My Next Fun Fitness Project

I think pretty much anyone who knows me knows that I like to keep fit, but I don't much care for "exercise." And when I put it in quotes I mean to call to mind stuff like running, going to the gym, working out on machines and all that sort of thing.

I like to walk and especially like biking, but I like biking to get from place to place not so much for its own sake. So biking and walking has kept my lower body in pretty good condition for years.

Then a couple of years ago I decided to take up juggling as a way to start working on my upper body. It took me about 4-6 months of practice before I got it down, and now I routinely juggle 3 2-5 pound soft excercise balls - usually while just hanging out at home listening to music. Nothing fancy just straight juggling. It's made a big difference in my arm and shoulder strength.

Several years ago I heard about a freeclimber who trained by doing as many as 2000 pull ups a day. Well, I can do that many, but the elevator in my office has a nice ledge that's nicely spaced down from the ceiling, so I try to get in 3-5 fingertip pull ups in there any time I need to get from floor to floor.

I also am totally down with Wii boxing and DDR as "funxercise."

I've got my upper body and lower body all set now, but what about my midsection?

This is my new project:



I know most of you won't watch the whole 14+ minutes. So I'll tell you that they say backflips are really good for the lower abdominal muscles. Looks way more fun than situps or crunches, doesn't it?

I'll let you know how it goes, and I'm gonna need some volunteers as spotters...

Planet B-Boy Movie Finally Coming to Detroit

I have not and persistently do not find ballet and modern dance all that interesting. It just doesn't "speak to me" in the way that other art forms do. I think there is a bit of a high art / low art thing going on in this equation because I really love the dancing in, for example, Singin' in the Rain, or Bamboozled, or even Bring it On. I love the tango sequences in Happy Together, and Tangos, the Exile of Gardel too, but ballet and/or modern dance performed on the stage just feels so archaic (is I guess what it is) to me. Just doesn't connect.

Here, on the other hand, is something that connects with me like the nicest possible punch in the face:



It's a sequence that is cleverly nicknamed "Run DMZ": simultaneously referencing rap/hip-hop godfathers RUN-DMC and the DeMilitarized Zone that divides North from South Korea - the ostensible setting for the amazing dance that unfolds in the clip.

This sequence seems pretty indicative of the stuff your going to get when you go see the movie Planet B-Boy , which you will if you know what's good for you.

From a number of clips that I've watched, this movie seems like the latest in a gathering stream of grassroots-ey media products that celebrate people who take globalization into their own hands, as it were, and use the increasing speed with which cultural ideas and products flow across international borders to create bonds of friendship-in-creativity with people that they could never have hoped to even meet mere decades ago.

If you live near me, it opens at the Main Art in Royal Oak on April 25.

Here's the trailer: