Athletics of To-Day 1929

Throwing the Javelin 275 the muscles and nervous system that the actions can, in time, be performed at incredible speed. Take, for example, B. Schlokat, the German record holder. Up to rg26 he had enjoyed no signal success. In that year he beat 183ft. and then stuck fast, because, I fancy, he preferred to go on slowly building up his technique instead of bothering after a further immediate increase in distance. Consequently the nervous system became accustomed gradually to a series of faster and deeper sensations, and in 1927 Schlokat did just over 212 ft. He achieved an improvement of nearly 30 ft. in less than a year by patient perseverance and painstaking practice. \ \ FIG. 34 rr The case of Lay's improvement of 20 ft. in a week may be held to refute the above contention, but it does not. Lay's improvement was like the " knowledge " we used to stuff into our heads at the last minute for the purpose of answering examination questions. As soon as the exams. were over our brains cast out the memorised but undigested facts, just as Lay's nervous system accepted slight variations in style when these variations were made under supervision, but could not recollect the muscular action when there was no mentor at hand to keep on correcting faults until such time as the style was well worked in. I often think that we pay all too little attention to the development of the particular event we practise and con– sequently do not use sufficient contributory exercises. For example, strength in Myrra's under-hand swing action