Dongyidong in Chinese means to just move around. It’s random, you swing your arms a lot, and it’s mostly meaningless.
Where do people get the idea that it really doesn’t matter what you do? I’ve even had trainers tell me it doesn’t matter what people do, as long as they do something. So Olympic lifting, walking, marathon running, aerobics class, and bodybuilding are all the same? Really? Would you recommend Crossfit to an 80 year old? How about powerlifting for a pregnant woman? Face it – it DOES matter what you do and no, it isn’t all the same.
Take dongyidong, for example. I keep hearing, “Well, at least they’re moving.” Is that it? They’re moving? Have we lowered our expectations so much that we reward people for doing the absolute least, lowest level of effort possible? The problem is that by promoting dongyidong, we’re removing the need for any further correction in movement or exercise progression. How about actually fixing what is wrong with people? That’s hard work and demands actual knowledge so we promote dongyidong instead. How about actual program design? We throw that out the window by telling them to just dance around and wave their arms, instead.
I understand older people in the park doing dongyidong as a social activity but as trainers I think we should raise our standards. If we want to be experts then we actually have to practice our craft. And if you’re telling people to just move around randomly, I don’t see any craft or professionalism in that. Let’s raise our levels of professionalism beyond the dongyidong level.