I think it's great to have
a new passion
and it's great to
have challenges as you get older.
I would recommend for every
male to join a Men's Shed.
If you don't use it you lose it.
Sashaying their way through life,
these senior Australians
are proof there's no
age limit to learning.
I am now 62 and when
I was about 50 my
youngest son had
decided to take up ballet
as his profession and I
thought I better know a
bit more about it
and I've been hooked
and here ever since.
I think it is wonderful for
mind and body, for balance,
helps with cognition and just
generally being healthy.
And to me it's a much better
option than going to the gym.
I'm a GP and doing ballet
has reinforced to me how
important it is when I'm
recommending exercise to
patients that they do
something they love because
they're much more likely to do it.
You get a few people that say they weren't
allowed to do ballet as a child,
it was too expensive and
so they take it up
when they're a bit older.
A lot of people did do ballet
as a child and wish to
regain that a sense of
beauty and grace and
balance and flexibility. A lot of
people come for the community,
sense of friendship.
I think it's great to have a
new passion and
it's great to have
challenges as you get older
because life
can become a little less
challenging as you
reach the peak of your career
and your family has grown up.
Wendy's quickly pas de bourrée her way to
the front despite being anxious early on.
I've seen great progress
especially in her point work.
She's gone up into
toe work into her point
shoes and it's been incredible.
I'm sure it has helped me physically and
reduced things like neck
pain and that sort of thing.
Just do it, you won't regret it.
For 65 year old Robin Bunting
engaging in sedentary
education has improved her outlook.
Well I lost my husband and I
retired and I found myself
in an emotional
and social void.
So I had always had an inquiring mind.
So she joined the University of the Third Age.
Well currently I study and
have been for the last three years
politics and economics. That class is led
by a retired academic from ANU.
Everyone in the class feels
so capable and free
to speak their opinions
and enter into
discussion, in the entire classroom.
And I have found that I'm now
an avid watcher of
current affairs and newspapers
and it's improve my
conversation skills tremendously.
We have everything from
walking groups to card
playing groups to
language groups to
history groups to legal groups.
The list is endless,
we run over about 200 classes.
And I am so enthusiastic
about the organisation
that I volunteered to work
in the office on a Monday.
Which again opened up a
whole other set of new
interactions and encounters
and friends.
At almost 74 years old
Albert's traded in his office job
for the Men's Shed.
I'd read about it when
I was still working and
I thought it was a
great idea and always
thought I'd be interested
in joining it and a couple of
years ago, as a retiree,
I ran across an exhibit
by the Men's Shed at
a seniors seminar.
They gave me a leaflet,
said come on down
and have a look at
the shed, I did that and
straight away I was sold.
The camaraderie that you
see in the Men's Shed,
it's just something that men need.
Men don't talk
to each other much they
don't support each other
so a concept like this is
great. If you look around at
morning tea time you'll see
40, 50 guys sitting,
talking, discussing things.
Really good for them.
So I would recommend for
every male to join the Men's Shed.
This semester has been a fishing reel.
Being a keen fishermen
it's grab my attention
straightaway. Many and
varied skills involved in
it from wood turning to
metal lathe, manufacturing brackets
cutting out metal shapes.
It's really good, a lot of different skills.
He says with the right tools
you can learn anything.
You discuss with other guys the
use of the tools and that,
they tell you tricks of the
trade, it's really good.
Research shows all kinds of social
activities can have a
positive impact on
quality of life but
with only one in eight
seniors engaged in education,
employment or training
they're at much
greater risk of
experiencing loneliness
or functional decline.
There's a lot of
research on the benefits
of learning any
new skill at an older age
because always in the brain
there are opportunities for
new connections to be made.
Even this centenarian
has still got the moves.