I’ve found another hero – Richard Simmons.  Because of him, I have exercise in my life again, and I love it. 

I used to walk several miles every day, swim a few times a week.  I liked to dance and hike.  I even backpacked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back.  For several years, before and after my knee replacements, I worked out on machines at the gym.

When Amanda came to live with us, it all fell apart for a while.  She was everywhere and all the time.  Once she settled in, though, I was ready to exercise again.  After our morning bike ride to school, I would write and then go to the gym. But everything interfered or tempted me – a novel to read, errands to run, a nap, a lunch date. 

I needed exercise I could do at home.  At the library the only exercise video I could find was for pregnant women.  At 63 and out of shape, I figured it would be about my speed.  It was OK, though the music was faint in the background, the instructor was bland and pious, and her constant admonitions – breathe for your precious baby, this is the most wonderful time of your life – were irrelevant and faintly irritating.

So I went on line and found Richard Simmon’s Sweating to the Oldies series, and bought all four.  I had never seen him, except briefly in ads.  He didn’t appeal to me: I thought he was just another sanctimonious self-help guru.  I was wrong.  He is a man full of laughter, happy to be totally ridiculous in the name of health.

The music is my age: Peggy Sue, Dancin’ in the Street, Twist Again. The routines are a great workout.  They are low impact, and use a lot of arm action to keep the heart rate up.  Each disc presents a different scene: a prom with a band, a party in a diner, an amusement park called ‘Sweatinland.’  Disc Four is a sock hop but for some reason begins with a black gospel choir in robes parading in and singing Shout.

His dancers are many races, young and middle-aged, most of them overweight.  They dance and sweat behind him for 50 minutes, smiling, laughing, flirting, singing along.  It really does feel like a party.   

Some mornings I throw my whole self into it.  Some mornings I move as if I were under water.  Sometimes I dance six numbers and then skip to the cool down section, other times I do the whole tape.  I usually dance in a tshirt and underpants and orthopedic shoes – no one sees me but my husband, and he deserves a laugh.

 Richard Simmons is happy, kind, and encouraging.  Every once in a while he slips in an earnest pep talk, and you can’t help but feel he cares about you.  But best of all, he is thoroughly silly.

Instead of the standard drab warning that it is a federal offense to copy the discs, he and some hulking police officers raid a warehouse.  They find about 75,000 pirated discs, and a surprising perpetrator.  Richard camps it up, totally over the top, and I’m convinced it is his real mother in the co-star role.

When the band begins He’s A Rebel, a couple rides a huge motor cycle on to the set.  The tarty blonde gets off, gives the man an extravagant smooch, and then lip synchs the song while Richard Simmons flirts outrageously with her, dancing all the while.  It’s My Party is an energetic pantomime, complete with crying.

At the end of each disc, the dancers form two lines and applaud each other as they boogie one at a time down the middle.  For some the screen shows how much weight they have lost; the numbers are impressive.  They say Richard Simmons has helped millions of people to exercise and enjoy themselves.  Now it’s millions plus one.  Bless him.

THE GOOD OLD DAYS

 
THE GOOD NEW DAYS

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