CHAPTER III
FOUR SERIES OF PHYSICAL EXERCISES
FIRST SERIES--BREATHING
The point of departure for the cultivation of poise, like that of everything else in fact, must be a well-ordered system of hygiene, far removed from excess, and insisting only upon the points we have already indicated.
Without wishing to fall into the well-known error of so many modern teachers, who assign an exaggerated importance to breathing exercises, we must, nevertheless, admit the great rôle that respiration plays in physical balance.
We are now speaking, understand, of methodical breathing, we might almost term it "reasoned" breathing.
Every one, of course, breathes without being aware of it from the moment of his birth to the hour of his death, but very few people are aware how to increase the power and to enlarge the capacity of their lungs.
Nevertheless, upon these conditions it is that activity depends, as well as the health and the energy that enables us to consecrate ourselves to the pursuit of a definite aim.