It is thus natural that
during the period of greatest strength increment in muscular
development, the rhythmic function of nearly all fundamental movements
should be strongly accentuated. At the dawn of this age boys love
marching; and, as our returns show, there is a very remarkable rise in
the passion for beating time, jigging, double shuffling, rhythmic
clapping, etc. The more prominent the factor of repetition the more
automatic and the less strenuous is the hard and new effort of
constant psychic adjustment and attention. College yells, cheers,
rowing, marching, processions, bicycling, running, tug-of-war,
calisthenics and class gymnastics with counting, and especially with
music, horseback riding, etc., are rhythmic; tennis, baseball and
football, basketball, golf, polo, etc., are less rhythmic, but are
concerted and intense. These latter emphasise the conflict factor,
best brought out in fencing, boxing, and wrestling, and lay more
stress on the psychic elements of attention and skill. The effect of
musical accompaniment, which the Swedish system wrongly rejects, is to
make the exercises more fundamental and automatic, and to
proportionately diminish the conscious effort and relieve the
neuro-muscular mechanism involved in fine movements.
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