Fig. 2
Fig. 3
You will then be in position to commence Exercise 1 ([Fig. 3]). Throw out the clubs to the right, and describe a complete circle with them in front of the body from the right to the left, keeping the arms perfectly straight and in a line with the clubs. As they describe the circle the body should be turned slightly in the same direction, and the head and eyes also should follow the course of the clubs from right to left. Continue this exercise at least a dozen times. Should you find any difficulty in accomplishing this with both clubs at once, try one at a time, first with the right hand and then with the left, or vice versâ.
Here we will take the opportunity of informing the learner that he should endeavour to identify himself, so to speak, with the clubs, and consider that they are parts of himself—continuations, in fact, of his own arms. The base of the club should always be kept in a straight line with the shoulder. By this means an equal distance is preserved between the two clubs; otherwise, should they be swung at an angle, they must surely come into collision in the next exercise (and in many others to follow), in which one club travels in an opposite direction to the other.
Fig. 4
Exercise 2 ([Fig. 4]).—Commence as before, and when both clubs are raised above the head, reverse the direction of the left one, and, instead of describing the circle from right to left, swing it from left to right, the right club at the same time continuing its original course. A glance at [Fig. 4] will show the exercise; the dotted lines and arrows indicate the direction in which each club travels. In this exercise (and in many others to follow) the clubs cross twice in each circle; care must therefore be taken not to allow them to come into collision (which catastrophe can be easily avoided by following the directions just given—viz., to keep the base of each club in a straight line with each shoulder).
Exercise 3 ([Fig. 5]).—This is the same as [No. 2] with an additional movement—viz., that when each club is raised in its turn above the head to its highest point, the circle is checked and the club dropped behind the head and made to describe a smaller circle in the rear of the shoulder, after completing which the larger circle is resumed. The dotted line in the illustration shows the course of the left club only, but the right club does the same thing in the opposite direction.
