Let's get physical

Olivia Newton John has a lot to answer for with her leotards and headbands and that song that just gets stuck in my head on repeat whenever I prepare to do that darned (but necessary) thing called 'exercise'.  At this very moment, I am obviously not engaged in physical activity (well, you can't blog and sweat at the same time!) but two of my kids are sweating it out on the courts with a group of other like-minded, able-bodied youngsters their age.  They are enjoying their first experience of outside-of-school group fitness.  It's the kiddy version of the bootcamp that I joined a couple of weeks ago. 

This year, my kids have not been involved in any club sports and so when I heard of this group for kids I thought it would be perfect for them. They get to run around, have fun and get enough exercise and then go home, shower, have some dinner and go straight to sleep instead of staying up late and then waking up late.  Thank goodness they have been blessed with decent sporting genes (thanks to their sports-mad and very athletic father) and actually enjoy playing sports, unlike their hermit of a mother who tends to take part in reading marathons instead of the actual running ones.  My usual trend is to run a mile from anywhere where physical activity is taking place - a bad habit I picked up at Leifiifi Intermediate School when we I joined the 'Kilikiti Samoa' group for Friday afternoon sports.  I would stand in amongst the crowd of about one hundred kids on the field and when I saw the ball coming anywhere near me, I would run like the wind in the opposite direction.  To this day, my greatest fear at any rugby match is to have the ball land on my head like it did once on some poor unsuspecting girl at a Manu Samoa match at Athletic Park many years ago.  They replayed that at least 10 times on the telly that night.  

Have just picked up the kids from their group and they loved it.  So, every Monday will be their exercise group with mine on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.  Okay, the Saturday one starts at 6.30am and I haven't actually managed to make it to that one yet.  It's kind of hard to get there at 6.30am when I am usually fast asleep at that time. I will do what I can, as best as I can but I am definitely not a Superwoman.  I can exercise all day, everyday but I will probably still hate it.   

If joining this group fitness teaches my kids to not be afraid of a ball landing on their heads and teaches them to run towards the ball instead of away from it - I'll be one happy Mother.