Sep
24
Oh Yes He Can
Filed Under Childhood Obesity, Fitness Motivation | Leave a Comment
Babcock
“Can you remember a spring day in your thirteenth year? A seductive breeze, a few white clouds sketched by a careless artist, the sun striking maddening smells from the moist earth and encouraging unaccustomed pulses in various parts of your body.
It was just such a day in 1972, on a late-morning walk in a small Virginia town, that I came across a group of some thirty-five or forty thirteen-year-olds sitting on a grassy bank. I was on a lecture tour, summoned from my motel by the sight and smell of April blossoms.
Standing in front of boys and girls was a taut-muscled young man in gym shoes, gym pants, a white T-shirt, a crew cut, a whistle, and a clipboard. Next to the young man, like a guillotine in the sunlight, was a chinning bar. I stopped to observe the scene.
The man looked at his clipboard. ‘Babcock’ he called.
There was a stir among the boys and girls. One of them rose and made his way to the chinning bar: Babcock the classic fat boy.
Shoulders slumped, he stood beneath the bar. ‘I can’t,’ he said.
‘You can try,’ the man with the clipboard said.
Babcock reached up with both hands, touched the bar limply –just that-and walked away, his eyes downcast, as all the boys and girls watched, seeming to share in his shame.
I also walked on, flushed with anger. Beneath the anger, I sensed something tentative and hurt. The incident seemed to touch an area of my past that I had conveniently forgotten. The day was so lovely-no time to explore painful areas. I started thinking about other things.
But Babcock was not to let me off so easily. The vignette kept replaying itself in my mind. I was fascinated by the way the fat boy walked to the chin up bar, waddling slightly but moving fast as if eager to have it done with; his condemned stance beneath the bar, the minimal, symbolic touch of his hands on the metal; his utter resignation as he walked away, his head bobbing from side to side.
Again and again, Babcock rose, walked to the bar, stood there, touched the bar, walked off. The scene took on the quality of a Greek drama. The man with the clipboard became the stern-visaged god who devises tests for us, then sends us on without mercy to our respective fates. The boys and girls took the part of the chorus, by their silence condemning the unworthy, and yet by the same silence, expressing their own uneasiness and shame.”
…From George Leonard’s Classic Book, The Ultimate Athlete
So What Can We Do For Babcock?
Well, as it turns out, in the Chicago area (for example) Babcock represents at least 23% of all kids under the age of seven. Nationwide, it’s more than 10%. And if you use the pull up bar as your acid test, the figures actually grows dramatically worse because upper body weakness also comes into play.
The question then for the remainder of this book is…how can we help the Babcocks around the world? What can we do to give them the strength and the confidence required to…
- set a goal,
- get a couple workouts in each week for a prescribed period of time,
- eat right,
- get sufficient rest,
- avoid negative habits including tobacco, alcohol, and drugs,
- grab hold of the damn pull up bar
- and show the world that they can do it too?
- That’s the specific challenge that motivates this web site.
Sep
24
Three Specific Instances
Fifty Out of Fifty Chose Pull-Ups
A second grade teacher (Ms. Dari Spotten) had invited a rural second grade teacher to bring her class to our school (Jefferson Elementary) in order for them to get a taste of what an inner city school was like. The day was tightly planned right down to the minute, and the last two things on the agenda were recess and Pull Your Own Weight. But as the day came to a close the teachers both recognized that they only had time for one of these activities, so they put it up for a vote…recess or PYOW? I’m here to tell you that 50 out of 50 second graders chose to do pull-ups over recess. Who said kids can’t learn to love pull-ups?
Paying for the Opportunity to do Pull Ups
At Jefferson School back in the nineties we had an annual fun night, which was a PTA sponsored fundraiser where parents and teachers would donate a dish of something to eat, and booths would be set up all around the gym with various games that would attract and amuse the kids. Access to the food and the games was accomplished by purchasing tickets from the PTA table for a quarter a ticket.
On one of these occasions the PTA decided that a pull-up bar was going to be one of the booths, and that yours truly would be the official counter of pull-ups. Believe it not that fun night went on for over two hours and I had kid standing in line eight to ten deep, PAYING for the opportunity to get on the pull-up bar in order to show their proud parents how strong they’d become. At the end of the evening I had lost my voice from counting pull-ups. And if kids can learn to love pull-ups, why can’t they learn to love reading, writing, and arithmetic too? My bet is that they can.
No Way! That’ll Make Me Weak…
I was talking to a kindergarten class about Pull Your Own Weight when one little boy in the back raised his hand and proceeded to tell me and the rest of the class “Coach, my uncle Willie tried to talk me into smoking a cigarette last night, but I said NO WAY! That will make me WEAK!” At this point his fellow classmates all gave him an impromptu high five signifying their agreement. That may have been the single most gratifying moment of my entire seventeen-year teaching career. It goes to show this program goes well beyond preventing childhood obesity, and proving that EVEN KINDERGARTNERS GET IT.
Sep
24
Winning Their Hearts
Filed Under Fitness Motivation | Leave a Comment
How To Win Their Hearts…
“Do you know how to win a five year old boy’s heart? Well, you drop down to one knee, look him right in the eye, and listen as if what he’s telling you is really important…cause it is.
And if you happen to speak at all, whatever you say from that position will be infinitely better than anything you can possibly say from on high.
Oh, and by the way, five year old girls? They’re just the same.”
…A wise old teacher/coach somewhere, sometime, someplace