Page:Japanese Physical Training (Hancock).djvu/100

 64 ribs—but at first with great caution! On the left side, especially, care is taken not to cause damage to the heart. This organ gives its own best signals of impending danger. On the right side there is not as much danger; but here, too, the work must be very gentle until the muscles show capacity for endurance.

It is advisable that at times two contestants should engage in this edge-of-the-hand work, but either one may practise this work upon his own body. In Japanese schools the young men are given, when they reach this stage of instruction, about ten minutes daily at this task. In most instances the spirit of emulation prompts the novitiate to practise at home with very gradually increasing severity. There is no time-limit given this branch of instruction. Each student keeps at the work until he is satisfied that all parts of the body vulnerable to assaults with the edge of the hand have been made as invulnerable as it is in his power to make them. All of these edge-of-the-hand attacks, when undertaken by two contestants, require the utmost exercise of—

Good nature!