I have had some kid sick nearly every day for the last two months. not very sick usually, but enough to keep me out of the gym- hard to hide green snot and hacking coughs- even if that is the only apparent symptoms- not fevers or puking or anything like that. Still- I just don't feel OK about taking them to the daycare. So I've let myself fall into the trap of excuses and I really have not tried to continue my exercise. Well that is no more. I am just not happy with my weight and fit of clothing. So I am doing several things. I am going to the gym if Ben is around- I do so love my spinning and miss it so. I have also started to do short workouts at home. If Liv is asleep, then I bust out the 20 minutes Pilates DVD, the kids all join in so form isn't fantastic, but something is better than nothing right? I also bought a 10 minute dance workout DVD. It is pretty cheesy- probably a bit too sexy in some of the hip gyrations for the kids, but over all it is funky and fun and it is 10 minutes of trying to dance. Liv enjoys watching us all move around so I can do that when she's awake.
The favorite though, among all 4 of the kids is doing "The Painting Dance" to Tchaikovsky's Russian dance. It is 6 minutes or so of fun, and we are all breathing heavy and sweating by the end. I will have to set up the tripod some time soon and get a video of it so you can really appreciate it. I'll do my best to describe what we do though- so you can do it too since you may be playing some Nutcracker music in the next several weeks. But before I go into all that let me also say I have strapped a pedometer on and I am walking over 10k steps a day- so far (in the last 3 days) I have walked no less than 11k. As of right now I have 12148 on my little purple counter. It is very motivating to see the numbers climb- and I am apt to park quite fair away just to help get my numbers up.
Anyhow- her goes- The Russian Dance- or as my kids call it "The Painting Dance"
The very first time we did this I set it up by just talking to the kids about art, artist and the tools of the trade. I had them set up an imaginary easel and put the perfect sized blank canvas on it. (the perfect size is different for each kid- it is sized so that they can hold it with one hand on the top, one on the bottom and if need be they could twist their arms to turn it from right side up to upside down- clear as mud I know)
Next we talk about paint colors and favorite colors and they each put some on their pallet. I'll then have them choose a color and splash it on to their canvas- they dip into their paint again and again they splash it on- then with their brush they mix it around. they do it all again - dip/splash/dip/splash/mix around mix around. That whole sequence repeats for a total of 4 times. Then I tell them that sometimes an artist may need to step away from their work at times to look at it from different views, and think- so we walk around the room with our hands on our chins thinking quite hard.
Once we return to the easel we pick up our canvas and grasp it in both hands (one on top one on bottom). we twist it from right side up to upside down several times until we finally decide to put it back and splash more paint on. The first sequence of dip/splash/mix is done once more with the mixing and painting happening more and more and finally we just pick up a big bucket of paint and splash it on to the whole thing.
Next I tell them that many artists enjoy listening to music while they paint, so why don't we? I hit play on the "Russian dance" (if you have a middle spin/jog wheel button on your mouse use it to click on the link and it will open it in another window or tab and the song will begin to play and you'll still be looking here) and we go through the whole routine again to the music this time:
dip
splash
dip
splash
mix around mix around mix around mix around
dip
splash
dip
splash
mix around mix around mix around mix around
dip
splash
dip
splash
mix around mix around mix around mix around
dip
splash
dip
splash
mix around mix around mix around mix around
walk around and think- and think and think and think- and think and think- head back to canvas- pick it up- look at it
this way
no that way
no this way
that way
this way
that way
this way
that way
dip
splash
dip
splash
dip
splash
dip
splash
mix around mix around mix around - more and more and more more and more and more
grab your buckets and SPLASH!
so we then go through the whole thing again- this time with a paint brush in each hand, then we do it again as the paint bush (holding our arms stiff at our sides) and finally we do it one last time as the paint- big huge body movement here- jumping around and really getting down.
so you see this 1 minute 8 second song, gives you 5 -6 minutes of intense cardio. (I don't pause at all once the music is on- it is on repeat and I just yell out what we are on (ie we have a brush in each hand- we're the paint etc). We've been doing this all week so we are to the point now that I don't have to cue them at all, we all just do our thing to the music. Even Olivia tries to participate- she stands and tries to bounce or waves her arms around.
good times
I promise I will throughly embarrass myself and get a video of our whole thing (minus the set up talk since they don't need it).
I've done this with kids from pre k up through 6th grade. My 6th graders thought I was a total dork (not wrongly) but they loved it by the time we were paint- even the really "cool" kids.
Try it- you'll regret it I'm sure, as your children will ask you daily
"Mom! Can we do the paint dance???"
