CENTERVILLE, Ohio -- The St. Leonard retirement
village here has a whole new way of thinking about recreation: Bingo
has made way for cane fighting.
"Down on top of the head and up between the groin!"
urges instructor Debra Stewart, of nearby Chung's Academy of Martial
Arts, commanding a dozen gray-haired students swinging canes at
imaginary attackers. "Stomp him! Dig it in there. Do it hard!"
Jim Ghory, an 82-year-old retired toolmaker,
volunteers to take a few demonstration shots at Ms. Stewart, who has a
black belt in tae kwon do, a Korean martial-arts discipline. "You want
[it in] the collarbone or the ribs?" he asks.
Senior centers and retirement communities are looking
for new ways to promote exercise in order to stave off physical
decline. Older people interested in honing their self-defense skills,
meanwhile, are delighted to find that something they already own can be
used as a weapon.
"Oh my gosh, it's a huge hit," says Lena Mast, manager
at Lodges at Naylor Mill, an independent-living complex for seniors in
Salisbury, Md. Ms. Mast began offering cane classes for residents in
April and says "it's now the top thing they look forward to."
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