Talk It Up!: Want advice? Ask a kid

You want an original idea or a new twist on a boring, old idea or tradition? Know the best place to go? The pool. Know the best person to ask? A kid.

Yup. A kid. I was in the pool at the gym yesterday, doing some water aerobics and bored with everything that I already teach. The rest of the pool was occupied by a dozen kids under the age of 10 and all of their toys. And by "all of their toys," I mean everything the gym stocked--dozens of red, yellow and blue kickboards; orange, yellow, blue and green styrofoam noodles; and a half-dozen blue pull floats. They weren't using the kickboards to kick; they were placing five of them side-by-side, like multicolored lily pads, and jumping over them from the side of the pool, like Evil Knievel jumping cars on his motorcycle.

They weren't using the noodles for floating, either; they would have an adult hold one up in an arch as they kids would try to jump through (or sometimes, over) it from the side of the pool.

I think I spent more time watching them than I did with my own workout! But I was curious--I'd never used the pull floats in class. Hmm. So I asked one pre-teen girl who was splashing around:

Me: "How do you use this?"
Her: "Um... I think you put it between your knees and swim using just your arms."
Me: "No, I mean how you you use it?"
Her: "Oh," she giggled, "I try to stand on it and not fall off."

I grinned and tried it. It was hard! "My class will hate this!" I said gleefully.

So I stopped working out and started playing like a kid. I came up with three new exercises to work abs and arms--all fun, all easy, all new. And all inspired by kids.

Want a new outlook on an issue? Watch kids. Then ask them what they would do.

July 2008