About four years ago I signed my mother up for a senior exercise class. She was going to make a trip to England to see the Chelsea Flower show, so I thought it would be a good idea to get her in shape. Since I have to take her to class, I decided to ask if I could attend too.
Last year we had a switch in teachers, and our new teacher brings a lot of Asian philosophy to her exercises. We start with stretching and we work from head to toe. She picks the pace up for cardio work, and throws in a little Tai Bo, and then we do fifteen minutes that is a mix of balance, resistance and weight training.
An interesting thing about seniors is that they rarely complain. They will try to do the exercises and you don't hear moans and groans, or objections. The teacher had a tough time telling if she was pushing them too much. The cardinal rule is that you don't do anything that hurts.
This year the park district facility where we exercise has been totally renovated. The room we meet in used to be a community room with a long bank of windows. We used to watch the geese in the fall, and the daffodils in the spring. Now, it's a dance room, buried in the center of the building. There are floor to ceiling mirrors on three of the walls.
Our first conflict with the teacher came when she asked us to position ourselves facing the mirrors. We all balked. We wanted HER to face the mirror. She has a fantastic body, and she shouldn't have minded seeing herself. She actually pouted to get her way. We now dutifully line up facing the damned mirrors.
I realized yesterday that when I am exercising, I have a Mona Lisa smile. I actually look like I'm having a good time, when usually I'm thinking "WHAT am I DOING here???" I'm slow to become social in the morning, and the exercise helps. It's also nice that I like the group that attends this class, but I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm having a good time.
If you can fit an exercise class into your life, I highly recommend it. It's not easy to schedule them in our busy lives, but the pay off is great. I'm confident that my back muscles have strengthened and I have better extention.
Besides.......you, too, could develop a Mona Lisa smile. *G*