As I might have mentioned, gentle reader, one of the young men from our martial arts school has evolved into a trainer at the YMCA, which is bad news for your humble narrator. For I have always tried to keep up with him in the exercises in martial arts classes, such as matching his push-up total or holding a plank or whatever. I see him working out at the Y, and he’s always doing crazy exercises like Horshaks (a jump squat starting from a seated position in a chair), backwards box jumps with a rear somersault (he hasn’t done that when I’ve seen it, but he’s probably done it, or the impossible push-up.
So perhaps I have gotten a little reputation for thinking I can do anything once or for thirty seconds.
Which might have led to the following sequence on my Facebook feed:
A friend posted an ad for some bit of 70s apparel featuring a man with his calves by his head. Yeah, I used to be able to do that, when I was ten or eleven. Probably later, but not so much now. Although I can throw head-high kicks when warmed up.
Facebook followed this up with an ad for a program that purportedly will get men to do full splits in 30 days. Uh, yeah, thanks for thinking of me, Facebook, but that’s probably not possible at this point. I’m almost fifty and running out of almost.
Still, I do have a book on stretching and improving flexibility that my editor Jerry Pournelle recommended almost a decade ago. I should probably look into that, but to be honest, gentle reader, my time is filled with blogging and looking for images of Indian actresses for your consideration. So maybe next week.
But programs trying to get to full splits? As the sage of San Francisco once said, “A man has got to know his limitations.”
