These Are the People in Your Neighborhood

There are times I wish I had a tiny, discreet video camera hidden in my shirt collar or wrist watch, something like James Bond might use, in order to immortalize the behavior of people I see when I'm out and about. Alas, I am not in possession of such a device, so I can use mere words to describe the totally bizarre workout routine of an unlikely pair I saw in the park today. Daniel was so rapt with watching them he wasn't even interested in going down the slide, usually a favorite activity.

There was a young man, probably mid-twenties, and a woman at least twenty years his senior. They were both dressed in workout clothes and tennis shoes, and they looked to be in very good shape, especially the guy, who was good-looking in a all-American-jock kind of way. They were each carrying a ball about the size of a basketball, only lighter and bouncier. They started the workout by lifting their balls high in the air and lowering them, not dropping or bouncing them, just going up and down, up and down. It was sort of like really awkward tai chi. With balls. Then they came over to the playground equipment, hung from the monkey bars, and did something like chin-ups only it looked much harder. It got even more bizarre. Before it was over, they were jumping on the picnic table, throwing the balls against a tree while doing push-ups, and doing more faux tai chi on the pavement.

It was clear that the guy was a trainer of some sort for the woman, though I can't imagine what they were actually training for. What kind of athletic event requires jumping on a picnic table in the middle of the day? (And y'all think I'm weird for wrapping knitted objects around the birch tree.)