Old Dog and New Tricks

My father was a great one for repeating the adage – “you don’t grow old. You become old when you cease to grow”. Couple that with the other one that goes, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” and you have just about summarized the conflicts of “becoming” old.

Doing some random reading on dementia, I learnt that physical exercise plays a good part in keeping dementia at bay. This is another dimension to our earlier understanding that mental agility requires new learning and reading.

“Studies show that people who are physically active are less likely to experience a decline in their mental function and have lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Physical activity is one of the known modifiable risk factors for dementia”  - Dr Jonanthan Graff-Radford, M.D.

He goes on, in his response, to explain that better blood flow and chemicals circulation improve cognitive responses. Also, physical activity slows down some of the natural reduction in brain connections that occur with aging.

In Okinanwa, the fountainhead of the life philosophy “ikigai”, it is believed that a key component of staying healthy is to “keep moving” throughout the day. Okinawans believe that hectic exercise can many times be a deterrent and therefore, recommend gentler forms of continuous movement. There is a form of such gentle exercise popularized by radio and called Radio Taiso (you might like to check this out on YouTube). With simple exercises, like lifting your arms above your head and bringing them down again, Radio Taiso is an easy to repeat form of exercise for the Japanese.

At a personal level, I have followed a regular exercise and swimming routine. With Covid, the latter came to a halt, and I did notice a little lethargy and of course some weight gain. This first led to diversifying the routine and introducing some weights. I was still looking for some fun factor in the routine when someone sent to me a hula-hooping video. Eshna Kutty was in this video for Exide Batteries under their #WhatDrivesYou online promo.

Hula hooping? At my age? I kept following Eshna and other hoopers and just grew to love what I saw. They were blending music and movement with a lot of opportunity for improvising. It appeared like easy and fun. Last January, I finally subscribed to Eshna’s online classes It was very difficult at the start and I had to overcome shyness to demonstrate my utter incapability in front of young ladies easily half my age, with the youngest being barely nine! Eshna only encouraged me to set small goals. “If you are now managing up to a count of ten, try to keep it for 20 counts”, she said. Note, we are practically talking seconds here.

Many more days of struggle followed till I had my moment of epiphany. Revisiting the online videos, I figured that music played an important role in the routine. It probably takes your mind off the fear of dropping the hoop and nudges you to enjoy the moment. I picked up a couple of cheerful songs to help me in my journey and took up a small goal of keeping the hoop going for just the length of one song. That meant getting into a three to five minutes routine.

 

Da-da-di-dum, I am now doing an easy 12-15 minutes with three to four songs playing in a string. The old dog has learnt a new trick, with a little inspirational reading, experimenting and much persistence.

What will it be next, belly-dancing?