The Art of Stage Dancing Part 9

_To develop the front of the thighs and the biceps._]

Stand erect, feet fifteen inches apart. Raise arms straight above the head, shoulder-width apart. Keep toes and heels flat on the floor.

Squat down, lowering arms as you do so until they are horizontally straight in front of you. Rise to erect position, raising arms at the same time above the head. Keep arms stiff. Down, up, down, up, for sixteen counts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PARTIAL VIEW OF DEMI-Ta.s.sE THEATRE, NED WAYBURN STUDIOS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: EXERCISE 10.

_To strengthen the lower abdominal muscles._]

Lie flat on your back, arms at sides, palms on floor. Keep knees stiff and together and toes pointed. Raise both feet so that toes point to ceiling. Count "one"; lower the feet to the floor. Count "two"; (do not hit the floor hard in lowering the feet). Count "one, down; two, down;" etc., to eight.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EXERCISE 11.

_To strengthen the upper abdominal muscles and the diaphragm._]

You are lying on your back. On count "one," sit up, bend forward, touch your toes with your hands and place your head against your knees. Count "touch." On count "two," bring your trunk erect, arms straight overhead. On count of "down" you are again lying on your back. Count "one, touch, two, down, three, touch, four, down," etc., to "eight, down."

[Ill.u.s.tration: EXERCISE 12.

_To strengthen the thighs and biceps._]

Stand erect, heels together. Raise arms horizontally to the sides.

Bend the knees and a.s.sume a squatting position. Rise to erect position. Count "down, up, down, up," etc., eight times.

There are more than thirty different exercises given in the Ned Wayburn courses in this work. If you desire a complete list, address an inquiry to the Ned Wayburn Studios of Stage Dancing, Inc., 1841 Broadway (at Columbus Circle) entrance on 60th St., New York, for prospectus of the New Ned Wayburn Home Study Courses in Dancing.

MR. WAYBURN ADDRESSES THE BEGINNER'S CLa.s.s IN FOUNDATION TECHNIQUE

You are starting on a course of not less than twenty lessons and exercises in my Foundation Technique for dancing, which is a feature exclusive to this studio, known as the Ned Wayburn Limbering and Stretching process for the human body.

This is one of the most important things that ever came into your life. It is at once a necessary foundation upon which to build the perfect dancer and an unequaled system of cultural exercises for the correction of certain physical ills in those who have no expectation of pursuing a professional career.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Primarily I originated this series of exercises to make good dancers quickly. There was nothing of the kind in existence that would do the work I wanted done, so I carefully thought it out myself, and finally developed the complete plan. Some of it will be taught you here. It has proven to be all I antic.i.p.ated,--a method of preparing the muscles and ligaments to respond instantly to the dancer's call upon them for precise action. It is the object of this series of exercises to eliminate fatigue, create st.u.r.dy yet symmetrical and flexible frames and increase the health, grace and beauty of the partic.i.p.ant. It is, therefore, no wonder that others than those who expect to enter upon a stage career have sought these exercises for their own improvement in personal appearance and physical well-being.

Now all please stand in line around the room, stand quietly and without leaning against the wall. Stand shoulder to shoulder, hands down at sides, heels together, feet flat down, toes pointing left oblique and right oblique; the weight equally distributed between the two feet. Hold your chin high and look straight ahead on a line with your eyes.

I organize the cla.s.s by first arranging the pupils according to their height. There is a reason for this. If you are five feet tall and stand next to a girl who is five feet eleven, you at once become conscious of your size. It is to avoid this handicap of self-consciousness that I grade you by height.

You are now in line as to heights. Please each of you stand in front of a chair, one pupil to a chair, and number from "one" at the left end. Number thirteen will be called twelve and a half. Speak out your individual number loud and clear. This number you are given is your personal, distinctive number during the life of this cla.s.s and is never changed. The number of this cla.s.s is 501. As you call your number out loud please be seated in the chair back of you, and while the stenographer takes your names and the instructor collects your weekly tickets I will say a few words.

I expect you to arrive promptly in the cla.s.sroom, and request that you time your arrival so as to be here in the studio at least fifteen minutes before cla.s.s time, so as to be in your practice costume and ready for the call to cla.s.s right on the hour set.

We have to observe discipline in all your work in the courses, otherwise nothing would be accomplished. We have printed rules posted in the office and elsewhere, and expect you to read and observe them.

Please do not talk at all during cla.s.s work. It interrupts the work seriously. You have all been to school before and know that silence is one of the important rules of every school. This one is no exception.

Now, the first thing to do is to have your ticket ready. You must have your name signed on the ticket, where it says "Signature of pupil."

Turn the ticket over and read it through on both sides. Remember your cla.s.s number and your individual number in the cla.s.s. The success of our school depends largely upon the way the cla.s.ses are organized and thereafter dominated. Much of the success of the work depends upon the lectures you hear in the cla.s.ses. They are in the form of inspirational talks based on different subjects. You are required to read all of our literature. Get and read the booklet ent.i.tled "Your Career." Every month we issue a school paper, "The Ned Wayburn News,"

which tells of the activities of pupils of the school who are now appearing in New York, or out on the road, and which has many interesting articles and information monthly for students of the dance. Please get a copy and read all of our literature--because it gives you an idea of what the school and its present and graduate pupils are accomplishing.

It is a well established rule of the studio that pupils shall weigh themselves every Monday and keep a record of their weight from week to week. For this purpose use the scales in the main office of the studio, please. They are accurate. We have them tested and adjusted at intervals to be sure that they are right. You are requested and expected to come into my private office and talk with me once a week, and when you do so I shall ask you about your weight, and you must be prepared to tell me. I know just how much you ought to weigh, and am interested in hearing whether you are gaining or losing flesh in the proportion that you should. At the end of the four weeks' period I shall ask each of you individually in the cla.s.s about the variation in your weights, and I am then able to tell who is faithfully following my instructions as to practice, diet, hours of sleep and the other simple and necessary requirements of our courses. For I know that if my regime is observed as I request that it be, you will show it, and if you neglect to follow my advice you will not have made the progress you should, and will show that. You cannot disguise the real facts from me.

I do not want any of you to overexert at these limbering and stretching exercises. They are scientifically constructed to do for you what no other known cultural movements of this kind will do. At first they will tire you, leave you "all in," I have no doubt. I expect that. You see, in these exercises you are putting into play a lot of muscles that have been lying dormant, perhaps never been used in the way you will use them in this cla.s.s as preparation for health, comeliness and dancing strength. You need to use these muscles. It is to stir them up and make you strong, and at the same time supple and shapely, that I have devised this series of exercises. It was not made by guess, this plan of developing and conditioning, but as the result of years of study and proof.

These exercises will make you feel perfectly wonderful after a while.

Nothing else will do you as much good. But do not, please, expect the perfected results to show in a day or two. It cannot be done so quickly. You have been several years getting the way you are, and if you can improve greatly in a few months you must consider yourself fortunate.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CONDITIONING CLa.s.s AT THE NED WAYBURN STUDIOS.]

Let me say, as a word of caution, that if you have any organic trouble, or have been weakened by a serious operation or recent illness, I wish you would report the facts to your cla.s.s instructor or to me before you take on this work. In any event, don't overdo at any time, neither here nor in your home practice. If you find it necessary, stop at any time and sit down in your chair a few minutes till you get your breath. But don't stay out of cla.s.s tomorrow because you find your muscles are tired. Every other student's muscles will be sore tomorrow, as well as yours. If you remain absent you will be much slower in getting those sore muscles feeling right than if you come into cla.s.s and work the soreness out.

If you are absent you may miss something you will want to know. There is something new taught every day--or there may be a special lecture which you cannot afford to miss.

I hope you are going to be patient. I hope you are not going to say: "This is too much for me!" No matter how tired you are this work will do you more good than any medicines. You are not to take medicines without telling me about it. You are not to eat between meals; you are not to take any liquids with your meals. Masticate your food carefully. Don't bolt your meals in a hurry. Take time to eat properly. Don't sleep more than eight hours. Don't dance half the night away. You must look out for your health while you are training.

Some of you are underweight, because you are not properly regulated so far as your meals and living is concerned. You are eating things you should not eat. Others are eating in such a hurry that the food is not properly a.s.similated by the body. You should drink not less than forty-five ounces of water a day. That is about nine gla.s.ses. You should drink a gla.s.s of water before and after each meal, NOT during your meals--one about eleven o'clock in the morning, another about four o'clock in the afternoon, and one just before you go to bed at night. NOT ice water. Water not only flushes the system but it induces perspiration. And you must perspire freely in all of our work because you get rid of many impurities through the pores. I reduced my own weight, by diet, exercise, and dancing, from 262 pounds to 207 pounds. But you have got to be very patient in reducing or building up. If you take off or put on a pound a week you will be doing very well. But let me regulate that, please. Sometimes pupils who are underweight when they first come here begin to lose weight, and they get worried about it. But you shouldn't worry. That means that you are losing unhealthy tissue, which will be replaced in time by healthy muscular tissue. That doesn't mean that you will get big knots of muscle on your arms and legs, such as you see in pictures in some of the magazines. The new tissue will be evenly distributed over the body. It is my business to manufacture symmetrical bodies. I have manufactured hundreds of celebrated beauties since I began my theatrical career, sometimes through facial makeup, sometimes through exercises and diet, but always with dancing as the chief feature in health and beauty culture.

There is a reason why this school has grown to its present proportions. It is because I have made a thorough study of anatomy and know how to make human bodies healthy and beautiful. I could tell you a very interesting story of Clan Calla, a little Irish princess who came to me with curvature of the spine to see if I could help her. She was very weak and hardly able to walk; they had to carry her to the studios from the subway. Now she is strong and well and dances beautifully.

Don't try to reduce too fast. I had two friends who died as a result of reducing with medicine. They took some sort of baths for reducing, and some kind of medicine to shrink themselves. That is why I became interested in reducing and began to practice on myself.

Now make up your minds to make this cla.s.s a success. Don't make it necessary for your instructor to have to address any one of you personally. When your instructor gives an order execute it at once.

Always get into your places promptly. Don't forget that you are going to be lame--but you must work it out.

You will begin with mild calisthenics--then, later on, you will learn several kinds of kicks--the side kick, the front kick, the hitch kick, etc. But before you can kick, you must have the strength necessary for kicking. You must practice the exercises in order to get this strength.

Now you are organized and you can accomplish real work. If there are any questions you would like to ask me, come to my private office at the end of the hall on the second floor--Broadway front. You will progress according to the way you practice. You must put in hours of faithful practice. If you take one hour of instruction a day at the studio, you should practice three hours a day at home. If you can possibly do so, always go through your Foundation Technique when you first get up in the morning. The lesson itself is not enough. Faithful practice means success, and without practice you won't succeed at all, and you won't get your weight off or you won't build up. Three times the length of a lesson is my rule for practice. Some practice from three to eight hours a day so as to gain dancing strength. You must have a lot of flexibility in order to dance in a professional manner.

Get the habit of deep breathing. Gradually you will increase your breathing capacity and deep breathing makes good blood. The oxygen you take into your lungs goes through the blood and takes off the impurities in the blood, and oxygen is necessary in properly a.s.similating your food.

Don't let anybody else advise you about diets. If a doctor has put you on a diet, let me know about it. My diets won't do you any good unless you are taking the limbering and stretching work along with them. You will enjoy them; you do not have to starve yourself.

Another thing let me warn you about! Don't bring or wear valuable jewelry to the studios. All of our employees are trustworthy, and besides, we investigate the pupils who come into our studios. We know all about them. If the wrong kind of person does get in, he or she doesn't stay more than an hour or two. We also have detectives in the cla.s.ses. But don't take any chances. Don't bring valuable things into the place. Do not leave pocket-books in the dressing rooms; bring them into the cla.s.s room.

We keep a strict record of the attendance and the progress of each individual pupil. We insist that you have the best that money can provide for you. If anything should happen at any time to which you could take exception, I hope you will report it to me. Our policy of giving you the very best to be had has appealed to a world of ambitious youth.

Be careful about giving advice to other girls. I don't want anybody in this cla.s.s to presume to give advice to anybody else in the cla.s.s.

Many times a girl comes here to the school from clear across the continent. She comes with great hopes and aspirations, ready to work hard, and with all the enthusiasm in the world. Then, some girl in her cla.s.s may tell her that she doesn't dance well--and her hopes will be shattered and she will become discouraged. Now none of you has any business to give advice or criticize other members of the cla.s.s. If you can learn stage dancing anywhere, you can learn it in the Ned Wayburn Studios. Persistent practice will do wonders. Remember all I have said about this, and keep smiling.