Fitness For The People In China.

This is from the Guardian via Smarter Fitter

Every morning, shortly after sunrise, this former factory worker and up to two thousand mostly retired Chinese descend on Ditan Park in the city’s Dongcheng district, where they spend between one and three hours exercising amongst the trees. “No absence,” says Jiao, “no matter the weather.” The ritual - frankly astonishing to Western eyes - is replicated all over town, as some participate in dance, or the traditional game of ti jian, where a sort of shuttlecock is kicked around like a hacky sack. Others stick to the Chinese tradition of tai chi, and the rest use the simple public exercise contraptions that positively litter Beijing, spread through the parks or fixed in trails down the quieter streets.

My sister lives in Macau, a SAR near Hong Kong. When I visit her I often wander up the hill behind her apartment where there is a park with exercise machines and a running track at the top. Striking, there, is the age of the athletes, it is really great to see the older folks walking to the top of the hill in order to do more exercise.

“I can’t say that you Westerners are wrong,” one Ditan regular explained recently, “but you pursue a different objective. Whereas we aspire to health, you aspire to size, speed and strength.”

Slid show of typical Chinese park

The last sentence in the quote says it all. Definitely worth looking at those values or motivations and seeing if they are good ones to have.

Did you see the little old ladies doing hanging tummy crunches!!! Wow. And that is what the entire population is like.

It looks like as far as fitness goes, and the philosophy behind it, the Chinese have got it right while we seem to have just missed the mark.