
where the nervous force is misused, exaggerates greatly the tension.

In every case it is equilibrium we are working for, and a one-sided
view of physical training is to be deplored and avoided, whether the
balance is lost on the side of the nerves or the muscles.

Take a little child early enough, and watch it carefully through a
course of natural rhythmic exercises, and there will be no need for the
careful training necessary to older people. But help for us who have
gone too far in this tension comes only through patient study.

So far as I can, I will give directions for gaining the true
relaxation. But because written directions are apt to be misunderstood,
and so bring discouragement and failure, I will purposely omit all but
the most simple means of help; but these I am sure will bring very
pleasant effects if followed exactly and with the utmost patience.

The first care should be to realize how far you are from the ability to
let go of your muscles when they are not needed; how far you are from
the natural state of a cat when she is quiet, or better still from the
perfect freedom of a sleeping baby; consequently how impossible it is
for you ever to rest thoroughly. Almost all of us are constantly
exerting ourselves to hold our own heads on. This is easily proved by
our inability to let go of them. The muscles are so well balanced that
Nature holds our heads on much more perfectly than we by any
possibility can. So it is with all our muscles; and to teach them
better habits we must lie flat on our backs, and try to give our whole
weight to the floor or the bed. The floor is better, for that does not
yield in the least to us, and the bed does. Once on the floor, give way
to it as far as possible. Every day you will become more sensitive to
tension, and every day you will be better able to drop it. While you
are flat on your backs, if you can find some one to "prove" your
relaxation, so much the better. Let your friend lift an arm, bending it
at the different joints, and then carefully lay it down. See if you can
give its weight entirely to the other p