Congratulations on fitness for the elderly

① You have walked 3,000 steps again today, which is great. You are more energetic than our young people who sit in the office every day! ② Congratulations on winning the award for your Ba Duan Jin exhibition. Our coach has been praising you privately for almost half a month for the standard of your movements! ③ As expected, your recent blood pressure has mostly stabilized due to practicing Tai Chi every day. If this continues, you will definitely be at the front next time the whole family climbs Xiangshan Mountain!

I have been a volunteer coordinator in a community senior fitness team for three years. These sentences are really not just made up, they are practical money saved after going through many pitfalls.

On Aunt Zhang's 88th birthday last year, someone in the team came to wish her a happy birthday and said, "I wish you live to be a hundred years old." In the otherwise lively place, Aunt Zhang's face became dark on the spot. Later, she told us privately that her mother lived to be 103 years old, and she always felt that she could at least outlive her mother. This sounded like a curse that she only had 12 years to live, so she couldn't be happy.

In fact, there are two different opinions on congratulations on fitness for the elderly, and there is no absolute right or wrong. People of the older generation think that they should say universal auspicious words, such as "good health" and "all the best". They can be said without making mistakes, especially when dealing with elderly people who are not familiar with them. If they are too specific, it will be embarrassing if they remember it wrong. Our group of volunteers who often deal with the elderly prefer "precise punctuation". The more detailed your words are, the more the elderly will feel that you really care about them and are not just following a formality.

Don't tell me, this is really useful. For example, Uncle Wang of our team comes to practice the horizontal bar every day, and now he can pull 12 in one breath. The last time I saw him finish practicing, he said casually, "Uncle Wang, the muscles in your arms are stronger than my cousin who goes to the gym every day. You will definitely win the gold medal for our team at the next community sports meeting." He later chatted with his old friends for almost half a month, saying that I know my stuff and can speak better than those who only say "you are awesome".

Oh, by the way, if you encounter a more formal occasion, such as awarding awards in a senior fitness competition, you don't have to be too pretentious, just combine formal congratulations with specific details. The last time our district Tai Chi competition awarded a gold medal to 72-year-old Aunt Chen, the host did not say anything like "Congratulations on your excellent results." Instead, she said, "Congratulations to Aunt Chen for winning the gold medal. You stand on the stage and do Tai Chi with such energy that you look like you are 50 years old. We young people have to learn from you." Aunt Chen came down and told us that this made her happier than the two hundred yuan bonus.

Of course, there are some red lines that you should pay attention to. Don't mention negative words such as "don't get sick" or "don't fall", and don't poke people's pain points. For example, if someone has diabetes, don't open your mouth and say "I hope your blood sugar will not be high again." In other words, "You keep walking every day. Recently, your blood sugar has stabilized and you can eat well. It's so enviable." It's much more comfortable to hear.

In fact, to put it bluntly, there is no universal template. My biggest feeling in the past three years is that if you can really remember that Aunt Zhang told you last week that she wanted to practice swordsmanship to participate in the city competition, and remember that Uncle Li had knee pain and practiced silent squats for half a year before he was finally able to go downstairs to pick up his grandson, your casual words will be more heart-warming than any carefully compiled template, right?