Joe Pilates drew a lot of his ideas about movement and exercise by watching animals and infants move. In knowing that, I often watch my friends’ kids to see how they move. What do they do when they are first learning to crawl? How do they hold their head up? Why do they walk on their toes when they first learn to walk? How does their spine move? These are all things I look for to see what kids do naturally.
Kids also have a freedom to movement that I think we lose as we age. It’s mostly societal. An adult can’t get away with throwing their arms up in the air, spinning in circles or just jumping up and down on the middle of a sidewalk the way a kid can. Kids have more freedom to be silly.
And so when we had friends staying with us a few weekends ago and their 3-year old daughter started moving around in ways that made me chuckle (okay, I was laughing hard), I tried to catch it on camera. This was especially something I wanted to catch after I asked her what she was doing and she responded, “I’m doing my exercises.” Can you see a pilates move based on this?
And remember, the moves got much better and much more creative than this, but I didn’t get the video on fast enough.
