What - no - who is limiting you

Have you ever paused for a moment to question how much you are allowing age and gender and not your ability, to dictate what you can and cannot do?

For the past few workouts I have been working out at Nageshwara Rao park.

It is such an interesting space and in many ways, reflects the way we have allowed gender and age to dictate what fitness should look like and how that is undergoing a slow change.

Women generally come to walk or do yoga. But a handful of older women are different.

One lady comes and casually does her work on the monkey bar, locks her legs and hangs upside down. Another sixty plus lady learns silambam. And this 54 year old climbs and hangs and focuses on grip strength, mobility and balance.

And at every session I have had the most delightful company.

He is all of ten years old, and an archer in the making. He comes there to strengthen his shoulder muscles so he can hold the bow which is now much heavier than before.

What I love about him is the way he accepts me. Not for him the stereotypical limitations of gender, age and size. All he is looking for, is someone who will play with him while he goes about doing what he has to. 

For me it is a joy to be with him because he connects with me in the most elemental level.

There is a metal globe that is about five feet above the ground. We both climbed up and I was trying to climb down through the circle in the centre. The visual of me - a 54 year old woman curling myself into various angles and the little ten year old boy giving me instructions and watching me  is something that makes my heart smile.

And it occurs to me somewhere as we grew older we lost the beauty of these kinds of connections.

We assume that an older person would not be able to do something or maybe not even WANT to do something. And the invisible age limit is much lower for women.

I agree there is a subset that doesn't subscribe to the above stereotypes. And that subset is growing. As it should.

But the most important aspect I think is about how we celebrate milestones - especially in fitness.

We don't often celebrate what we can do without making it about celebrating that we are better than someone else.

And this last one is what I think makes the connection between ten year old and me a joyous one.

There are some things that he is much better than me and others where I am better than him. Yet, for both of us it is about helping the other to get to where we are.

It could be him telling me what I need to do in order to get up on the parallel bar the way he can or me holding his hand as he balances and walks across the fence, the way I can.

But that is not the only similarity.

I also gleefully share videos to my friends saying "look look! Look at what I can do" or even "want to see today's circus? " and my friends (you know who you are 😁❤️) indulgently go "wow" "that's amazing"  and I grin happily at their feedback.

Not very different from the ten year old in the park.

And I wonder.. How much are we allowing age and gender and not our ability, to dictate what we can and cannot do?