7/24/20 Flow – Catch, Primal, & Related :
I played catch recently.
My uncle had impulse purchased a ball for a buck or two, intending us to play catch, the purchase a playful act in itself.
As we were tossing the ball he looks at me and goes “catch is enough to make an old man feel young again, an old man would be good if he just found someone and regilarly played catch”.
(He’s in his late 50s. His statement is very much true.)
I hadn’t played catch in years.
It was a blast.
I had to run around a bit to make the grabs.
By playing in the dark my reaction speed was tested. It was like little league without glasses again, having to react quickly.
It felt awesome, while playing I was thinking about being too far into the gym, while not far enough into other physical things.
The concepts of “primal” and MovNat being thought about.
I can still throw well, my uncle (different one) was right about that back in 2018 when he looked at me, and made me move my arm through the pitching motion. Though I’ve muscled up, I still have pitching range of motion, he was hyped up seeing this, saying he could train me to be a high level pitcher.
At the gym I noticed something ; with a dumbbell one arm overhead press I can press underhand/palm facing/curl grip on my throwing side. I have that too as part of the range of motion.
I’ve also done some stone putting recently, I don’t know the weights or the distances but unlike indoors and the gym it was uncalibrated fun, and involved vitamin d.
Now writing something strikes me, when animals stop acting young they lose mobility, speed, physical abilities in every way and their health.
I’ve seen it in dogs, cats, and humans.
Some stay young at heart and youthfully healthy into senior citizenship.
My grandpa was outdoors having fun up until his last year on Earth.
Play keeps you young.
He had his walks, his hobbies, I can’t recall a single time he didn’t play catch with me, nor a time where he didn’t insist on throwing ambidextrously.
I remember the look of excitement on his face when my mom caught him on camera flying an rc model airplane/glider into his own hand.
(I was either at a friend’s or with my uncle at the time, otherwise I’d have seen this in person.)
With him being roughly 65, me in 2nd or 3rd grade he raced me in a hill sprint.
“J is going to run really fast when he’s older!” He was very excited when he told my mom.
Once on vacation (me 9) we went to a store purposefully to get some games to play, I remember a plastic dart board…and a way to play catch. Probably a buck for a tennis ball and these fuzzy paddle things it stuck to.
Catch is amazingly all around athletic.
You get hand eye coordination, to move around quickly, sprint bursts and agility, maybe a jump, some amount of moving the body through space, and when throwing you must aim.
Catch :
•It’s amazing for you.
•It’s not like the gym, it has no rigidity.
Kids do it naturally, and you as an adult probably don’t do it at all.
Fix that, even if it’s simply a solitary activity. It can be social, but you can also grab three tennis balls and learn to juggle.
-J