Make sure you have a good coach! Chris Hauth spotted my heel strike, and taught me how to pace myself. Thanks, Chris!

Prepare Your Children For Aging

Find Them The Right Sports And Academic Coaches

A great education engenders a life-long love of exercise and learning.

These are the people needed on high school and college sports teams. Karen (Feldenkrais), Mr. Bones (Human Anatomy), Rebecca (Dance and Body Awareness), Tara (Sports Massage, Pilates, and Gyrokinesis), body movement experts. Their training over the years sure help me to keep moving in my mid-70s.

I know many frustrated athletes, especially runners, in their 50s, 60s and 70s, who can’t workout due to injuries induced in high school or college. Because it was all about winning the race, but losing out on their later years. This won’t change until our society’s Philosophy changes. Parents want their kids to win, so they put pressure on the coaches for the kids to win, and if they don’t they fire the coach – they fire the best coaches, the ones who spend time teaching effective body movement, rather than pushing them to win when they’re not ready for it.

The most common problem is knee injuries, often bone-on-bone, due to heel striking as they run.

It’s possible to learn how to run without heel striking, with the right coach.

It’s possible to learn how to pace yourself, to avoid injury, with the right coach.

It’s possible to learn how to listen to your body, with the right coach.

It’s like learning a language, the sooner you start the easier it is and the more proficient you become.

School and college are not about winning a race, they are about winning in life.

I repeat:

A great education should engender a life-long love of exercise and learning.

AND IT’S NEVER TOO LATE!

Rick, right, taught this 70-year old child how to swim his fastest 100 yards (1:23), and that distance swimming is more about conditioning than it is about technique.

Then there’s my old high school Biology Master, at St. George’s Grammar School, in the 1960s.

FitOldDog’s Grammar School, in England, where he learned so much, in the late 1950s early 1960s. It’s derelict now, which I found to be sad.

I forget his name, but we called him Rumble Tum.

He encouraged me to aim high in my education.

Here’s my most important academic coach.

She drilled into our heads, as kids, the importance of education.

FitOldDog’s Mom, Joan Key, tying her shoes at age 93; still no major flexibility issues.

Our Mom.

She never did mind bowls of tadpoles in the kitchen.

Thanks, Mom!

Mom wasn’t a very happy person, as she was mad about the past, even events in her childhood, into her 90s, for heaven’s sake.

You can learn how to let go of the past, you know, like this:

I wish I could have taught Mom this great lesson of freeing the mind from negative memories. At least I now know how to let go of that regret, and enjoy today.

Wishing you happy trails,

FitOldDog