The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1910-05-22
PHYSICAL DEvELO PMENT OF tiAWAIrS ATHLETES
HAND

the reason I mention it, for it estab-
| fishes standard of comparison.
! After the AnglG-SaXon the Portuguese
are the best losers, but they have not
! got the former 5 recureratlve powers.
| They have not distinguished themselves
very noticeably in athletics, for they
! do not go in for them as do the others,
! but where they have gone i'll they have
made good records for themselves.
| The Chinese is a plucky little contest
| ant, but only under certain conditions.
If he goes up against better men he IS
butfaIoed' from the start and Will
| not put up a good showing. If he is
fairly confident that he has his opponent
beaten he Will do about five times better
than he would otherwise. This mental
quality in the Chinese acceptance of
athletics applies to other matters as
well. and it is this that | mean when
| say that the character of the lndl-
vidual gives lead on the character
istics of his race.
For instance, a Chinese hardly ever
takes up stenography. He ism t fitted
for it and it comes hard, and when 1t
comes hard he juss simply gives it up,
for there are others working right
alongside of him that are beating him
out on it. When it comes to mathe-
MATES, he has powers equal to any 9th
ers. The school examinations will show
that he can do the others up at that
game.
The Hawaiian is willing to get into
athletic contests, but he is ''done'
when somebody else gets tn lead and
shows a fair possibility Of keeping it.
When he loses the lead, he is just about
pau with the race. This trait is SINH
lar to that possessed by the Chinese,
as mentioned above, but it is not SO
strongly developed as in the Oriental.
In the gymnasium the Chinese are
artistic, more so than any other race.
They are far better at gym work than
they are in athletics, and they are will
ing to keep at it until they learn it.
[ have known Chinese boys, under my
direction, to take up some stunt that [
firmly believed them unequal to. They
would disappear for some time, and
then show up again with it completely
mastered as expert at 1t as anybody
One who has played in most Of tne \.
NJ. c. A. tournaments is an illustration
Of this. A year or 50 ago he had never
seen a handball court, or even the in
side of a gymnasium, but now he has
trimmed everybody he has met and has
lost but one game in the present tourna-
ment.
From the physical standpoint the Chi
nese are the poorest breathers, for they
don t know how to use their lungs. As
matter Of fact, few people on the
islands here in the tropics do breathe
correctlv-that. of course, referring to
the local born I can't say what the
cause of it is: whether the -arified con
dition of the air makes the lungs lazy
or whether it affects the breathing
muscles is impossible to determine, but
the fact remains
White men who have been here for
some time, that is, twenty or twenty
five years. fall into the same habits
of poor breathing but on the other
hand, the boys can develop good breath
ing powers when they train properly.
The reason we have such poor mile
runners is due to this same lack of
proper breathing; they just can't
breathe. We have ideal short distance
runners, but then a man can run hun
dred yards without breathing.
The second reason for the lack of
long distance men is the poor develop
ment of the legs, but the last and great
est of the reasons is the great weak
ness of the back muscles. This refers
to the island born of all natiOnalities.
Those boys who have made good on the
track are natural runners. With sys
tematic leg work for the development
of the thigh, knee and ankle joints
added to mat work and rope climbing
to develop the back there would be
change in the island records. If the
runners followed this procedure there
would be some surprising results in
years time and there is not the slight
est reason why we should not make
slate records with the athletic material
the Islands furnish.