I SPY ON THE EXERCISE CIRCUIT

A former colleague of mine wrote in his blog that he makes it a routine to walk around the neighbourhood daily. I personally feel that this is a very good practice and I have been doing it regularly for many years. Friends always tell me that they have not enough time to do it, that they have other priorities to attend to and so on so forth. Hello hello!!….. time is what you make of it my friends. You take charge and you control. You make the time and never allow it to slip by. If you keep saying you have no time you WILL have no time.

In my younger days I used to jog or run around the jogging track or along the roads in the neighbourhood but since quite a number of years ago I just go for brisk walks and mostly in the mornings before getting ready to go to work. I would do it before the sun is up. Nowadays however, since retiring from active work, I am more flexible but I do prefer to do it before the sun is up. It is more pleasant at that time of the morning. Once in a while I do it in the evening too. I will go for a swim in the pool whenever I get the opportunity, either at the PD house, or the club or when we stay in a hotel somewhere in our travels. On rainy days I get onto the motorized treadmill at home and walk on it at speeds of 5 – 6 km/hr for about 45 minutes and then do weights for a while. We have had these equipment for many years now, we do utilize them but it gets pretty dull when using them. I used to have a small TV in front of the treadmill but the TV is ‘kaput’ now. The preference is still to go around the park.

Walking around the park is interesting. Most of the folks in the park at the time that I go there are elderly folks although there are the odd couples of younger ones who, I believe, make the time to exercise in the park. They are the wiser ones!!

It is interesting to see the behaviours of these folks as I briskly walk along.

I spy one man walking around with a broken golf putter in one hand. He walks briskly but he will use the stick to collect discarded plastic bags, or plastic bottles, or packet drinks and deposit them into the nearest rubbish bins, and there are plenty of these bins around the park. He does this every day. Interestingly, these bins are almost always full!!

I spy a man, fully dressed every time, long-sleeved coloured shirt, dark office trousers, not rubber but leather shoes and socks, walking not briskly but normally, around the park. He wears no tie though, ha ha. He holds a digit counter in one hand (the type stewardess use in the airplane when they go up and down the aisle counting the number of passengers on board). I hear the thingy clicking as I go pass him. I do not know whether he is doing a mantra softly and counting, or counting the number of steps he made, or perhaps counting the number of people who pass him, I wonder.

I spy a (very) elderly man, lanky and tall, sweat-shirt and shorts, baseball cap, rubber shoes, walking usually in the reverse direction as I do. (Notice how most people when they get into their routine would not change anything? Enter through the same entrance, same side of the gate, walk on the same side of the road, sit on the same seat at the same location, walk in the park in the same direction, every time?) This man, I think, walks faster than I do as we always pass each other before I get to be half way around the circuit!! Looking at him I used to put him at being 80 or so. I had an opportunity to briefly talk to him on one occasion. I commented how fit he was walking faster than me. I asked how old he was and he said that he was born in 1912. Eh hem! 1912? That makes him 93 years old. I asked for his longevity secret and he said eat natural food, drink a lot of water. No canned or preprocessed foods full of additives and unnatural flavours. That short answer tells me a lot. How we have abused our bodies all these while, hmmm!!

I spy a group of ladies, elderly and with Indonesian maids in tow, dressed for exercise, jogging shoes and all, chit-chatting while walking leisurely, very leisurely in fact, not a care for other users jogging or walking in the park, occupying the whole jogging track as they walk along. All others can go onto the grass for all they care!! They gossip under the guise of exercising?? Noisily too!! The maids gossip amongst themselves as well. Can’t blame them. The opportunity is there.

I spy another group of ladies, standing in rows, with a radio playing some kind of music, and a leader infront showing the moves. All the ladies will synchronise their moves with the leader and its a pretty sight to see. It is not aerobics, more of a dance but its exercise.....

I spy another group of ladies, smaller in number, maybe five or six each time, standing like statues, yes statues. They do not move. They stay that way for quite a while. When the leader change position then only the others follow and change position. Is this exercise?

I spy one man walking in repeated moves of one, two, three steps with arms swinging, stop on the fourth step, and slowly turns his head and upper torso to the right. He then proceeds to walk one, two, three steps and again stop on the fourth step, slowly turns his head and upper torso to the right. He repeats this and all the time turning to the right. After a while he turns to the left and keeps turning to the left. Why for I wonder?

MKI Ramblings Unlimited,
Petaling Jaya