Conditioning Class 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 class 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 class 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 class 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 assimilated by the body. You should drink not less than forty-five ounces of water a day. That is about nine glasses. You should drink a glass 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 class 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 assimilating 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 classes. 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 class 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 class to presume to give advice to anybody else in the class. 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 class 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 class. 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.