the diaphragm.

It cannot be too often emphasized that an organism necessarily is one.
The parts sympathize with each other, and the higher the organism the
more is this true. The voice expresses the whole being and body, and it
not only calls for great activity of the central muscles, such as the
diaphragm, but every part of the body seems to share in voice
conditions.

A human being with his legs cut off can never sing or speak as well as
he could before he lost them.

9. As far as possible, always feel in all the muscles a sympathetic
action with certain opposite parts that support or naturally co-operate
with these.

Specific exercises must be directed to central and harmonious effects.
For example, expanding the chest and extending the balls of the feet
downward as far as possible co-ordinates the parts that are used in
standing, though in a different way. It gives extension to the parts;
and to extend muscles is often the best way to bring activity into them.

Formerly a horse was fed in a high trough in order to make him hold his
head high, but no horse carries his head so high or has such a beautiful
arch to the neck as the wild horse, that feeds on the ground.

Weak muscles may often be improved by giving them extension. This
eliminates constrictions and brings more rhythm or balanced activity in
opposition to other muscles or in union with them.

The co-ordination must be felt. When there are co-ordinations there will
be a sense of satisfaction in the vital organs. The exercises will not
weary. They will not be a strain or tax the strength. They accumulate
vitality rather than waste it.

Co-ordination must especially be studied and used consciously and
deliberatively with reference to the chest. In the start of every
exercise there should be, as has been said before, something of an
increase of activity in the chest and the breath.

10. Practice all exercises as rhythmically as possible.

Rhythm and co-ordination are the deepest lessons of life and are
necessary to each other. Activity and passivity must alternate in
proportion as far as possible in all exercise.

Observe also that the active exertion of an exercise should determine
the amount of the reaction. We should go as slowly in the recoil or
eccentric contraction as we do in the concentric contraction.

Nature is always rhythmic. Notice the beating of the heart, going on
constantly for eighty or a hundred years. It acts and then re-acts.