I Thought I Was Still on the Younger Side — What Finger Exercises Made Me Realize — 2026/5/26(Tue) R8

Yesterday, I attended the “Iki-Iki Exercise” program at Eden for the second time.

When I joined for the first time last week, I was surprised by how many things I could no longer do as easily as I had expected. So I decided to attend again yesterday, but it still was not simple.

Exercises included rotating fingers one by one starting from the little finger, then from the thumb, and switching between a right-hand “open palm” and a left-hand “fist” movement while extending the arms forward.

I understood what I was supposed to do, but halfway through, my movements became confused. My ring finger especially would not move the way I wanted.

In the spot-the-difference exercise, I could only find 4 out of 10 differences. Even simple single-digit calculations made me feel rushed.

I had always thought of myself as someone who was still fairly capable for my age.

Back in Shizuoka, I rode an electric bicycle to the gym, attended swimming classes, and joined studio exercise programs. Somewhere inside me, I think I still believed, “I’m probably still okay.”

But since coming to Matsuyama and starting life at Eden, I have gradually begun to notice small signs of decline.

The stiffness in a body I once thought was flexible. Slower reactions. The difficulty of making the right and left sides move differently.

And more than anything, the feeling of “understanding it in my head, but not being able to do it.”

It was a little shocking.

At the same time, though, I feel that coming here allowed me to notice these things.

If I had continued living alone, I might have kept repeating only the things I could still do, without ever noticing the things I could no longer do.

Here, there are small weekly stimulations — radio exercises, mahjong, and programs like Iki-Iki Exercise.

Yesterday, I was also given a file of the exercise materials.

There is an atmosphere here that gently says, “Let’s keep trying together.”

That is why I have begun to notice changes in myself.

Yesterday, I thought, “I can’t even do something this simple anymore.”

But today, I find myself thinking, “That’s exactly why I should keep attending every week.”

Realizing decline can be a little frightening.

But perhaps having a place where we can notice these changes is not entirely a bad thing.

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