Deep Rope

There was a minute or two in that increasingly amazing movie Mystic Ball (increasingly amazing just in the memory of what you've witnessed: the love, the play, the skill), when you get a glimpse of a few girls playing rope. Take a look. Click on the image if you want to see it bigger.

Looks like they're playing Double Dutch. Except the girl in the middle's balancing a ball on one foot. Balancing a ball one one foot and jumping two ropes at the same time! OK. Now look at this picture. Also from the same movie. Also the same kids. Only they're all balancing a ball on one foot!

This is the kind of stuff that gives me chills, that makes me just about want to pray to the spirit of play, if you know what I mean, if there is such a thing. Double Dutch, from 4 corners, while balancing a ball on one foot. And, o, wait. Isn't the girl in the middle also jumping her own rope while she's jumping the two crossed ropes while keeping a ball balanced on her foot? How utterly accomplished is that? How fun, how lovely, how spiritual, how miraculous how the spirit of play has moved these girls to such profound and practiced depth!

Play. Do not doubt its powers. Even when no one wins, everyone wins.


from Junkyard Sports

Exercise Games

This is a picture of me. As you can see, I am not what one would call an "exercise fanatic." There is no buffness, no rippedhood, no six-pack anywhere evident on my soft, cuddly bod. This has alot to do with my early experiences of physical education, and my consistently persistent predilection for the more spiritual forms of conceptual calisthenics.

This probably explains my close to lifelong pursuit of ways to make exercise fun.

Several many years ago, I decided to make that particular passion more manifest, and began designing games and actual toys that would somehow make exercise, if not less painful, at least more playful. I imagined a "fitness arcade" which later became more publicly manifest in Dance-Dance-Revolution and Wii Fit. Though I had nothing to do with these products, I nevertheless consider them manifest substantiation of the various joys and benefits of Exercise Games.

About a decade ago, I started looking for something more accessible - something people could make out of junk, if they were so moved. Today, I decided to share one such concept with you in the hopes that it may stimulate you to: 1) make your own, 2) invent other such devices, or at least 3) contemplate the potential benefits, both physical and financial, of the exercise-game connection.

There's a puzzle called Tower of Hanoi. It involves moving discs from base to base. The key word here is moving.

Here, for your amusement and inspiration, my video elucidation of how to transform this fascinating puzzle into what can only be called an "exercise game," and equally only, a "fitness toy," or even "body/brain puzzle."



from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith