Resa’s Pieces

Author’s note—I was told WordPress was easy for a beginning blogger. If you’re among the lucky few who have visited my blog, you may have wondered why #3 was at the top of the page. Me too! Now it seems to have disappeared all together except for the title. Don’t you just love this digital age?! Anyway, I’m reprinting it here with the hope it will behave itself and once again be on view to my many fans.

“Gotta Dance” sings Gene Kelley in the 1952 musical film “Singin’ in the Rain.”

“Not if I can help it,” states Mr. Darcy in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice when asked if he dances. “Every savage can dance.”

Yes, I’m quoting Austen, again. No apology for being a literature teacher. If you know the novel or the numerous film adaptations, the haughty Mr. Darcy softens due to the love of a good woman, Elizabeth Bennett.

Love and dance conquer all. Dancing, moving the body to music, is a basic human exercise.

Growing up on an Iowa farm, I rode the school bus. Every weekday when I got off the bus, I rushed into the house to turn on the TV to Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. While the show ran from 1956-1989, I probably “graduated” from it when I graduated from high school. Yet, years later, I was pleased to see the Bandstand exhibit in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. Video clips of the show live on the internet where you can see just about anyone who made it big in the rock music world.

I “danced with myself” watching Bandstand years before the Billy Idol song. It was great fun in a world that declared exercise in school to be calisthenics. For example, when I was eight years old in the third grade, the basketball coach would put on a record and have us do jumping jacks or bicycles, not done today, because it involved lying on your back, holding your hips up, and pumping your legs in the air. I realize now the coach was just giving himself time to work on his “plays” for the Friday night game. Basketball is a big deal in Iowa, win and you keep your job, lose and you lose!

Exercise in college was by choice as long as you earned hours to graduate. I learned to swim, one of the most useful things I learned in higher education.

When I wasn’t dancing to Bandstand or “bicycling” at school, there was Jack LaLanne’s show staring Jack, his wife, and his dog “Happy.” The former bodybuilder used basic home props. I would stand with Jack or his wife Elaine behind a chair and lift my legs or move up and down on my toes. A broom handle was good for twisting side to side or lifting both arms over my head. All of this “dancing” took place to organ music for Jack’s singing.

By the time the 80s came along, exercise via dance was back with some real music to accompany the movements of Jane Fonda and Richard Simmons. (During the Covid lockdown when the health centers closed, I relied on both Jane and Richard’s classes via streaming to keep me working out.) In the 80s health clubs seemed to be on every corner offering “aerobics” which involved a whole new wardrobe of headbands, leotards, leg warmers, and expensive shoes which we used to call “tennis shoes.”

I’ve had many aerobic instructors, both male and female, in a lifetime of moving to music in the endless task of trying to stay healthy but not work too hard at it! Dancing doesn’t seem like exercise.

One instructor, as my old basketball coach instructor, sat in front of the class and told us what moves to make. Others used the same music and moves for every session. Some yelled at us to move faster, “get those legs higher!” Some were too easy, some too hard. But I always met some great people and even gained some good friends.

My present aerobics professor, in my history of them, is the best. Her name is Suzy. She makes us work hard, but she makes it fun. She could make a living as a choreographer. She is that good at it. She constantly updates the song list changing the music and steps. She shows us alternate moves for she has all levels of fitness in her classes. She tells us why we are doing the moves she calls out. I not only exercise; I learn! Having trained teachers myself, I know when I see a really good one.

PSST! Don’t tell her I’m bragging on her. She might make me use heavier weights!

You’ve just read, I hope, Blog #3 of Resa’s Pieces.