There are no motions more
difficult to describe, or which should be more carefully directed.
The habitual rigidity of the spine, as compared with its possible
freedom, is more noticeable in training, of course, than is that of
any other part of the body. Each vertebra should be so distinctly
independent of every other, as to make the spine as smoothly jointed
as the toy snakes, which, when we hold the tip of the tail in our
fingers, curve in all directions. Most of us have spinal columns
that more or less resemble ramrods. It is a surprise and delight to
find what can be accomplished, when the muscles of the spine and
back are free and under control. Of course the natural state of the
spine, as the seat of a great nervous centre, affects many muscles
of the body, and, on the other hand, the freedom of these muscles
reacts favorably upon the spine.
The legs are freed for standing and walking by shaking the foot free
from the ankle with the leg, swinging the fore leg from the upper
leg, and so freeing the muscles at the knee, and by standing on a
footstool and letting one leg hang off the stool a dead weight while
swinging it round from the hip. Greater freedom and ease of movement
can be gained by standing on the floor and swinging the leg from the
hip as high as possible.
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