I Move For Me: Jo Moseley
Written by Jo Moseley
Jo Moseley, 54, is a Mum, flying solo with her sons, living on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales. Finding herself in tears in the biscuit aisle of her local Tesco’s aged 48, overwhelmed, anxious & not sleeping, Jo took up indoor rowing. She then rowed a million metres & marathon for Macmillan Cancer Support in 2014 in memory of her Mum. This opened Jo’s eyes to the joy of exercise for her mental and physical health. She now loves paddleboarding, bodyboarding, trail running and wild swimming. Jo is a huge advocate of tiny adventures for women in midlife and the joy they bring busy women in the sandwich generation juggling so many responsibilities.
You can follow Jo on Twitter & Instagram
It’s a chilly, bright blue skies October Sunday morning. As the tiny village on the Yorkshire coast begins to wake up, I’m making my way to the beach with my beloved wooden bodyboard and Wonderwoman swim cap. From the minute I pulled on my wetsuit, I’ve felt the excitement grow. With the anticipation of the cold North Sea, an hour to myself and the thrill of flying across the waves, I can’t stop smiling.
I skip through the seaweed towards the horizon. Last night the bay was swirling like a cauldron, today the waves are perfect. Not too big, not too small. I stand ready, watching. As a wave comes behind me, just about to break, I launch onto my board. It carries me to the shore. “Wooo!” I shout to nobody but myself. Only the oystercatchers on the beach can hear me. They carry on across the sand, disinterested in a 53 year old mother having such fun.
Bodyboarding is one of the oldest, simplest and most accessible ways to experience riding the waves. Lying prone (flat) on a relatively inexpensive board requires little skill or strength compared to (stand up) surfing and even the tiniest of waves can be exciting. It’s joyful, exhilarating and life affirming.
Every so often I mistime the wave and am dunked, turned and spat out from the froth. Beautiful golden brown seaweed is caught around my feet and ooh, yes, a little in my mouth. By now I’m laughing, giggling, running back for more. Another wave, another opportunity to fly.
And this is Why I Move. I move for the joy, for the tingles in my body, for the feeling that I am so totally in the moment that the To Do lists are set aside and for an hour or two the demands of the world can wait. I move for the bubbles of possibility that pop up in my brain when I’m running. I move for the feeling of strength and confidence when I’m lifting weights. I move for the amazing sense of courage I felt when, for 4 incredible seconds, I actually stood up on a surfboard this summer. I move to find stillness on a paddleboard in a world that pulls me in many directions.
I move to feel like me.
As teenagers in the 1980s, this was not what movement felt like or how it was presented to us. You exercised to lose weight or you played sport to win. The joy I had felt as a little girl doing cartwheels on the beach, zipping along country lanes on my Raleigh Chopper or throwing myself into the sea had been squished at secondary school. I wasn’t good at hitting balls, I didn’t like hurdles, I found competitive sport intimidating. I wasn’t going to win any races, so really the only reason I would exercise was to lose weight. Fitness was about how to change our bodies not how it might nourish them.
Thankfully with campaigns such as This Girl Can, opportunities like Parkrun and 261 Fearless and books like Eat, Sweat, Play by Anna Kessel, the conversation is changing. We are encouraged to unleash our inner beginner, to worry less what people think of us and to the enjoy the wonderful feeling of moving our body in the hills, on a dance floor, in a pool or hula hooping in our kitchen. We are more open about sharing that we hike or swim in the sea because it helps our mental health.
I wish I had realised this for the decades (literally!) when I barely exercised, seeing it as another thing I ‘had’ to do rather as something I could do for myself and to feel good. I wish it didn’t have to get to the point when aged 48, I was sobbing in the supermarket because I wasn’t sleeping and was anxious and overwhelmed by life, before I started being active. Having shared with a friend what had happened, she lent me an old indoor rowing machine. After two weeks I was sleeping and my life changed for the better. If the only thing I moved my body for now was a good night’s sleep I would still do it!
Thinking back, I wonder how I might have handled challenges in my 30s and 40s if I had felt the confidence, strength, joy and courage that exercise brings me now. I wonder what decisions I would have made differently if I had known that going on a run would have helped me see the possibility in a situation rather than sitting at home worrying myself into confusion.
Of course I’ll never know! But what I do know is that going forward I want to weave these moments of joy, gratitude and possibility into my every day. Not to change my body, but to nourish and celebrate who I am right now and all that I can be as I get older.
