Daily Training

Sit straight in any chair with a back to it. Close the eyes and draw a long, slow breath in, gradually lifting up the head, and thinking as far as may be of nothing whatever. Then breathe slowly out, letting the head drop forwards and the body and spine bend forwards, till the whole attitude is that of something broken or lifeless. Repeat.

Now this may sound like a meaningless formula to any who have never tried it. But the fact remains that many who have, find—whether it is the imagination that tells them so, or not—that they gain more recuperation from a couple of minutes of this, than they possibly could in the same time-limit of mere rest or sleep. The reason is not far too seek: in sleep and in rest the muscles certainly do rest, but is it not more than possible that a muscle bidden by the will to rest, rests far more completely? Certainly each of the present writers, if, for instance, he is thoroughly tired, and by the exigencies of life he has to do something else in three minutes by the clock, does not attempt to lie down or go to sleep for three minutes, which he can easily do, but has found by experience that voluntary and intentional relaxation like this, dictated by the will, is far more freshening than either rest or sleep. At any rate he so believes it is, that the illusion is complete. The fact of saying to the muscles, “I will rest,” is indeed more immediately productive of refreshment than passive rest. This may sound fantastic, but to take a larger instance, how often has it happened that a patient in some serious fever, when exhaustion is the foe to be dreaded, has pulled through by an exercise of will, by making an effort, whereas if he had lain passive—in the natural condition for recovery—he would certainly have died? There are few doctors who would not endorse this. And voluntary relaxation, in the same way, is the remedy for milder exhaustion, especially when another business has to be gone about almost immediately. To some, the note “quack” will sound here. But “quack” is worth trying, if it can do no harm.

The same exercise—one of the present writers has not personally found it so successful—may be tried standing, or in a more elaborate form, it can be tried lying. From a kneeling position on the floor, with the head forward on the chest, and the spine relaxed, one slowly, but with the vivid idea of rest in one’s mind, crumbles down to a lying position, eventually resting on the back, with legs and arms outstretched and separate. The breathing must be full, slow, and rhythmical. Then after a minute or two one rises very quietly.

Or, again, relaxation in a milder form can hardly fail to be useful to everybody, and many people practise it unconsciously. The commonest form which is known to everyone is stretching at the end of work, and for a few seconds afterwards remaining utterly relaxed. No one has ever stretched—we boldly assert this—without the subsequent relaxation, which, quite apart from the relief of a cramped position that stretching gives, gives rest to the body. Similarly, also, every sedentary brain-worker will find that he works best when he is most unconscious of his body, when the energy which would be employed in bracing limbs is left unoccupied for the brain to make use of. Mere stillness is of course not at all the same thing, for stillness may go with rigid stiffness. But the point of relaxation is that during work every muscle that is not employed in that work should have nothing whatever to do, and that after work no muscle should have anything to do if the work has been physical, and if mental that the brain should be empty. True the will has to say, “Holiday for all, holiday for all,” because all rest better so; but no more. The energy of the whole frame is devoted to rest.

In the same way, just as when the brain bears the stress of exertion, the body should be completely relaxed, so when one part of the body, the arms or legs, for instance, are actively employed, and above all when storage of energy may be useful, the rest of the body not wanted should be trained to give no trouble, not to require the usage of energy. Innumerable instances of the truth of this present themselves, for in athletics “reserve,” “quietness of action,” all imply the unconscious storage of energy. Force employed is energy gone, and the less unnecessary energy one spends, the more there is left for endurance. Look at a practised racket player and one who does not know how to husband himself! The one takes two quiet steps and is in easy time, the other rushes to the corner, is there before there is any need, and has to make a call on his muscles to check himself. Result, one has expended no energy, practically speaking, in getting there, the other has parted with energy twice, once to start with violence, once to check himself with violence. This repeated twice a minute for half-an hour will leave one fresh, the other beaten.

Here we have an instance of intentional sparing, a thing related to relaxation, for both are an economy of force. And in this body of ours, so “fearfully and wonderfully made,” servant as it is or should be to the will, a conscious command is far more binding than a laisser aller. A man with a severe headache may be unable to go to sleep in the ordinary course, but let him learn to know and practise the use of the huge power of will that is lying chiefly dormant within him, and he will not only be able to get on satisfactorily with his work, which would be impossible if he paused to think how his head hurt, but he will easily be able to go to sleep. He could, and the ordinary man can, if he tries, induce by practice both energy and passivity.

But there are “foes of its own household” even here, as in Vegetarianism and Teetotalism. And the hearth-abiding foe of the power of the will is Christian Science. This strange sect holds that all ailments are imaginary, and that since there is no matter, there is no such thing as a broken leg, because there is no leg. This is futile, and the answer incontestably is that there must be legs because they can be broken. But the subject is not worth discussion.

Again, to sum up:—

CHAPTER VIII.

THE INFLUENCE OF TRAINING ON MIND AND MORALS.

It is impossible to make the simplest movement of any kind without the conscious or unconscious direction of the mind, so inextricably are the two bound up together; and from the earliest times physicians, both spiritual, mental and physical, have known that the soul can be reached through the “subtle gateways of the body.” This aspect of training, the importance, that is, of the cleanly health of the body, and its prompt and unrebellious obedience to the will, which is concerned with this question, has been alluded to before, and is dealt with more fully here.

In the chapter on exercises we insisted that both for their direct use in athletics, and for their far greater significance in life, the speed and promptitude of the body’s obedience was an attainment of great value, for thus the mind has at its call a quick ready servant to do its errands, instead of a slow loiterer. We saw, also, that these exercises, while they are in progress, necessitate strict attention, which we may now add should be consciously applied, as learnt there, to other pursuits. Let, for instance, the man who has accustomed himself by this drill, for so we may call it, to attend with concentrated attention to these simple actions of the body, apply that attitude of mind which is now familiar to him to other tasks. Let us say he has before him a tedious piece of work, which at the same time requires minute attention. Let him, then, put himself into that frame of mind (he remembers it quite well) with which he performs his exercises. Many people hardly know what real attention means: there is no better way to teach it than to make rapid and correct movements, which cannot be made without it. In the same way, also, these exercises give the habit of control. A man who has brought mind and body into the relation of master and willing servant, even in so elementary a matter as this, is going on the right road to teach himself control in the largest choices and difficulties. So, too, in other points of training: a man who has made himself able to drop smoking, or abstain from stimulants, or from certain sorts of food which he likes, but which his reason tells him are bad for him, has not improved his power of self-control in that point only, but has begun, at any rate, to form a habit of it; and the exercise of self-control, in one point only, will make his power of control stronger all round, in each and every case where his reason suggests control to him. It is here, as a tonic to the mind, that training of some sort, apart from all its other uses, is recommended to everybody; not training for some special event, which, as soon as the event has come off is dropped, but a daily and continual observance of certain rules of health, a daily practise of exertion of will and obedience of body.[12]

Again, the health of the body contributes directly to the power and strength of the mind. Work, which is irksome and comparatively badly done by a man who, for any cause, digestive or otherwise, is in only moderate health, will be done by the same man with zest and far better results if he is in good health. Also, the mind is able to accomplish not only better work but more work, when the whole system is not laid under a general tax to repair and make well any enfeebled or clogged organ. A single rusty joint, a badly fitting valve in an engine, makes the whole run less smoothly than it should, and also implies a waste of energy. Body and mind together, working in co-operation as they always must, are a close parallel to this. The one cannot possibly be at its best unless the other is in health. Rightful activity in the one stimulates activity in the other, just as artificial stimulants, such as spirits to the body, induce a mental activity in all respects like the physical one, temporary in character and followed by reaction. But the habit of briskness, of activity, of quick decision, is a thing fully as much mental as it is bodily; the two are inseparable, and, therefore, in the training of the body, the qualities which we should aim to acquire are those which are mentally desirable. One man’s mind may, it is true, be naturally a much less fine instrument on its own level than his body, and much less easily trained, but the self-control, the alertness, the habit of speed, which such training as we have sketched out gives, will directly and inevitably affect his mind. It may still be slow and laborious in its workings, but it would otherwise have been slower. Also, whatever work it does it does better, because it is not clogged, hindered, and distracted by an unhealthy body.

Now this interweaving of mind and body is so complex, so closely knit, that it would perhaps be beyond the sphere of safety to say that the knitting together of the body and that within us which is the spring of moral, not intellectual qualities, the soul in fact, is closer than that of the mind and body. In any case, the interdependence of body on soul, of soul on body, and of both on the mind is practically complete, and this human trinity makes up man. There is no healthful habit of body which does not directly exercise a healthful influence on the soul, no harmful habit which does not hurt it. The body sins, and in its secret place the soul sickens. From the other side, also, a high moral standard infallibly leads the body to adopt healthy habits, a low moral standard suffers it to drift into physical crime and degradation.

Now city life, especially to anyone who has been accustomed to have a good deal of exercise without a modification of the food and stimulants he may take without hurt in a more active country life, is apt to put the body into a state which renders it particularly liable to all kinds of moral attack. The life is largely sedentary, and in consequence a great deal of physical vigour in young men, which would in the country be naturally and healthily expended in games and exercise for the upper classes, in manual labour for the lower, remains unused, and, except to those of strong moral principle, is a dangerous thing. Again, without modification of diet to suit the circumstances, most people eat more stimulating food than they require, and, as a natural sequence, drink more stimulating and intoxicating drinks than are good for them. This, in itself, is another exciting cause to the passions. To exercise self-control under these circumstances is a laudable and a difficult thing; but a far simpler remedy lies to hand—namely, in not letting these circumstances exist, by deliberately taking less stimulant and deliberately stinting oneself in the matter of food, or giving a fair trial to the simpler foods spoken of before, which will be found to be far less exciting, though quite as nourishing. There are many men who are capable, as far as will power goes, of limiting themselves in this manner, who, if they do not limit themselves, become nearly helpless in the grip of their temperament. For a life of sensual indulgence, to put it on the lowest grounds, is bad for the body and the mind; sensual thought even becomes a habit as hard to get rid of as any morphia habit, and for many to try to rid themselves of it, while they continue to keep their bodies in a permanent state of excitability owing to overmuch food and stimulant, would be like attempting to cure the morphia habit, and yet continually going about with a phial of it in the pocket. And nothing, again putting the question on low grounds, is so bad for the nerves as to be incessantly desiring and dwelling in thought upon a certain thing, and incessantly refusing to gratify the desire. We do not, of course, mean that it would be better to gratify it,’ but that it is better to take hold of it by the root, not merely pinch the stem, and, as far as possible, get rid of the desire. For there are certain temptations, and impurity is one, which are not safe to fight consciously, since to approach them even in thought means to be seized, as it were, by the tentacles of some infernal cuttlefish. Do not school yourself to fight them; school yourself to run away from them. Interest yourself in other things, tire yourself physically, and, above all, do not indulge in stimulants of food and drink, which, however innocent they may be in themselves, predispose, by the very feeling of vigour they give, to things which are not innocent.

It is not only the suddenness and almost overwhelming force of physical temptation to some natures which constitutes their only danger, it is the gradual, hardly observable nature of the effect of such indulgence. For years, it is no use denying it, a man’s mental and bodily health may continue, as far as one can see, absolutely unimpaired by such excesses. The greatest harm is done by preachers, schoolmasters, and others who warn boys that such habits will lead to immediate decay of the mental and physical powers, and early death. The boy may be frightened for a time, but if this is the only preventive that keeps him back, his fright will wear off, and he will find by experience that no such effect, as was predicted, follows. He will, therefore, probably conclude that there is no ill-effect. He will, also, assuredly meet men who tell him that such practises are good for the health. A greater fallacy was never invented by the devil himself. There is no truth whatever in it. But what his teacher ought to have taught him was that such practices are the cause of mental and physical decay in thousands, though not immediately, that to yield to such temptations is for everyone to become less able to resist them, and that by perfectly simple rules in the use of water, in the limiting of food especially, for instance, late in the evening the force of such temptations becomes infinitely less. Many people, no doubt, will say that this is a low ground on which to build up high motives. It is for that very reason, since it will appeal to those to whom high motives would not appeal, that it is so extremely useful. Thus it will appeal to many to know that at the age, let us say, of fifty, a man who has lived purely is, almost without exception, a stronger and more vigorous person, more capable of work and also of enjoyment than one who, in early manhood has, though possibly for a few months or weeks only, behaved like a mere ‘brute beast.’

It is in this connection that we strongly advocate the introduction into London and other big towns of those evening clubs for exercise, which have been tried with great success in America. There are boys’ and men’s clubs in enormous numbers in London, and admirable things they are, but we know of few where billiards is not, perhaps, the most violent form of exercise provided. What is wanted is a number of tall buildings built with many floors, where, for a moderate subscription, that class of young man who now spends his evenings in the promenade of the music halls, or in aimless (perhaps it would be better if they were aimless) strolls up and down Piccadilly with not infrequent visits to the public house, could get an hour’s violent exercise in boxing, fencing, or gymnastics. We fully believe that this class, as a whole, would enjoy such an evening far more than the evenings they are now accustomed to spend; that it would be infinitely better for them in body, mind and soul alike, not even the flabbiest moralist would be disposed to deny. As it is, a young man gets away from his work, say at five or so, and what in heaven’s name is the poor vigorous thing to do with the hours that divide him from his natural bedtime?[13] It is out of the question to expect that he should sit in his room and read a book; he has been at work all day; his body tingles for diversion. Out he goes, if he is human at all. In the general way there are two places open to him, the public-house or the streets. There his vigour finds further stimulus, or unhappily, its satisfaction. That there are, as we have said, many clubs for such people is perfectly true, but papers, draughts, chess (and we suppose now pingpong), are not the sort of thing that is needed to work off the potential violence of the body. What is wanted is violent exercise.[14] That such institutions would be enormously popular with the class of which we speak, those, in fact, for whom more expensive clubs are utterly out of the question, is, we think, beyond doubt, and financially, we believe, that they could quite easily be made to pay. It would, of course, be out of place to discuss this here, but it is worth noting that where such clubs have been tried in Boston and elsewhere, they have proved successful.

It is these evening hours which are the dangerous time. Purposeless loafing in the streets, though entertaining enough, is not sufficient for a vigorous young body, which has been pent all day at work; while loafing with purpose, we may say, is not good for anybody, yet it is to loafing with purpose that purposeless loafing naturally leads. Purposeless loafing is innocent enough, but, to use the morphia simile again, it is as if the sufferer from the morphia habit took a bottle of morphia and continued to finger it, a highly dangerous performance; and we do not believe that the class which loafs in the streets, anyhow the best of them, loaf because they prefer it to some suitable employment for their body, but because no suitable employment for their body, is accessible to them. The bulk of them would vastly prefer something different, and the eagerness with which they would embrace bodily exercise may be gathered from the crowds on the Serpentine and waters of the park if skating is possible. The theatre every night is, of course, as hopelessly out of their means, as it would be to belong to Prince’s or Lord’s, but with what patience and in what numbers do the crowds wait at the pit door. The middle classes of England, we believe, are not naturally sensual, but, as it is, during just those hours in the day when they are at leisure, there is nothing whatever for them to do, except loaf, till loafing becomes a habit, and from being an innocent one passes into the Devil’s care, who has made the London streets what they are, down the most populous of which, Piccadilly, the Strand, etc., no man would willingly take his sister at night.

It is towards this removal of causes that predispose towards ill-health in the moral sphere, ill-health as shown by a lack of energy, promptitude, power of work and endurance in the mind, that the training of the body, as we have attempted to outline it, is largely and unceasingly devoted. Health, as we understand it, the condition, that is to say, not of the ordinary man who considers he is “well enough,” but that higher health which is the result of training the body to quickness, energy, and so to strength, which implies an obedience to the reason in matters of food and stimulants, directly benefits a man’s moral and mental life. The body “is in subjection”; it obeys with less struggle the dictates of the non-material part of man, and it obtains in itself a greater resistive power to temptations of laziness or lust, just as it obtains a greater resistive power to its own purely physical enemies of cold or fatigue. It is in this respect, therefore, (a far higher consideration than mere physical fitness), that we put forward a system of training that will be likely to ensure such results, and that consequently we regard the obedience to laws of bodily health, and means of physical fitness, as partaking of the nature of duty. And this further: it is clearly accepted as man’s duty that he should keep his mind and his morals in the highest and best possible state; but seeing how intimately both these are knit with his body so that none can act without the other, the soul sinning through the body, the mind dictating every movement, is it reasonable to suppose that a corresponding duty is not laid on man with regard to the health of his body? Is it not, in fact, directly his duty to keep his body, as well as his soul and mind, in its highest and best possible state? No doubt compromises have often to be made; a man, in order to do his work, may be obliged to disregard certain rules which the health of his body requires should be kept. But saving this, there seems to us to be a clear duty with regard to physical health, quite apart from the advantage which physical health will bring to his mind and morals. This wonderful machine is a servant, no doubt, of the mind, but shall the master keep it, so to speak, in an insanitary attic, and pay no regard to its health? The compromises also, which we have just spoken of, will be rarer if the body is well, since it will be more capable of bearing fatigue and unreasonable hours of work.

The simple, but unswerving principles on which morals are based, the highest development of the mind, the utmost health of the body: these things, and nothing short of them, are the results of ideal training.

CHAPTER IX.

TRAINING FOR SPECIAL EVENTS.

The excuse for this chapter in a book written (as set forth), not for the athlete primarily, but for the average man, who is hopelessly incapable of prominence or great excellence in any one branch of athletics, lies in the fact that such a vast number of people nowadays play games, and are so anxious on certain days to do their best at them in some competition, that quite a fair percentage of readers will, it is hoped, pick up a hint or two which may serve them in good stead at that trying moment when they are about to drive a ball from the first tee on some medal day; about to step out on to the glaring prominence of a lawn-tennis court; about to go in (fifth wicket down) when a rot has apparently set in; or, may be, to play a preliminary tie in the City and Suburban Ping-pong Handicap. For it is at these cold and shuddering moments, which no one can hope to meet with more than stolidity, that one needs to have all one’s wits about one, to be able to keep one’s nerve, and to have one’s strong points at one’s fingers’ ends, and one’s weak points (we all have these, and the better one grows at any particular sport, the more glaring they seem proportionately to become) anyhow passably defended. At one minute, or less, from now it may be that your weak point will be attacked; your drive may land you a full iron shot from the green, a stroke you particularly detest; you may have a scurry after a cross-court return; you may have a yorker on the leg stump. In all such, the important thing is, not only to be prepared for them now, but to have been prepared for them so long before that the preparation has become a habit. Such strokes may still be your weak point, but you will meet the emergencies calmly. And to meet any emergency calmly is in itself a favourable defence, for you will then no longer be flurried.

Now in any game, when you have to meet a definite attack of an opponent—this necessity does not apply to a game like golf, or croquet, or billiards, since in such games you have to do the best you can yourself, without fear of active opposition—there is a golden rule, which has never been enough insisted on, and it is the rule that lies at the base of all we have said about training generally, as applied to games. Practice is at the root of it, and the object is to get so familiar with the stroke dictated by the exigencies of the moment, that it is practically automatic.[15] That is to say, as soon as the attack (your opponent’s return, or the bowler’s ball) is coming, you will, with the least possible expenditure of energy, recognise it, get into the position to meet it, and have the stroke ready. For instance, if the game is lawn-tennis, you will see that a drive into the left-hand corner of the court is probable, and before you have really formulated this to yourself consciously, you should be half-way there, not vaguely, but ready for the attack. Your body should have moved almost automatically, and thus your attention and will-power is reserved for noticing your opponent. He may change his mind at the last second (you can never tell about opponents), and instead of driving into the left-hand corner he may lob gently over the net into the right-hand court. Thus your attention, which would—had you not cultivated a sort of correct automatonism—have been used up in getting into the left-hand corner, will be free to observe his change of tactics, and the result is that you will be far more ready for his new attack than you would have been, if all your attention had been taken up in getting into position yourself.

This verbose illustration is necessary to explain a thing that is often overlooked—namely, the necessity of observing your opponent; and the more automatic your own preparations are, and the more instinctively the body works,[16] the more attention you have at your disposal. It follows, as a corollary, that the less trouble you have to take to meet the actual attack, the more you can concentrate your mind on your opponent. The eye should send to the brain the message—“Yorker on the leg stump,” or whatever it may be—and with the least possible expenditure of force, either of muscle or nerve, the attack should be met. The more the movements of the body are automatic, the less you will exhaust yourself. This, in a hard-fought game of racquets, for instance, is an incalculable advantage.

But in order to ensure this automatic movement there is one thing absolutely essential, and that is not practice merely, but correct practice and swift practice. And correct swift practice implies not only much repetition, but concentration of mind. If you perform a new movement a hundred times, let us say, without thought, it may be done correctly, but it cannot be done, if correctly, swiftly. Correctness is the first essential, as we said in the chapter on exercise, and always essential; the swiftness in execution comes mainly with practice; so also does the automatic performance of the correct movement. But it is a very easy thing to lose correctness as the speed increases, and with a view to right this we have recommended—after the movement has been completely understood, and learned in some cases part by part—practice before a glass.

This, then, is the first essential—namely, to have practised one’s weak points till, though they are still perhaps weak, they are performed with the minimum possible of conscious thought, so that one’s attention, as far as may be, is free to observe the opponent. For a long time before the match continually practise your weak points, till they become, if not satisfactory, at any rate fairly easy, and give to your strong points only that amount of practice which will serve to keep them in repair, so to speak. At the time of the event, of course, you will use them as much as you possibly can, and at the same time give your opponent as few chances as possible of attacking your weaknesses. And the knowledge that you have a passable defence for such weaknesses, and can use it with moderate ease, will vastly increase your measure of confidence, whereas the knowledge that in some one point or so you are nearly defenceless would cramp and worry you throughout the set.

Again, since in many cases correctness of striking lies between two opposite faults, it is often useful to practise deliberately the fault which is opposite to your besetting sin. If, for instance, you do not use your wrist enough in a certain stroke, practise using it far more than is in the least advisable; if, on the other hand, you use it too much, not giving the forearm, for instance, its share in the stroke, practise the stroke with the forearm alone, keeping the wrist rigid, and you will often find that you thus attain correctness more quickly than if you had practised correctness. The longest way round, in fact, is here the shortest way home.

It is a great fallacy, as we have said before, to suppose that mere practice makes perfect. Instead of improving, you may be merely ingraining an existing fault; or, again, practice without briskness and without full attention given is only practice in sluggishness, and confirms and strengthens want of concentration. Thus it is always better, if possible, to practise in short spells, and never go on if you find your attention irresistibly flags; for not only is such practice no good, but it encourages slack performance. This inability to attend, which besets almost everyone for a long or short period during a course of training, and is the arch-enemy to progress, is often the result of fatigue, genuine tiredness of muscles or nerves; the eye times a stroke incorrectly, or the overworked muscles are slow to respond. Now this condition should have been avoided; and most people who have suffered from it are perfectly aware that yesterday, or two days ago, they went on with their practice when something, eye, muscle, or nerve, distinctly told them: “We have had enough.” However, here the condition is now, and there is only one remedy—rest. It is a bore, but it is your own fault.

This genuine tiredness must not be confounded with a symptom which certainly it closely resembles in its effects, but which appears to us to be really different, and may be treated with success by an opposite method: the symptom known as staleness. One is not conscious in any way of fatigue, the practice may easily have not been at all excessive, yet for the time all briskness is lost. Now though rest is recommended by many as a remedy for staleness, the opposite treatment—namely, continuance, if not increase of work—is worth a trial; and if one steadily and perseveringly plays through an attack of staleness, one usually emerges from it better than when one went in. It is a point on which trainers disagree, some recommending, as we have said, an emollient treatment—namely, rest; others a tonic. But above all, if you decide, rightly as we think, to play through your staleness, play with all the concentration and briskness you are capable of, and do not lay the foundations of a habit of slackness. Your best efforts, it is true, will produce deplorable results; but if you can harden your resolution to care nothing about the results, and hammer steadfastly along, an object of pity to men and angels, you will probably be the better for it. But if your resolution breaks down, and you relax from the poor best still possible to you, stop at once, for always and always slack practice is worse than none.

Another demon that, like the Promethean vulture, tears at the vitals of the man practising for a special event, or for general improvement, is the apparent slowness of the improvement, and at times its apparent complete cessation. Such a man, for instance, with the best intentions in the world will take out a handful of golf-balls to practise, let us say, mashie shots on to a green. The mashie is a weakness in his game, and the resultant positions of the first dozen shots cannot be covered with the traditional table-cloth. The next dozen perhaps are even less satisfactory, and at this point he will be wise to ask a candid friend if he is doing anything wrong; or, if the candid friend is a good player, to show him half a dozen shots. But it is quite possible that there is no obvious fault at all—only a general weakness. Then, having eliminated that most dangerous possibility—namely, of practising a fault, let this assiduous gentleman go on with his practice as long as he is brisk and attentive, and let him continue it every day for a week. Then, and this is the work of the demon alluded to, he may honestly think that he has not improved at all, and be disposed to label the principle of practice to a hot destination. But we solemnly assure him, if he has the least aptitude for the game, he quite certainly either has improved, though he is not conscious of it, or he has at least by his practice made some necessary steps towards improvement, and this improvement, when it comes, will probably be more rapid than he has thought possible. From being a poor performer with the mashie he will one day suddenly find that the club has arrived; that it has shouldered its way through the other mediocre performers in his bag and now stands predominant. But two postulates are required: (1) that he must be capable of improvement, (2) that he practises correctly.

Now this sounds a cheerful gospel, and will perhaps not be readily believed, especially by the person who is in the habit of telling one after a foozled mashie-shot that he always foozles with a mashie, and by way of showing how persevering he is, does not use the club again throughout the round, but plays improperly with an iron. And here it might be remarked, that though a match at golf certainly does give one practice it is by no means an ideal form of practice, any more than a set of tennis is an ideal form of practice. Indeed, it is even less ideal; for at tennis there is the fact that you are playing against an attacking opponent, to observe whom is no small part of the game, whereas one’s real enemy at golf is not one’s opponent, but one’s own mistakes. Consequently, with the idea of winning the match one studiously avoids such strokes as may land one in such a position as to require the use of a shot which one knows to be weak, whereas in practice one should, instead of avoiding such a shot, do it a dozen times and yet another dozen. That is practice, and it is by such practice alone that the demon of despair is exorcised.

Another rule which applies to practice of all games is that the practiser should gradually increase the severity of his work, in proportion as the stroke becomes easier to him, till, long before his match comes off, he has become accustomed (in games of attack and defence) to meet a much fiercer attack than he is likely to be subjected to, and himself to attack with a ferocity which he will probably not need. This gives him the comfortable feeling during the match itself that he is playing within his limits. So, also, in golf-practice, let him by degrees increase the difficulties he must contend against, and no longer place the ball he wishes to play on to the green in as good a lie as possible, but in a rather bad one; and if his bête noir is a hanging ball, let him place for himself—after his initial difficulties are conquered—a dozen balls that hang not badly, but atrociously badly. Such practice as this will diminish his dread of such a hanging ball as he is probably liable to encounter, just because he has been in the habit of playing infinitely more poisonous ones.

Again, it is impossible to emphasize too much the value of the habit of sparing oneself as far as possible. You may be pretty certain that when the event comes off you will need all the nervous and muscular force at your disposal, and it is well to remember that the amount you have is but limited, and that although you have to play as effectively as possible throughout, there are many strokes which can be done with comparatively little effort in one way, but which if done in another are exceedingly tiring. For instance, the correct timing of a ball at tennis, and the bringing forward the weight of the body, using the large muscle areas to back up the arm, will drive a force or a boast with greater velocity than could have been attained by the arm alone, while the contribution towards fatigue and exhaustion thus entailed is infinitely less than if the forearm and wrist were taxed to their utmost.

It is the business of every trainer, and so of every one, for each man is his own trainer to a far greater degree than anyone else can be, to develop his individuality, and though certain broad rules can be laid down about the wrong way to do a thing, and in a less degree the right way, much should be left to natural aptness and facility. For instance, if a man can easily execute a stroke in a certain way with good results, it is impossible to say that such is not the right way for him to do it; for the orthodox “right way” may be very difficult to such a man, and it is mere waste of time for him to acquire it, if by another method he can accomplish the same thing easily. Here everyone can find out a great deal for himself, and since facility in movement is half the secret of success, he should, if he finds a real difficulty in executing some stroke in the prescribed way, carefully look about to see if he has not at his command some other method. It is idle, for instance, for a short, thick-set man to emulate a long loose swing at golf; he might as well practise high jump in order to be able to deliver a service at lawn-tennis from the height at which a taller man can, or practise the “split,” in order to increase his reach. On the other hand, he has assuredly some advantage in his shortness that the long-legged man has not; it is this he must grasp and develop.

Finally, it is probably good for everybody to rest, if not completely, at any rate very largely, for a day or two before the event; for if a man is not fit then, it is highly improbable that a day or two more of severe training and practice will make him fit. On the other hand, rest—provided he does not fret—will largely increase his fund of nervous force, and his muscles already in condition will lose not one atom of their briskness by so short a repose. Again, the danger of over-training is far greater than that of under-training, and the risk of staleness or tiredness on the day of your match is far more likely, and, if it occurs, far more prejudicial to your chances, than the risk of not being quite at concert pitch. But if a man frets, he loses half the benefit that the rest would give him, and if he finds he inevitably does so, it is probably better that he should soothe his jangled nerves by employment. Yet there is a great, if commonly neglected, preventive against fretting, and that is the reasonable employment of the brain during the period of training. Then, when the rest before the event comes, it is easy to find distraction from the very natural nervousness, in mental pursuits, whereas if, as often happens, the period of training has been one of inaction for the brain, except in so far as the training itself was concerned, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to busy the mind with other and intellectual occupations. In fact, if only for the sake of the tranquil, not fretful, rest of the day or two before the event, it is well worth while, throughout the period of training, to have some definite and interesting piece of mental work every day. It should not, of course, be very exciting or very fatiguing, nor should the hours of work be so long that together with the physical preparation they produce fatigue; but nothing is a greater mistake than to drop brain-work altogether, not only, as we have said, for the sake of the rest before the event, which is practicably impossible unless the mind is otherwise occupied, but for the sake of the general flatness and utter want of interest in things after the day is passed. For the mind gets flabby and in ill condition if not used, just as the body does, while its reasonable use even during the most severe physical training cannot, we believe, have any ill effect at all on the body, for it is not in the nature of things that it should have; while if it has been unused for weeks, it is practically impossible to rest, as is strongly recommended, for a few days before the event, without fretting.

There is a sentence in the Latin grammar: “Too much confidence is wont to be a calamity.” This is no doubt true, but it must be remembered that too little confidence is certain to be one; and though to inculcate a frame of mind is perhaps a useless task, yet there is, as it were, a correct attitude for winning, just as a straight bat is the correct attitude for a yorker, and it seems in the main to be this.

Never despise your adversary, but whoever he is treat him with respect. Cultivate a belief in your chances of winning, but remember that though you are not beaten till the last set has been finished, or the eighteenth hole putted into, yet neither is he. Husband your resources, unless things are positively desperate.

And so good luck to you. But if you have bad luck, remember you are a gentleman, or, if you are not, that you have an excellent opportunity for making other people think so.

CHAPTER X.

REMEDIAL.

We have already spoken of the constant need of light, in order that the body may be healthy, and have suggested some simple rules about the use of heat, either in Turkish or ordinary baths. But these natural aids to health may, as we have said, be used as directly remedial agents in case of disease, or to correct existing bodily defects. Much scientific investigation has lately been made into the healing properties of electric light, whether used merely as light, or, as some hold, to put external electricity into the body; and it has been found to cure, not only weakness of the system, acting as a tonic, but even such tubercular diseases as lupus. We should not, however, recommend anyone to dabble with electricity, still less to go through a course of treatment except under skilled medical supervision, and this treatment by electricity comes outside the scope of this book.

Massage and rubbing, however, which can often be performed by a man on himself, are, for certain complaints, among those simple and excellent remedies which can safely be practised by anyone.[17] In the case of a strained muscle, for instance, in muscular rheumatism or lumbago, or when owing to some accident a man accustomed to exercise cannot get it, massage and rubbing are invaluable. In the latter case, the massage ought to be over the whole body, and so must be performed by someone else; but half the small local injuries which cannot well be avoided, can be greatly alleviated by such means, while an attack of lumbago or muscular rheumatism, which without such treatment might incapacitate a man for a week, can often be entirely got rid of by the employment of this remedy. The skin should be made soft and pliable by hot water, and any decent oil or embrocation may be used; not so much, perhaps, because it is in itself beneficial, but because the rubbing, which is beneficial, thus becomes easier to the manipulator, and spares the skin of the patient; for it is impossible to stand more than a minute or two of dry rubbing, if the rubbing is vigorous, owing to the soreness which it produces. In the same way, though the cause of lumbago (usually, if not always, connected with the liver) cannot be removed by massage, yet massage enormously alleviates the discomfort which often amounts to really severe physical pain. And half an hour’s massage in the small of the back, a dose of uric acid solvent with every meal, and an abstention for a day from meat and alcohol may be sufficient to discharge most cases at any rate half-cured.

Another remedy we suggest—it is likely to be highly unpopular—as a cure for a very large number of disorganisations of the digestion or liver, is complete abstention from food, even for one meal only. For it is quite possible to be really bilious and yet feel reasonably hungry; but it is in such a case false to argue that hunger indicates food. In the same way a slight upset of the liver often induces great drowsiness, whereas to lie in bed sleeping inordinate hours is quite the worst thing to do. Nor is there any possibility of mistaking bilious-hunger or liverish-drowsiness for the healthy forms. It is even unnecessary to go into the point at all, for everyone knows quite well the difference between them. So if you are biliously-hungry, fast; if you are liverishly-sleepy, take exercise. It is possible, of course, that you need medicine, but try simpler remedies first.

Nervousness, that extraordinarily elusive foe to happiness, may arise from two causes, either from an overstrung condition accompanied by excitability, or from exactly the opposite cause—namely, weakness, and the need for tonic. In the first case—the two, again, are unmistakably different—it may be useful to try a less stimulating and irritating diet, and accompany it with plenty of exercise, followed by rest and muscular relaxation. In the second case, the same alteration of diet, substituting nourishing foods for the stimulating ones, and plenty of rest, with perhaps less exercise will be useful. In both cases, of course, medicine may be needful, but it seems to be almost a postulate in the question of health, to prefer, if that is sufficient, a perfectly wholesome régime without medicine, to the continuance of one that perhaps does not entirely suit you, with the addition of medicine. Medicine, no doubt, often is useful, and many of the nerve-tonics which so plentifully bedeck the pages of magazines that one would think that the Empire had an attack of nervous prostration, may be excellent medicines. But why take medicine, if as good results can be obtained without it? It is possible that you must—or at any rate think that you should—do more work than you can properly stand. If the duty is clear, and if it is also perfectly clear that you had better cheerfully give up the chance of working as well as you would like to work, unless you take a tonic, then by all means take a tonic which you know medicinally to be a sound medicine; but first see if there is not some possible means, such as alteration of diet, or, very likely, less stimulant, or a little regular exercise, of managing without that medicine. Strychnine, for instance, cannot be called an ideal food even in the smallest quantities.

Two other very common symptoms of some slight nervous derangement are restlessness and staleness. By restlessness we mean the disinclination often amounting to inability to settle down to any one thing. It is a particularly common symptom of the present day, when many people seem to be literally unable to have any fixed object of life, or to remain in the same place for more than a few days together. In acute forms this becomes a nervous disease of such seriousness that a regular rest-cure has been often prescribed—and with great success—for it: the patient goes to bed and stops there for several weeks, and is allowed neither to read, nor to talk, nor to make the smallest exertion that is avoidable. And in a less degree for ordinary restlessness the same treatment is applicable, and an increased allowance of sleep is desirable; or, if not of sleep, of deliberate rest; for the evil is due to over-excitation of the nerves without sufficient nourishment. And the nourishment of the nerves is repose.

Staleness, again, which we may define as a failure of co-operation between muscles and will, and which is most noticeable in athletic pursuits (since in ordinary life slight sluggishness in co-operation is not practically noticeable) arises also from fatigue of the nerves, due to excessive work, want of nourishment, or monotony of employment. To take the smallest imaginable instance, supposing two men, well trained in matters of eye, attempt merely to hit a lawn-tennis ball backwards and forwards over the net, as easily and gently as possible, they cannot keep it up for a quarter of an hour. Each stroke is simplicity itself, less than the A B C of the game. Yet by the monotony and tiresome iteration of it, their nerves get bored; there is no failure of muscular power, but they are unable to hit with the minimum of correctness after a very few minutes. Here is temporary staleness in its most elementary form, but it is some similar nerve-failure which is at the root of most staleness; incapability of correct work occurs without such fatigue of the muscle as would account for it; and to repeat the metaphor likening the muscle to the receiving instrument in a telegraph system, and the nerve to the wire through which the message passes, it may be a failure or a fault in the wire, though the instrument be intact, and the message (from the brain) be perfectly sent. That particular wire, or set of wires, must, therefore, be given rest, for it is mainly by rest that health and power come to nerves. In other words, change of exercise is required; or, if the whole system is a little out of gear, complete though temporary rest; or, again, a nerve-tonic may be needed; light, air, and cold water may set things right. Or, since the harmonious working together of all the parts of the body is conducive to correct work by any one nerve, it may be that the digestion is primarily at fault.

It is in connection with staleness that we may consider that daily and deadly enemy of strong and vigorous living—namely, Fatigue. If fatigue were nothing more than the natural and logical outcome of sound and healthy exercise of mind and body, the question would be simple enough, and we could take it offhand as one of nature’s danger signals, enjoining rest. For it is one of the primary postulates that exertion must be succeeded by rest, and thus fatigue would be only the instinctive demand of the tired organs. But it will occur at once to most readers that the feeling of fatigue, anyhow, is in no way proportionate to the amount of exertion, bodily or mental, that has been undergone; more than this, bodily exercise, and in many cases mental exercise, instead of producing, actually seems to remove the feeling of fatigue. Clearly, then, the mere sensation of fatigue does not necessarily indicate the need of rest, or sleep, or food. A man, especially if he has dined late and heavily, may awake in the morning, even though he has had a good spell of sleep in an ill-ventilated room, feeling tired. Yet that feeling of tiredness is removed, not by further dozing, but by exercise, fresh air, or often brain work. But the contradiction is only apparent; there are, it is true, several forms of fatigue, but fatigue generally can be properly considered under one head. It will be necessary, however, to go back to a few simple physiological principles in order to make this quite clear.

In several of the simplest phenomena incident to life, we are utterly ignorant of processes. We know, for instance, for certain that we breathe in air rich in oxygen, and breathe out air full of carbonic acid gas. We know, again, that the proteid which we eat and digest and assimilate in our food becomes body-cells. We know that when we use our muscles we use up these body-cells, break them down and turn them into waste products; that when we use our brains some similar exertion of nerve is implicated. How these changes take place we do not know; that they do take place is absolutely certain, and it is in connection with these changes that fatigue occurs. A deficiency in the supply of oxygen given to the lungs is parallel to a deficiency in the supply of proteid given to the digestion; in both the organs are starved. Thus, to take the instance already given, the gentleman who feels fatigued in the morning, had better go out of doors; the longer he lies in his stuffy bedroom the more tired he will become. This is one of the causes of the fatigue from which he is suffering—namely, a starvation of his body in point of oxygen. He would feel fatigued in the same way, if he was starved in point of proteid. His fatigue, though he has taken no bodily or mental exercise for hours, and has been resting, is genuine fatigue consequent on an insufficient supply of oxygen. Therefore, he had better get out of doors, and take exercise so as to make up the deficit.

This unhappy gentleman whose case we are considering may have other causes of fatigue as well, even though he never takes any exercise bodily or mental, and habitually consumes large quantities of solid food. In fact, it is the food itself, with which he hopes to refresh exhausted nature, which is very likely tiring to him. He may habitually overtax his digestive organs, and almost certainly he will have in his system, owing to his sedentary and gluttonous life, a great quantity of waste products (among which is uric acid, the father and mother of gout), which in themselves are causes of fatigue. The system is clogged—the engine, so to speak, is running laboriously,[18] with all sorts of grit and refuse hindering the smooth working of its wheels and bearings. And this fatigue may be called chronic fatigue; as long as the excess of waste products remain in the system there will be disinclination for exertion, and fatigue rapidly ensuing on it.[19] The cure is to get rid of the waste products, as far as may be, by means of exercise, and by encouraging the system to throw them off by the action of the skin, the kidneys, and the bowels, and to remove the causes of the waste products in the future by avoiding those foods which are fruitful in them.

Now here, again, we find that what we may call healthy fatigue is surprisingly allied to this gluttonous fatigue, though in most cases, probably, the cure for one is the opposite to the cure for the other. The sedentary large-eater we should recommend, broadly speaking, to take exercise (extreme cases are liable to apoplexy, however), with a view to getting rid of his waste products. But it is the presence of waste products, also, which partly, at any rate, cause the feeling of fatigue in the man who has played a hard set at tennis, for exercise, as we have said, breaks down the body-cells which become waste products.[20] New cells, it is true, are, in the case of all healthy people tired with exercise, even then in process of formation, but the local fatigue of the muscles is largely due to the presence of these waste products, which the exercise has produced. Thus, strangely enough, the ignoble alderman is suffering from a cause closely allied to that which makes the open champion of the world at any game tired after his brilliant and successful defence of his title.

It is impossible in the small limits of a section to enter more fully into the physiology of this fascinating phenomenon, and we must refer the reader who wishes to know more about it to Dr. Alexander Haig’s work on the subject,[21] and merely note that in this way exhaustion and so fatigue are brought about both by a want of food—temporary starvation—and also by an excess of food which causes excess of waste products. In the same way, too, though food may be needed, yet to bolt a heavy meal will not meet the case satisfactorily, since much of the nourishing value of the foods will be lost, as they will not be given to the stomach in a form in which it is possible for it to assimilate them, and also the digestive and excretive organs will be severely taxed, and fatigue in them will be produced.

As we have said before, fatigue, even when produced healthily, so to speak—namely by the exercise of muscles in the open air—may be quite disproportionate to the work accomplished. This question is dealt with under the chapter on exercise, and it will be sufficient here merely to mention that the wrong use of muscles (e.g., slow heavy movements for the wrists as in many dumb-bell exercises), or the use of the wrong muscles, as, for instance, excessive employment of the muscles of the arm when what is needed is the use of the large body muscles, are common causes of unnecessary fatigue in games and athletics. There are, furthermore, many mental causes of general bodily fatigue, for in the intimate interweaving of mind and body, as we have seen, the one suffers with the other. Thus worry of the mind, nervousness, depression, make one feel physically tired, not because the muscles have been used, but because the nervous energy whereby they work has been exhausted by mental trouble. Here, if a man can bring himself, by an effort of will, to take an interest in some bodily or mental pursuit that will draw his mind off himself and his worry, he will quite certainly be the better for it, for the nerves that have been wearing and exhausting themselves over the trouble will have rest. And rest, as we have said before, is to nerves what food is to the stomach and oxygen to the lungs.

A common result of faulty digestion is a tendency to grow fat. Just as extreme thinness results from failure to digest food properly and so get the nourishment out of it, so a certain kind of obesity is likewise a wrong digestion of food; and though the symptom of “laying on flesh” is often ignorantly considered a sign of health, it may be distinctly a sign of bad digestion, if the flesh that is laid on is fatty. Certain foods, such as sugar and oil, are in themselves fattening; so, also, is starchy food, even if not properly masticated. An avoidance of excess of liquid is a good precaution against obesity, if under that word we class abnormal weight; so also is the habit of making the skin act properly by baths and exercises; so, too, are exercises for the abdomen, which facilitate the processes of digestion (though these exercises should not be employed when the digestion is at work—i.e., just after meals). And everyone should remember that it is far easier to avoid getting fat, than to stop the process of accumulation of fat when once it has set in. Prevention here is not only better, but easier than cure. By a strange perversity of nature, fat people have often a craving for fattening foods. But this must obviously not be taken as a healthy instinct; it is an instinct of a diseased condition.

Another common enemy of health is constipation, and it is an enemy mainly because waste material, which should be ejected, is retained in the body, and during its retention necessarily disperses a certain amount of poisonous gases and substances through the body. But it is a question whether the drugs which many people are accustomed to take almost daily with a view to its prevention or cure are not as bad in their effects. And the sad thing is that an enormous amount of such constipation could be cured by perfectly simple and natural means. Diet is largely responsible for it; so, too, is the lack of exercises which facilitate the movements of the bowels. People who suffer from it should be sparing in their use of stimulants, especially of those which have a large percentage of alcohol, and in their use of white flour, and of flesh foods, the place of which should be taken by other foods, such as brown bread, tomatoes and fruit, fresh if possible, or stewed. These are without doubt the best preventives, and also the best remedies. Above all things it is most injurious to get in the habit of relieving constipation by doses of salts, or of other medicines even less innocent. The sort of diet which both prevents and alleviates it is a natural remedy, as also are the bending and leg-raising exercises which help the action of the bowels. They are worth trying.

But perhaps of all enemies to health, laziness is the most powerful and the most insidious. The health of any function depends, as Aristotle said long ago, on its energy; and to be employed is a better drug against most ills that flesh is heir to, than any that can be found in a chemist’s shop. Whether it is headache you suffer from, or depression, or (if your malady is very acute) atheism or gout, the probability is that work, either bodily or mental, would have prevented it, and that work, bodily or mental, will cure it. For owing to this reaction of body or mind on each other, there is no doubt that boredom and discontent will actually produce indigestion, just as indigestion in the stomach will actually produce depression of mind. Again, to take a tiny instance, there are few people who would care to eat their way through a long dinner alone, but give them cheerful companionship, they will digest with avidity that which if they ate by themselves they could barely swallow. So also in bigger matters: occupy your mind always with any subject that interests it, provided it is not harmful, and as far as your well-being is concerned it does not matter what this subject is. If you ever feel bored, you may be quite certain that your boredom is in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred due, not to the stupidity of others, but to the stupidity of yourself. Stupidity of that order is one of the least admirable things in the world; and for the sake of your self respect try to be a little less of an idiot. However poor you are, it is probable that most things worth having, even Greek gems and fine music, are accessible to you, the one at the British Museum, the other at the Queen’s Hall. Surely there is something in the world which involuntarily finds its way into your thoughts at vacant moments? Encourage that; work at it; get to know some thing worth knowing about it. Take a pride in your body if you will, you might do worse; get to play something passably; weight-lift even, if you really enjoy it, or if it leads you to a pride in your physique; do anything to be occupied. For this is the great remedy of all—work. It is certainly not worth while to sit and consider how noble you are and what few opportunities you have, nor is it worth while to sit and consider—except very occasionally—how base you are and how many opportunities you have. Instead, go and take one of them. Do something, whether you suffer from headache or atheism, do something, make boots—even very badly like Tolstoi—or make history like Napoleon, or make geography like Livingstone. Whatever your age is, there should be something you like, which is not harmful. Do it, with both hands, for there is health—work!

THE END.