Myth #3: Joining a gym is all you need
But here's my point. I didn’t need any enticement or encouragement to be active as a child. Although um…I come to think of it, I know I had plenty of unintended encouragement to be more inactive!. Like most kids I know, I got into trouble if I was too active and got praised as being a 'good girl' when I played quietly with my dolls. I remember as a child that I hated to stop playing – I wanted more. Bath-time was an interruption to climbing trees or playing games. I didn’t want to come inside, clean up and get ready for supper and bed. I didn’t need to think about joining a gym or running on a treadmill – I climbed up couches and skipped up stairs. Everywhere and everything in my environment was my natural jungle gym. I raced to and fro and climbed, skipped and jumped at any opportunity. I didn’t need anyone to bark commands at me in order to keep moving, I just did what came naturally and the result? I was naturally fit. My childhood of playingAdmittedly, I was also lucky to grow up in an era when ,b>it was still safe to play outside. Riding my blue bicycle in the streets of the little country town I grew up in was something all us kids did.
Times were also a lot less pressured. We didn't seem to have as much homework as today's children (and actually just carrying around those heavy schoolbags is like a class in weight-training), we seemed to have more time to play. The children of my generation would never had to have thought about joining a gym! Never! Should children be joining a gym?But here's what I find fills me with sadness.A while back I a BBC documentary showing children who had been conned into joining a gym. And here they were all using mini gym equipment. Shortly after I was on a radio program with someone who was introducing gyms for children into South Africa. The minute I think about it, my mind is filled with visions of those poor little British mites I’d seen pumping away with their trainers shouting 'encouragement'. What I remembered most was that there wasn’t a single smile on a single little face. If they were having any fun at all, there was no way you’d ever have guessed because their faces sure didn’t know about it. They looked every bit as serious as adults at gym. And like many adults they were not there to play and have fun but to get fit and lose weight. These simply shouldn't be the reason young children of 6 and 7 are running on mini treadmills. As far as I'm concerned - gyms for children just indicate how badly we've lost the plot. And then, one day we're going to wonder why we're breeding a generation who are suffering from exercise bulimia Making joining a gym a way to playBut I recently discovered a secret about gyms and home exercise equipment that I think is worth sharing with you.Recently I was staying in hotel in an area of Johannesburg where I really didn't feel safe to head out for a jog - so I went down to the gym instead. Just walking in there was enough to remind me how I felt about joining a gym. But fortunately it was early enough that I was the only person there and so I left the lights off because it felt more peaceful that way and I had fewer things to distract me from the affirmations I always chant whenever I'm body-funning. As the sun started to rise and filtered through the windows behind me I became entranced by something I'd never noticed before when I'd been watching myself in the mirror. As my body was silhouetted I started noticing the negative spaces between where my knees met and where my calves almost touched. When they were all I noticed, I was drawn into some kind of magic. Remember those old images as a child in those kaleidescopes? It was a bit like watching one of those ... depending on how I positioned my legs or how fast I moved them - magical shapes appeared in a rhythm. I was amazed to find that this 'little game' had occupied me for 24 minutes before I realized it. By now it was light enough to see the mirror and because I'd entered that magical space where body-play had become effortless - I noticed another thing I'd never noticed before. From the side on view - my legs on the treadmill were like Michael Jackson's moon walk. Now that's always been something I admired - and here I was looking as if I was doing it absolutely effortlessly. Again - another 20 minutes passed in the blink of an eye before I even realized it. Another day - in the same gym - I played a different game. I secretly called it: "Catch the Heart Monitor". You know how these bicycles and treadmills all have these hand holds that measure your pulse? And you know what? There were times when I really did catch it out.... there were times when my hands were no-where near those hand holds for at least a couple of minutes and yet it was still registering my pulse (supposedly). Tee!Hee! That made me giggle. My point? Usually just joining a gym used to promise me torture only - not wonder and delight. But once I'd found a way to play various games, it became easy and effortless. We're meant to play, we're meant to have fun. Now when will our school authorities 'get' this and start building our schools around children's activity levels instead of adult comfort levels???? And seriously - because I know there are many people out there who really love their gyms - and if you're one of them... enjoy to your hearts delight. But if you're like me, and everyone is insisting that joining a gym is the answer and you feel you can't say 'No', give them a try.... but at least play a few games to make them fun for yourself.
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