Wii Fit

I'm back from our now annual trip to Omega to do Family Week and then visit the east coast. We had a lot of fun and a lot happened and I may get to tell you more about it soon but this morning I want to tell you about the Wii Fit.

Before we left on our trip, I made the rather large purchase of a Wii. Since seeing it at Tamsin and Rob's almost a year ago, Remi has been asking for one, even saving up a bunch of money to contribute towards it. While we're at the store, I see the video advertising the Wii Fit but as it turns out, they don't have it in stock and hardly ever do. The Wii Fit is a board a lot like a scale, and you stand on it and can do balancing exercises on it. It has a yoga segment. I want to try it! So while I was in the States, I stopped in at a Best Buy, and sure enough, they've got one, so I get it. Remi's so excited when I get back to the Omega campus. She wants to open it. "Nope. We have to wait until we get home and can plug it into the Wii."

We aren't even out of the car after our 11-hour drive and she announces she wants to set up the Wii Fit. I tell her she's got to at least bring all of her stuff in and put it in her bedroom before getting it out of the box. So she shoves her stuff in her room and before I've even had a cold drink after that hot drive (no a/c in the car, remember), she's got this thing set up. It does your weight and BMI and Wii Fit "age" and a bunch of other things. The coolest thing it does, in my opinion, is it has you do yoga postures. And I'm thinking, "how can this thing have you do yoga and have it be right?" Well, check it out. It has a circle where you're supposed to keep your centre of gravity and in order to get your red dot in the yellow circle, you have to lengthen your spine in Half Moon, for instance. In Tree, you have to stay steady. It shows you when to breathe. I could be out of a job!

But here's the kicker, after you've completed your pose, you get a rating. It tells you how well you did in the pose and then ranks you against everybody else who's set up on your Wii. Not surprisingly, I managed to do "better at yoga" than my kid. (Phew!)

So I'd heard that the Wii Fit was going to be fun and I texted Tamsin that we'd bought it and she asked if I wouldn't mind picking up one for her. I went back to the store in Kingston, NY, the next day and it was sold out. Whaa? I was in New York City a few days later at the Nintendo store, helllo, and there were Wii Fit accessories but no Wii Fits. This thing is hot.

It is such a cool yoga tool. I haven't done all of the poses yet - plus you have to cross-train with other training segments to get all of the postures unlocked - but I'm already looking forward to the challenge of keeping my balance steady and getting a good score.