Athletics

Oo ATHLETICS. foot or too soon. As often as not it is pure fancy, and it is much better to be going at full speed when one does jump, beit short of the mark or no, than to sacrifice pace to an accurate take-off. The extra impetuswill more than compensate for the loss of a few inches. It is almost as bad to lengthen your stride as to shorten itj many men have a habitof taking three extra long strides just before they rise, but it does not pay. A piece of paper fixed in the pit a foot beyond where one expects to land is often useful. It serves the double purpose ofdrawing oneout—one instinctively tries to alight on it—and of preventing one thinking too much about the take-off. As to the jump itself, most mendo not jump nearlyhigh enough. The present writer has seen several men add a foot to their distance by the simple process of jumping more intothe airthan they wereused to. It often feels at first as though one was jumping aridiculous height, but that feeling soon wears offwhen one finds nineteen feet giving place totwenty. When in the air keep the feet together, knees tucked up body inclining forward (see illustration). If possible shoot out the feet in the air, and jerk the body forward on landing. If this jerk of the feet and body cannot be acquired—and it is a gift rather than anacquirement— at any rate,do not drop the feet behind the perpendicular; that is to say, let the feet, if they cannot be in front of the body, at least never be behind it, as is not unfrequently the case. When inthe air keep the armstraight, pointing almost directly to the front, inclining downwards and out­ wards ; ifthey are pointing toomuch to the frontthe upper part of the arm may be badly bruised by the knee on landing. The position of the arms is important, as they help to keep the body bending forward, and so lessen the