An organism exists only by virtue of certain co-ordination of parts. Training improves and extends this co-ordination.
Co-ordination is the simultaneous union of many different elements or actions in different parts of the body.
When exercises are performed in obedience to the law of rhythm, better results will follow. Rhythm is a law of man's being. Action and reaction imply a human being doing his little part and then accepting the greater work out of the heart of the universe. Action and reaction, activity and passivity, the giving and the receiving, everything natural is rhythmic. Absence of rhythm is death.
The best exercise is the simplest in its movements. It is not the spectacular actions of an exercise that make it the best. As every exercise is a struggle upward it must necessarily be an emphasis of something elemental and normal.
Any movement is normal when it is part of the discharge of an elemental or distinctive action of any agent or part.
The difference between accidental and elemental needs more discussion. Working upon accidentals secures weak results, perverts and interferes with free function. Working upon elementals brings freedom, power.
As all training is a reaching upward towards an ideal so an exercise is a single step and the first exercise should be the most primary action. The primary condition of all growth is a certain joyous awakening, an expansive enjoyment of life.
Take a joyous thought and express it in active laughter.
No matter how dull or weary you feel when you first awake, joyously accept the new day. Use the following exercises and actions as you would a cold wet towel on your face or hands. Look on the sunny side at once and laugh. We can possess a feeling only by expressing it; we enter into possession of the day only by using it.
It is easy to look at the light, easy to breathe, easy to stretch, to expand, easy to remember something joyous, easy to smile and easy to laugh.
If your body feels weak and sluggish, and you have great indifference to movement there is all the more reason for promptness. If you will joyously extend your arms, expand, breathe deeply and laugh, you welcome life and joy and give them a chance to take possession of your being and body and you will soon feel courageous instead of gloomy, strong instead of weak, rested instead of weary.