Streeetch!! It does the body good.
Last Sunday, my husband, Greg and I went golfing with our wonderful couple friends Elaine & John. They live right on a golf course! How cool is that? Now, mind you, I had never swung a club on a golf course in my life. Putt-putt doesn’t count, apparently. My hubby, on the other hand, has played golf many times. Of the four of us, I was the only golf virgin.
First, we went to a driving range so I could be schooled on the basics of golf. I heard, “Stand with your feet apart, point your toes this way, bend your knees, and stick your butt out,” along with, “Put your hands here and here.” They told me it would feel awkward and it sure did. Felt like it was a twisted version of the Macarena dance (or my impression of a horny chicken). Since our friends were kind and generous enough to invite us on this outing, I didn’t want to disappoint them, and brought forth my best effort to send that little ball into the air. I’d say that maybe one out of every five balls that I attempted to hit with the club actually traveled down the range toward the goal, even if only 20 feet. I began to envision pro status in my future. Not!
Next, we had a lovely lunch with great conversation, and before we knew it, it was time to head to the actual course to play our nine holes. Here we go! Tee time!
You know what? Golfing is HARD!! If the hole was a par 3, I got at least a 10…that is, when I was really counting each of my swings. It was probably more than that. Yet, I persevered, though all the while I was thinking, Oh my gosh…are we done yet? By the 6th hole, I was thoroughly and completely exhausted. As I swung that club multiple times at the same damn ball, never hitting it once, never advancing toward the sixth yellow flag, I got so frustrated I picked up that defiant little white ball, yelled, “Mother clucker” [or something like that] and I flung the obstinate sphere a whole 30.3 feet closer to the lil yellow flag. TAKE THAT!!
As luck would have it, during our game, I hit my ball into a sand trap. Fun fun fun! I don’t remember if it was in the first five holes, or after that nasty sixth one. Getting the ball out of the sand trap was, surprisingly, not that hard for me to accomplish. What was hard, I mean really hard, was climbing my ass up out of that pit! I almost fell backwards into it as I frantically grasped at the super short grass in an attempt to pull myself out. I’m pretty sure I heard Elaine say, “Aw,” as she witnessed the fiasco. Talk about a wakeup call. In that instant, I realized that I am not flexible — NOT AT ALL. It’s causing issues in my life and could lead to a fall and/or serious injury one day.
I mulled my inflexibility dilemma over for a few days, then came to this conclusion: If I don’t do something different, I’ll never have anything different. Thus began my quest for a more flexible and mobile body. It was on October 1, 2020, that I searched YouTube for a suitable (easy) video for me, you know, not being a young girl any more, and found a channel called Fabulous50s. That’s me! Well, for another year anyway. I watched this very fabulous woman demonstrate the stretches for a simple 5-minute daily stretching routine. I got down on the floor and followed along. Although it felt incredibly awkward and caused bits of pain here and there (kind of like golf), it actually felt really good. I decided right then to make it a daily, if not twice daily, routine for the rest of my life. We can all dedicate five minutes a day, right? Maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to do the splits one day! Can you imagine that? An almost 60-year-old woman doing the splits for the first time in her six decades on earth?! That’s gotta be some kind of record — somewhere. Or, maybe it will be. Haha.
By the way, the last stretch I did after my first 5-minute stretching workout was standing with my legs straight and bending over to touch my toes. This wasn’t on the video, I just wanted to determine the baseline of my flexibility. At my best, my fingers were a good 1.5 inches from my toes. As I kept my legs straight and stretched as far as I could go without snapping something, I chanted, “C’mon toes! You can do it!”
Today is October 3, 2020: It’s Day #3 of my stretching journey. I can now bend over with my legs straight, touch my toes AND the floor beneath them — without pain! I am completely, 100% amazed!
I keep this up and I’ll be able to tie myself in a knot! At the very least, I’ll be able to pull myself out of a sand pit with graceful ease. Stay tuned!
