Word: mensendieckers
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...effort to appease him, whenever they stood at attention in his presence they folded their hands over their bulging abdomens. This posture made them look like fantastic beer-mugs, a sight which vexed Wilhelm further. Hearing that a sturdy little blonde U. S. esthete named Bess M. Mensendieck taught men & women how to stand and move gracefully, by means of what she called "functional exercises," he summoned her to do the same for his court. Cried the Kaiser: "They are the most awkward women in the world. One never sees women at the courts of London, St. Petersburg or Rome...
Bess Marguerite de Varel Mensendieck, a sculptress and a coloratura soprano with an M. D. degree from the University of Zurich, set up a school for exercises at Potsdam. By-&-by she had similar schools all over Germany and in Austria, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, The Netherlands. She became the best known physical culturist south of Sweden. Eventually she returned to the U. S. and. though her vogue has been quieter here, her system of functional exercises is being used at eminently respectable schools like Finch (Manhattan J, Greenwich Academy, Stoneleigh-Prospect Hill (Greenfield. Mass.), Laurel (Cleveland), Ogontz (Ogontz...
...Mensendieck's system is her conception of the body as a collection of muscle-bound bones. She calculates that the head of a 150-lb. individual weighs 10 lb., his hands 1 lb. each, forearms 4 lb. each, upper arms 5 lb. each, trunk 70 lb., thighs 15 lb. each, lower legs 7 lb. each, feet 3 lb. each...