Feminist reflections on fitness, sport, and health
Today I turn 65. I already belong to a Facebook group called Senior Lifeguards.
I just finished my skills of the month which are basically the same as the fitness tests for my National Lifeguard certification. I redid that qualification a month ago.
It sometimes seems like a crazy thing to do this job, but I love it. Happy birthday though me!
I recently needed to do the recertification exam for my lifeguard qualifications. It’s mandatory every two years and not really a big deal since I practice the skills regularly at work.
As usual, I was much older than almost everyone else there. Again, no big deal. I’m used to being – by far – the oldest lifeguard wherever I work. But apparently that is weird to some of the other lifeguards.
Following the fitness portion of our exam, one of the youngsters asked how old I was. When I told him, his response was “you’re in really good shape!”. I could almost see the thought bubble over his head “compared to my grandma.”
Kiddo, I have to do the exact same tests as you to hold the exact same job. I’m not unusually fit. I’m merely someone who has chosen to be visibly active in a way that you happened to notice.
The incident amused me because there were no real consequences. When I was trying to get hired, it was more of an issue. Same when I’m dealing with medical questions. I’m going to try and ignore them for the moment and enjoy my little giggle about the thought bubble. And remember that women far fitter than me have been called “grandmother” without acknowledging their remarkable achievements. Amy Apelhans Gubser I’m looking at you!
And for good measure, here’s a picture of me (a grandmother) with a group of my grandmother friends.
Aquafit is a great activity but I am having complicated feelings about it.
I first enjoyed aquafit way back in university, in the early 1980s. It was a deep water class, almost like HIIT but in the water.
Now that I’m lifeguarding, I notice a very different dynamic. These days, it’s almost all older white women, many of them with mobility issues, judging by the poolside collection of canes and walkers.
At best, there about 30% men in a class, but that’s rare. Usually the ratio is closer to one in 10 (or none at all) in the classes I guard. People of Colour equally rare, as are people under the age of what I’m guessing is about 50.
Why is that?
Generally, aquafit is pitched to older women, with popular American music from the 60s and 70s. While a few older men may join in, it often seems to be because they are addressing a specific medical issue or recovering from surgery. But no younger, fitter men join, perhaps because it is perceived as a “women’s” activity. People of colour, who are often newer immigrants in my area, may not feel a connection to the music that the majority loves to sing along to.
The timing of classes could also be an issue. They are offered during the day, when retired people are more likely to be available. Earlier and later in the day there is competition for pool time with swim clubs and lane swims, possibly because because more of those swimmers have to get to work or school.
We could change the perception of aquafit as being an easy, social activity for elderly women. Some places do offer intensive aquafit, but it doesn’t seem to be an option where I live.
Or maybe I could just learn to accept that these women enjoy having their own space, where they can sing, or chat, or work as hard as they want. This Guardian article has a lovely description of the joys of aquafit.
Maybe not every sport needs to be all things to all people.
Or maybe we need to have more male or visible minority, instructors and more classes at times that work well for the people who currently aren’t participating.
Or maybe we just need more sports facilities. I can dream…
I love the elderly swimmers at my pool. I’m not sure of their ages, but I would guess most are 70-90 years old
They are there every day. They have terrible swim strokes (inefficient, barely moving their arms or legs, or both). Some don’t swim at all. They do aquafit movements and stretches. A few like to do pull-ups using the starting blocks.
But the social aspect is the most important thing. They know all the others, hop around a bit in the shallow water while chatting, or tease and sometimes goof around splashing each other like pre-teens.
I treat every swim like a training swim, trying to get more streamlined, pull and kick stronger, aiming to be as efficient as a shark. But I have learned to love the people who have a grand time every day, while swimming as efficiently as a clownfish or batfish.
Clownfish can swim, but settle into their little plot of anemone and early move more than a few feet from there, so they aren’t particularly efficient swimmers.
According to the Bristol Aquariun, “Batfish aren’t winning any races against their fellow fish anytime soon. In fact, these unusual bottom-dwellers can barely swim at all. Instead, they scamper across the seafloor on their pectoral, pelvic and anal fins, rather like a frog or crustacean.”
Thankfully, my swimmers don’t need to adapt to their surroundings. We have learned to adapt to their needs with things like steps or a ramp into the water, and equipment like flotation belts and aquafit weights available for them to use.
What other equipment and modifications can we make to public facilities to encourage older people to keep active? I would love to hear your ideas.
Dad died a few weeks ago. He was not an obvious feminist ally at first glance; he started his 48 year military career back in the 1950s, not exactly the most progressive of times. He didn’t speak up much, and though he delighted in talking about politics from time to time, he was in his 80s before I knew his voting preferences.
He also didn’t talk about feminism or women’s rights, at least not directly. He did, however, delight in his all-female family, starting with my Mom. She was a rebel, having left her home in rural Alberta for Toronto, having her own career, and having and keeping a child (me) at a time when doing so outside of marriage was almost unheard of. They dated for a month, decided on a Tuesday to get married on a Saturday, and were deeply in love for 63 years.
My sister and I were raised to believe there was almost nothing we couldn’t do if that was what we wanted. Olympic swimming goals and my career as a concert pianist were derailed by lack of swim club and musical talent, but he happily paid for and drove me to all those swimming and piano lessons, even when money was very tight. Though he never finished high school himself, he encouraged and supported both of us to go to university (my sister did journalism, law, and ethics; I did music, political science, French and international development).
One of my favourite memories is the time he lamented that he hadn’t been a good role model because neither my sister nor I were married. No Dad, you were the best model. You showed us what being a great partner and father looked like, and we weren’t prepared to settle for anything less.
Just over three months ago I got hired as a part-time lifeguard and swim instructor with the city of Ottawa. At 63, I’m one of the oldest lifeguards in the city. It has been exciting, fun and humbling.
My children are older than almost everyone I work with. I came into the job knowing I would need to put my ego aside because they’re the experts, not me. I think I have mostly succeeded, but I still laugh at myself when I have to call my teenaged supervisor for help. On training nights, when there is a physical fitness component, I’m not above being a little smug when I’m faster or stronger or have better technique than some of them. But most of the time I am listening hard and trying to absorb everything those young people can show me.
The teaching is as satisfying as I had hoped, but more challenging than I expected. I teach five classes of 3-6 year olds, and three of adults. I am building up a repertoire of games and activities, but I still struggle with when to give individual feedback and when to get everyone to do the same drill. This is especially the case for adults, where I can have people fearful of putting their face in the water learning to swim in the same class as folks who are almost ready to tackle swimming a length of the pool.
Lifeguarding is better than I thought it would be. I have a regular morning shift one day a week and I recognize all the regular lane swimmers and aquafit people. The occasional busy public swim is no longer as scary as it was at first. I even did a couple of training shifts at a large pool complex with a wave pool and giant water slide, in preparation for lifeguarding a women-only event next week. I’ll report on that in my next post.
I used to think it would be nice to do some work for a foreign affairs think tank or university when I retired, but I’m really happy I chose to do the goofy fun thing instead. It’s nice to feel like I’m making a difference in a small but tangible way. Former work colleagues who bring their kids to swimming lessons say I look like I’m having a ball. They’re right.
A few weeks ago, one of the young lifeguards I work with commented about the older ladies living their best aquafit life, and I found myself feeling very defensive on behalf of these women.
They are generally older, having lived through a time when they had no access to credit or even credit records in their own names, and few job opportunities. Many are widows. Some have health conditions that limit their ability to do certain sports. They have a community that meets regularly to exercise while listening to fun music. They really are living their best aquafit life.
Aquafit is coming back into my life almost 40 years after I first tried it in university. It was fun at a time when Jane Fonda and dancercise were all the rage, but fell off my radar as it evolved a low-impact activity that appealed to women my mother’s age.
At our last in-service training, we had to do a mini aquafit class, which I am sure was an attempt to convince some of us to get our instructor qualifications. I surprised myself by realizing
Today I joined 349 others plus at least 5 instructors and Santa at the Nepean Sportsplex for Jingle Bell Splash, in an attempt to set a world record for the largest aquafit class, and raise funds for the Ottawa Food Bank. We succeeded!
As we were leaving, my colleague Carine, who is an aquafit instructor, encouraged me to do the training the next time an opportunity arises. Even if I don’t want to teach regularly, there are occasional opportunities to step in when someone needs a replacement.
One of the prerequisites for the instructor course is to have completed at least two aquafit classes. I think I will enjoy that. Maybe I’m finally ready to start living my own best aquafit life.
These past months I’ve been feeling the call to begin the transition of accepting my grey hair. Now (and for the past 25 years) I’ve had a variety of shades of red. I started by sticking close to what had been my natural colour (from birth!), before I started to go grey. I have since strayed into bolder territory. At first, I thought I’d stop at 50. Then I didn’t. I wasn’t ready.
Because I get comments on my long curly red hair from strangers almost every day and I am addicted to the attention. Random, unlikely strangers, tell me how beautiful my hair is, how much they love the colour, or they just smile and point at their heads, to let me know my hair has prompted the smile. Just last week, at a drum circle, a woman told me that I was like a dancing flame in the corner with my drum.
I hear how women my age become invisible. I feel visible. I’m scared of not being seen. More. I am a reasonably energetic person. I ran in the forest in Lisbon for two hours this morning, before settling on the couch in my Airbnb to write this. I laugh loud (maybe too loud). I love to dance almost anywhere, anytime. I can get carried away on a wave of enthusiasm. And somewhere along the way, I began to bundle those traits with my hair colour. As if my presence and personality depend on me being a redhead.
Yet, my hair doesn’t feel right anymore. There’s a voice inside that says I’m too old for my hair, or that the colour is inauthentic, that I’m hiding behind my hair, or that it’s just plain time to see what the grey is like. When I see women with beautiful grey hair now, I admire not only their hair, but also their bold authenticity. I feel the call to step up to their courage. Which means, for me, that I will need to cut off all my hair and start over again. I do not want to keep my hair long and slowly grow my grey out. And that radical road also scares the crap out of me, because what if I not only become invisible; what if like Samson, I lose all my strength, energy and enthusiasm for life? In the Book of Judges, Delilah betrays Samson by cutting off his hair, knowing it will destroy his strength. Will I be my own Delilah to my own Samson?
I have, of course, investigated my options, which is what eventually tipped the scales to the radical road. I had the idea that maybe I’d just dye my whole head blonde, to make it easier to start growing out my hair. I consulted with a colorist I used to go to. Before I started colouring my hair myself with an all-natural-add-only-hot-water product that is shipped from an organic salon in Paris. Here’s the text message I got from my ex-colorist when I asked if he’d be game to help me with my transition-through-long-blonde-hair plan:
Hi Mina. Of course I remember you!
I would not touch your colored hair with a 10-foot pole, considering you’ve been using henna! Sorry
I have seen the detrimental effects of trying to correct or remove henna color firsthand. Your hair could turn green, or just break off randomly so you end up with a “chemical haircut”
While henna itself is “natural”, so is snake venom and gasoline
Henna is a metallic vegetable dye that leaves a permanent residue on the hair that can react really horribly with any other treatments.
If you truly want to go grey, the best (and in my opinion the only) option is to just wait it out as your hair grows in naturally grey
For my 2 cents, no matter how young and beautiful your face is…gray hair makes you look at least 10 years older As long as you’re ready to look, and be treated, as “old”, go for it!
Well okay then. Thank you. It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve heard this kind of opinion. I have friends who have said that going grey will age me by 10 years, instantly.
Setting aside his hostile tone and harsh judgment of grey hair, I did some research into what he said about henna. I asked another hairdresser who confirmed that henna was bad. He generously dyed a sample lock of hair blonde, to show me just how wrong things could go. I now have a lock of yellow yarn doll hair. I did further research and confirmed, to my distress, that henna is indeed quite toxic and contains heavy metals, which end up in the body. So much for my pure, organic Parisian colour. I’m not putting that in my hair again, since I’d also be putting it in my kidneys again.
As I’ve been agonizing about my hair, a friend sent me this article about taking a year of celibacy: The Sexiest Year of My Life Involved No Sex So, if I cut off all my hair and let it be grey, should I also prepare to be celibate? And not by choice, according to my ex-colorist. I know my friend didn’t intend the article to land that way. Yet, I do worry that my colleagues at work will no longer respect me. That my friends won’t want to hang out with me. And yes, that no one will love me or want to have sex with me. Ever again. Apparently, my own judgments are worse than my ex-colorist’s.
These fears are all the reasons to go for it. Reset. Restart. It is time to find out if I am more than my hair. November 15 is the day. A friend has undertaken to accompany me during the process. To hold my hand. Console. Celebrate. Scrape me off the floor or ceiling, depending on what happens to my psyche.
Yes, I know, I am not making an irrevocable decision. In my teens and twenties, I was constantly changing my look. I can start colouring my hair again (just not with henna). Hair grows back. What’s time anyway?
Onward, with curiosity.
I have finally figured out why I’m finding ballet so hard. I take the classes like I’m a 17 year-old in my final year of the professional program, rather than like the arthritic 63 year-old in an elementary leisure class for adults.
I started dancing 20 years ago, and most years I do only one or two classes a week, instead of the 20+ hours per that the senior kids in the professional program do. So it’s not like being a professional dancer was ever a possibility. So why do I work myself so hard?
I suspect it is my refusal to give in to the inevitable. Over the years, I had worked myself up to being in the advanced class. But then I got injured. When I returned to class I started to find that doing certain movements took too much out of me, so I started registering myself for lower level classes each year.
The downside of doing easier classes is that you lose out on learning more complicated steps and routines. My brain loves those, even if my body does not. I have settled into a class that gives me a reasonable balance, if I’m careful.
I hate the creaking and grinding of my knees in plié, and I’m nervous about exacerbating my bunion (jumping is what led to surgery on the bunion on my other foot). But I love demanding the core and strength work of myself to be able to feel, just for a moment now and then, like a “real dancer”.
I’m scratching the brain/choreography itch by doing a jazz class. It’s a completely new skill and vocabulary for me, but the movements are easier on my body.
But I think I really want the opportunity to perform, even though I’m also horrified at the prospect of having people watching me and mocking because it’s ridiculous. Or not showing up to watch at all. Or smiling sweetly and being kind about our efforts being cute. It’s the same fear about aging I have whenever I see “human interest” stories about older athletes. They usually try to be inspirational and mostly they are, but when I imagine myself being that athlete I cringe.
I want to have the courage of these women, and the dance company to make it happen. They are members of Prime, a professional company for dancers over 60 in Scotland. Here they are performing a piece called Ageless at at the Edinburgh Festival in 2023.
Here on this blog and elsewhere, there’s lots of information about the benefits of strength training for women, particularly as they age. Cardiovascular fitness and endurance focused fitness have lost their luster. They are not considered as productive for women’s long-term health—maintaining bone density, healthy sugar levels, heart health and such like.
I’ve added some strength to my mix. I have a pull up bar. A nearby CrossFit-like class I go to. Plus, streaming Pilates around the edges. I am taking pleasure in getting stronger. And I know that really, I’m doing the classes because they keep me fortified for what I truly love doing—running, hiking, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, mountain (and regular) biking. I get way too much joy from being outside and moving through cities, parks, forests and mountain trails to give up cardiovascular and endurance focused activities. I barely think of them as fitness. They are my way of being and moving in the world, an expression of my heart’s desire, my deep wants. The impulse to do strength classes comes from a very different source. Yes, I want to do strength classes, but in that ought-y way. As in, eat your peas, they’re good for you (though I quite like peas). As a result, I’m probably doing less strength work than I ought to be doing.
So, I wonder, should I rebalance my activities to a more productive mix? What about my joy? Is it productive (by which I mean, long-term healthy)?
This week I was provoked to think about the distinction between productive and fruitful. The talk I was watching, made the distinction between getting shit done, no matter the toll it might have on me. Think of a machine metaphor, where the machine breaks down and we fix it, give it some oil, solder the fissures, plug it back in. Versus, being in flow, which, yes, in and of itself might lead to a lot of shit getting done, though possibly at a different rhythm. A fruit tree metaphor is apt here, a metaphor of seasonality, of cyclicality, of dormancy and blossoming. The fruit tree in my mind’s eye is an apple tree from my grandfather’s orchard, my mother’s backyard growing up.
This idea of productive vs fruitful resonated with this internal wrestling match around what I ought to be doing for my health versus what I want to be doing for my health. While my workouts might not be as productive as they could be, maybe they are fruitful (for me—you do you and will have your own version of fruitful). The feeling of flow, of connection to nature (as precarious as that can sometimes feel in a city), the sky in all its moods, the weather imposing its presence, has a discernible impact on my wellbeing. How can my heart be healthy without joy? Maybe my bones densify when I feel awe in nature? (The study has yet to be done.) My friend, Kim (of this blog!), reminded me that “studies show” that our parasympathetic nervous system grooves well with the smooth pleasure of a flow of repetitive movements, like running, cycling, dancing, hiking, skiing and such. For me, connecting with the joy of movement and the beneficence of nature invigorates me in a way that Pilates or CrossFit don’t.
Getting groovy feels fruitful for my long-term health.
Yes, I want to do the things that help a woman stay vital as she ages. Of course I do. And a good part of my vitality is sourced from the outdoors. With only so much time, what’s a woman to do? In my case, I am going to keep experimenting with the balance. Like fruit trees, I have cycles where I am more focused on outdoor activities—like when I am in mountains and focus almost exclusively on cross country skiing or mountain biking and trail running—versus when I’m in the city, and more likely to incorporate specific strength training. These cycles feel fruitful for my wellbeing. No doubt there’s tweaking to be done. I’m trying to listen to what my body wants (what my spirit wants), hoping that coincides with what I need. If that doesn’t sound scientific, it’s not; or is it? I’m listening to intuition and felt sense. Increasingly science is showing that our mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing have an impact on our long-term health. This is where fruitful joins hands with productive.
Aging is complicated. Every day, I feel like there’s a new something I should be doing. How can I stay vital and age with grace? For this moment, I’m going to focus on being fruitful and bring that spirit of wants, of heart’s desire, into my movement, whether it’s a run or a CrossFit class.
