Last, but not least, we must mention the need for supplementary exercises. Cricket should be not only trained for, prepared for, and played, but also supplemented. Left-side exercises, in particular, should correct the balance upset by the excessive use of the right side.
Before we come to details, to actual exercises, we must first know how to do these exercises. A few hints on practice and its methods are indispensable. I crave the reader’s patience while he listens to what may seem unpractical, but is really no less essential than the exercises themselves.
GENERAL HINTS ON THE EXERCISES AND ON PRACTICE.
The exercises which follow in the next section are not complete; they are samples which each reader should supplement as well as correct. There is need of individual observation here as everywhere; let every one be prepared to amend and to add. This will make my suggestions far more interesting and useful. For instance, let him watch how it is that men get out or send chances; let him watch (in games or from behind nets) each part of the stroke separately at first—the feet in particular. Let him ask professionals and other experts about the right pose and the right motion of each part.
Then let him practise part by part.
For if the whole movement consists of ten to twenty parts combined together, and if of these ten to twenty parts at least five to ten parts are naturally wrong, how can he ever learn the whole satisfactorily, how can he ever unlearn the wrong and learn the right whole, unless he unlearn the wrong and learn the right parts, one by one? As Mr. Edward Lyttelton says, “On the principle of doing one thing at a time, it is admissible in practice, especially at first, to concentrate the attention upon each requirement separately. He ought to do the one, but not leave the others undone!” Let me illustrate this. At one time I could not write an essay; all my essays were marked as very bad. Then I found out by degrees that essay-writing (like batting or fielding) was a complex art, and included, for me, the collection of true and useful ideas, the selection of those which were wanted, the underlining of the most important, the illustration of these by comparisons, contrasts, etc., the arrangement of these and the others, care for the beginning that it might be interesting, care for the ending that it might be impressive, and then—and not till then—the expression of the ideas, which was to be grammatical, clear, brief, forcible, appropriate, musical, and indeed full of virtues. All these processes can be considered separately; I believe that they can all be mastered separately; I believe that an essay can possess any one or two or more of these virtues without possessing the rest. I am trying to improve gradually in each process separately. This also has been my method for learning Racquets and Tennis and other games. I have called it the part-by-part method. A perfect whole is not a mere collection of perfect parts; it is a perfectly harmonious co-operation of perfect parts. The perfect parts must be combined. Yet the common sense of the reader will tell him that no perfect whole can possibly exist unless every part of it be perfect in itself. Let the genius do his work without knowing how; duffers like myself must be content to begin by separate control of the individual mechanisms. The combinations can be made later on.
Even if we insist on doing the whole as a whole, yet it is on each part in turn that we must concentrate our mind and focus our attention. Independent control must, as a general rule, precede the various combinations. Such concentration on each part in turn need not produce jerkiness: it has not done so (except at the beginning of the practice) where I have applied it. It has seemed rather to send more blood to the part used, to shorten the process of learning.
It is important that one should at first look at the part which is being used, till it can attend to itself by itself; that is, until it works easily and half-automatically. Or, if one likes, one can look at the reflection of that part in a mirror: this plan has its advantages. Choose whichever plan you prefer.
For every reason, including attention, slow and full breathing through the nose is essential to good practice.
Correctness must precede pace, and correctness with me has always demanded not only attention but also slowness at the start.