80 Year-Old Woman Speaks Out About Exercise Logic

Welcome to my new blog. I’ve hesitated doing this because I don’t want to become addicted to the computer, but I turned 80 on September l8th, and I figure, what the heck – why don’t I start a blog and say the things I can’t say in a book or DVD.

After all, age is working in my favor now. As far as I know, I’m the only 80 year-old female exercise personality still teaching classes in the same healthy body I’ve always had, thanks to my own daily exercise system of slow, continuous stretching from the inside of the body.

I’ve got to tell you right up front, I’m not trained in the sport conditioning of exercise science (or “performance enhancing” exercise, which is a better description). My training is in classical dance, and I believe exercise is a natural, daily instinct equal to eating and sleeping; it’s just something your body needs to do every day, and it matters not what kind of exercise you do, as long as you do it every day. Why the exercise experts don’t tell you that, I don’t know, but I say it at the beginning of my lecture/demos and guest classes – adding that you don’t have to do what I do, but it’s certainly a good place to start.

I began teaching modern dance and the dancers’ stretch exercise in the late 50’s, wrote the first book on stretch exercise in l969, did four more books, then went to video in l997. I’ve done six very successful videos, all now out in DVD, but most people have never heard of me because I’m not a stereotypical exercise personality.

The first national television show I did was in l970. The producer thought I was naive because I said the American public deserved, and wanted, images of exercise that were on a more practical and principled level than the sexy body or movie starlet’s publicity exercise book. He called the average TV watcher “Mr. and Mrs. Meat and Potatoes with an average mental age of l2”, and TV gave them what they wanted – mediocrity. I disagreed with his philosophy, and still do, but HE’S a big deal in the media business now and I’m still Ann Smith, plugging along, doing what I do, in good faith.

But the point is I’m an octegenarian now, and still doing it, and doing better work than I’ve ever done, so in my once weekly blog posting (remember, I don’t want to sit at the computer for hours) I’m going to speak out about the subject of exercise, and do what I can to get Americans MOVING in the right direction, helping you find the exercise that fits your lifestyle – not the exercise imposed on you by the exercise bureaucracy. After all, I have nothing to lose at my age, and I have an increasing number of fans.