Page:Modern Dancing (1914) Castle.djvu/163

Rh The muscles of the legs, thighs, back, and arms are all more or less exercised when dancing, and the necessity of holding the body erect is good for the other muscles and nerves. When you have grown used to holding yourself in proper position to dance you will unconsciously begin to hold yourself in proper position at all times.

Keeping time to the music as you step the pretty measures of the Hesitation or Innovation will make you breathe in time—the deep breaths which come when the mind is beating time and the body is following it; every deep breath drawn is a fresh aid to the beauty we all want so much.

The thé dansant and the diner dansant have, too, solved for us the way to follow the directions to stand up twenty minutes after eating without that deadly feeling of weary boredom that used to assail us. How we watched the clock and wished the twenty minutes would pass, or else that our shoes were a little larger and our clothes a little looser!

Any physician will tell you that health is the only real beauty, and health really does mean prettiness. It means rosy cheeks, clear eyes, an animated expression, not to speak of a zest for life that has a magnetism all its own. It is health that dancing gives to us, provided we live sane lives in other ways. Good food, plus enough