Young Business Women Who are Athletes
Item
-
Title
-
en
Young Business Women Who are Athletes
-
Date
-
February 10, 1907
-
volume
-
101
-
issue
-
72
-
page start
-
9
-
page end
-
9
-
content
-
en
Young Business Women Who are Athletes
If you are a woman, how would you like to be made a football of; or to stand energetically on your head; or to twist your body into convolutions not unlike those of a Chinese dragon; or to have some one [sic] suddenly leap lightly over your head, landing safely on the other side; or to remain poised with one foot on the ground and the other extended at an acute angle of perhaps 170 degrees in an effort to touch the marked place on the wall? In short, to run, jump, tumble and vault as if you had no bones or cartilage and were just a piece of elastic rubber, ready to stretch any way required.
All these things and more can the member of the San Francisco Women’s Athletic Association do. If it needed another name it might be called the Sedentary Club, for it is composed of young business women – stenographers, clerks, typists – girls whose fingers fly swiftly over typewriter keys all day, or whose rapidly moving pencils take down words at the rate of 150 a minute.
The club was formed in 1905, and is intended for purely athletic uses, as it has no social side. It was flourishing finely until the late fire disbanded the organization, scattered the members and put an end to the training, enjoyment and relaxation of some girls who had been attending the exercises regularly and were making excellent process in the stunts which the club teaches.
But the girls were not to be daunted even by the destruction of their clubrooms, the burning of their apparatus or anything else. Very soon after the fire the few members who could be found got together, reorganized and secured quarters at 3259 Clay street, where the exercises are gone through with redoubled vigor. Jules Wieniawski is the club’s instructor, and he is putting the girls through a series of exercises for the development of grace, activity, and last, but most important of all, good health. To these end, fencing, club swinging, dumbbells, calisthenics, and certain forms of physical culture are employed. These, of course, are among the simpler forms. When one is more advanced there are bars, German horse, ladder, trapeze, rings, weights and several other methods. Mr. Wieniawski does not believe in cannon-lifting an exercise for women, but any game or exercise which conduces to grace and power without undue strain is heartfly [sic] approved and employed.
These exercises constitute the serious work of the class. For relaxation there are basketball, jiu jutsu, hockey and a number of other diverting games in which the girls shriek and laugh like noisy children. At times the fun grows fast and furious, but the instructor is always on guard and never let an accident mars the splendid vigor of the scene. In fencing some of the girls are adepts. For this exercise masks and padded jackets are worn to guard against the possibility of any thrust passing through the blouse.
-
depicts
-
Photograph : "Parry!"
-
Photograph : "A gentle wrestling bout"
-
Photograph : "The favourite game of hockey"
-
Photograph : "A fast game of basket ball"
-
Photograph : "Over the tape at four feet six"
