How to Relax: Scientific Body Control

By William H. Miller

“Little Bill” Miller—one of the country’s foremost relaxation experts—has been paid as high as $100 an hour for his services. Jittery business men…harassed war wives…Army aviation cadets—thousands of people, young and old, have benefited—both in mind and body—from “Little Bill’s” training! Famous college and professional teams have engaged his services.

This famous “One Hundred Dollar Course” is now set forth in book form. Sprinkled with personal anecdotes, HOW TO RELAX tells how great performers have learned to relax and conserve their energies. And it tells how you can develop this same vital energy-hoarding quality that lies dormant within you!

Here are described specifically all of Miller’s exercises—for relaxation in the office, in the kitchen, one the bowling alley, the golf course, the tennis court, on the great professional and college playing fields and in our military training camps.

Use this formula by one of the country’s foremost relaxation experts, and it will teach you how to give more at the right time, less at the wrong time, and reap greater results and rewards!

William H. Miller is a former business man to whom body control became a religion. He resigned to preach his faith full time and as a result the “Miller Method” has hundreds of thousands of disciples in all walks of life and in every branch of sport. This is one of the few systems which has clearly demonstrated that a loose, energy-conserving body means a keener mind in the “clutch.”

“He has relaxed more than 10,000 people, aged 5 to 75, has loosened up college football and basketball teams, a professional baseball club, Army aviation cadets.”—TIME Magazine

• Language: English
• Publisher: Muriwai Books
• Release date: Dec 2, 2018
• ISBN: 9781789127768

Book preview

This edition is published by Muriwai Books – www.pp-publishing.com

To join our mailing list for new titles or for issues with our books – [e-mail]

Or on Facebook

Text originally published in 1944 under the same title.

© Muriwai Books 2018, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

HOW TO RELAX

SCIENTIFIC BODY CONTROL

by

WILLIAM H. LITTLE BILL MILLER

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

DEDICATION 4

PREFACE 5

CHAPTER I — PHYSICAL RELAXATION 7

CHAPTER II — BASIC ROUTINES 9

THREE-WAY BREAKDOWN 9

NECK EXERCISE 12

FINGERS AND TOES 13

CHAPTER III — BREATH CONTROL 14

THREE-WAY BREATH CONTROL 14

TOTAL RELAXATION 16

CHAPTER IV — RHYTHM IN MOVEMENT 18

RHUMBA MOVEMENTS 20

CHAPTER V — BODY BALANCE 22

FIVE-STEP BALANCE METHOD 22

BODY-FLOW DRILLS 27

CHAPTER VI — BODY CONTROL 30

CHAPTER VII — MENTAL RELAXATION 34

CHAPTER VIII — LADIES, RELAX! 40

Handball Swing: 43

CHAPTER IX — MILITARY RELAXATION 47

CHAPTER X — BODY CONTROL IN SPORTS 50

GOLF 53

TENNIS 54

BOWLING 55

HANDBALL 55

VOLLEY BALL 56

BADMINTON 56

FOOTBALL 57

BASKETBALL 58

BASEBALL 59

CHAPTER XI — RELAXATION IN DAILY LIFE 60

WALKING 60

SITTING AT A DESK 61

SLEEPING 62

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 64

DEDICATION

DEDICATED TO

CHARLES C. TOOMEY

WITH HEARTFELT GRATITUDE FOR HIS UNFAILING

SUPPORT AND WISE COUNSEL

PREFACE

DURING A LIFETIME devoted to athletics as a player, coach and student, I had often wondered just what quality the truly great athletes possess to give them such marked superiority over their competitors.

For the answer to this question which puzzles every boy who aspires to stardom, as well as every golfer who tries to chip into the 70’s, I went first to the zoo for a study of the animals. Certainly nature has endowed them with the qualities they need. Relaxation, balance, agility, are necessarily instinctive to them.

I used to watch every movement of the snake, the tiger, the antelope, and especially the monkey. By studying them when they were at ease and when they were in action, I noted the manner of their breathing, the speed of their reflex actions, their complete flexibility and their dynamic energy. Here was something that nature used as a key to a source of great power, and I stored these observations away for further thought.

Next I turned to outstanding athletes I had known—super-athletes, the sports writers call them: Jim Thorpe, Red Grange and Dutch Clark of football fame; Honus Wagner, Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and Carl Hubbell in baseball; Nat Holman and Hank Luisetti, noted for their basketball skill; famous golfers—Bobby Jones, Sam Snead and Lawson Little; tennis stars Bill Tilden and Don Budge; and Joe Louis of boxing renown.

All of these famous athletes seemed to have the power to use some sort of natural law—akin to the ebb and flow of the ocean tide.

To further test my theories, I sought other out-standing athletes. I had the pleasure to be associated with Joe Platak, world’s handball champion, in a school of skills. I studied Bobby Riggs, national tennis singles champion, during an entire week of play in the Southern Pacific Championships at Los Angeles. I made special trips to Santa Monica to watch Ned Day, great bowler, in action.

This investigation was not confined to sports. The fencers, the dancers, the singers, all proved sources of invaluable information. While in Hollywood I studied Sonja Henie while she was skating, and the dancers Fred Astaire and Ray Bolger.

Gradually, a definite pattern began to take shape.

I then tried to bring my theories down to earth. I worked with boys in Oklahoma and with boys’ groups in Minnesota, California and Canada; with young men in Y.M.C.A.’s, and in schools and clubs. Following successful courses I had given their sons, several pleased parents asked me to take over the instruction of their daughters. Finally adult men and women came to me to teach them the principles of relaxation I had worked out.

Over a five-year period,