Knee’s & toes, knees & toes…
Remember this old rhyme recited with your young children, or with your parents when you were a youngster? As it was recited, you would touch the mentioned body parts, joyfully reaching, bending and touching with each mention of a part from top to bottom, or head to toes, as it were. What a fun teaching moment and exercise activity.
Try that now, but be careful. You’re not a kid, anymore.
Try gracefully moving those once supple muscles that flowed like melting butter and joints that moved like a well oiled hinge. Not as easy, now, is it.
With a good effort, I find that I can still do it, bend and reach, but at a slower pace, at least initially, and with a slight hesitation, trying my best to remember where those parts are (ala ‘The Macarena dance). Yes, the rhythm and pace is entirely different today.
However, I still try because moving is important. And, with a slight modification, I think I’ve created a new version, one meant strictly for us Seniors which I call the ‘pain game’. Touch the spots where it hurts…
“Head, neck, shoulders and elbows… shoulders and elbows…. Head, neck, shoulders and elbows…. Wrist and fingers, too!”
That’s just the upper torso. A second verse covers hips, knees and feet.
Get the picture? Remember, it’s for fun and exercise, even if it hurts a little…and it will.
While this is all in jest, it does point out a message for those of us of a certain ilk, ‘senior citizens’, it’s important to keep moving.
At my local health club, I see Seniors in the pool, on the equipment, in classes, moving. Not as fast nor as smoothly as the younger patrons, or our younger selves, but still moving.
Every seat in the chair exercise classe is filled with Seniors moving, stretching, bending, reaching, pushing themselves to get and stay fit. It’s admirable.
Today, I heard an interview with a world class athlete, Colin O’Brady. He’s climbed all the highest peaks in the world and in each U.S. state in record time and is the first person to traverse Antarctica by foot, alone, pulling a 300 pound supply sled. His excellent book,, ‘The Impossible First’, describes this venture.
Colin’s newest project is to get people moving, alone with only your thoughts, unencumbered by cell phones, at your pace, resting when necessary, for 12 hours. His new book, The ‘12 Hour Walk’ gives you the motivation to take the challenge. I’m thinking about doing it. Only thinking, now, but with each chapter I read, the more appealing it sounds. It’ll certainly keep me moving for awhile, at least 12 hours, just me and my thoughts.
Not sure that I have 12 hours of thoughts.
S'amusing 