Human Robots or Human Beings?

Whenever I do a guest exercise class some place in the U.S – which I’ve been doing the last few years as part of a national effort to get 50+ people moving – I’ll invariably have a few 20 to 40-year old exercise addicts show up in my classes.

I’m flattered, of course, that they want to learn my system, but I’m saddened by their obvious addiction to a natural body instinct that they’ve let dominate their lives. They look, think and act like human robots without any individuality.

Hopefully they will level out and find their own balanced individual persona, which is why I welcome them, even as I hear them obsessing over how much time they should be exercising to get their heart rates to a certain level, whether they should do cardio workouts before or after weights etc,. All their questions reveal they’ve been letting the trainers and other experts fill them with an abundance of conflicting technical exercise information.

My standard answer is to spend as much time listening to their own bodies as they do the experts because after all, they’re the only ones living in their bodies. I also explain that while they’re in my class they should relax, hear the music, follow me and enjoy the movement.

I care about healthy individuality, a combination of body, mind and soul. Learn from the experts of course, but don’t let them turn you into human robots.

A Flexible 2008

Flexible strength is the expertise of the classical dancers, who have to be able to move with strength and grace from any position. They learn how to achieve and maintain it through their slow, continuous stretching that involves the entire body.

As a modern dancer, I’ve taught, written, and done videos about the dancers’ stretch exercise for many years, but when I started specializing in physical fitness and exercise for the aging and infirm I thought I should learn how the exercise scientists approach the subject, and how they make their conclusions, because there seemed to be such a disconnect between the art of the dancer and the science of exercise.

Dancers live long, healthy lives in good bodies. So do singers and orchestra conductors. Why wasn’t the exercise establishment aware of that and interested in what we do to achieve that? So I went to some seminars and read a lot of books by exercise scientists, thinking I’d find enlightenment that would connect us. I even went back to the university at age 70 to do an independent masters study on physical fitness and aging, as a dance major.

In the dance classes – among students the age of my grandchildren – I noticed that at age 70 I was just as flexible as they were and had no trouble keeping up with them, even though it took me longer to learn the improvisations and new material. And I learned a lot about anatomy and kinesiology that I didn’t know, which gave my own work more depth.

Show me the 70-year old athlete trained in the exercise science of sport conditioning who still has the flexible strength of the 70-year old classical dancer! The exercise scientists seem to be hung up on senior weight training; the aging population really needs a total body, flexible strength, which is what the aging dancers have.

Oh, how I wish we could come together and blend our expertise so we could lift America out of this overweight, sedentary period we’re in! Maybe 2008 will be the year we connect!