An Aerobic Fantasy
by Barbara Walters

Webmaster's note:  When compiling materials for this site, I found the following article in Jacki Sorensen's Aerobic Dancing Mini Magazine, dated Winter 1983.  This many years later, student Barbara Walters' experience and assessment of Jacki's Aerobic Dancing still captures the feeling that so many of us feel for the program.  Thanks, Barbara, for the article, and if you find this site, please send me e-mail!

A Lois Lane type recently interviewed a class full of aerobic dancers to find out why this kind of exercise was becoming so popular.  It seems that none of them knew the answer.  All they could say was that they enjoyed what they were doing.  If I had been there, I would have gladly explained.  Aerobic Dancing is a woman's answer to "Fantasy Island."

When I was a teenager growing up in New York City, it was every girl's dream to become a Rockette.  We would train for our future audition by trying out for the high school cheerleading or twirling teams.  We practiced cheers and jumps for hours, slept with beer cans in our hair, even bought a new tube of Westmore's "Baby Pink" lipstick, all to no avail.  It didn't matter who we knew or how adept we were.   Regrettably, these tryouts resembled a beauty contest and most of us left with our egos crushed.

After a few more years of dancing lessons, we ventured down to Radio City Music Hall.   We didn't sleep at all the night before.  We just sat up till dawn and pictured ourselves on stage in magnificent costumes, plumes and sequins in our hair, lights rhythmically flashing on the walls and ceiling, and runways leading out to our adoring public.  If someone had only told us in advance that you needed to be five-foot-seven in order to conform with the world's greatest precision dancers, I could have saved my five-foot-two body the embarrassment of showing up altogether.

In the womanly spirit of perseverance, we found our adult selves daydreaming about running away from home to join the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.  An ordinary football game was transformed by these extraordinary beautiful women.  In unison they pranced their way into the hearts of the American male, my own husband included.

I knew that I could move like that, too, if only I were given a chance.  With stereo accompaniment as I cleaned my home, I could step and strut with the best of them.  No longer content to be a closet entertainer, what I wanted now was a public, a choreographer, a costume and most of all, a gorgeous body.

My dream slowly began to materialize.  Wearing a french cut tee shirt and a pair of white stretch short shorts, the Aerobic Dance Instructor who led our class had the most trim and shapely body I ever coveted.  Whatever she was doing to get that way was what I wanted to do, too.  Our first class just whet our appetites with a taste of the routines to come.  After a few more sessions, I experienced once again my youthful delight, as when I dreamt of being a professional dancer.  I stepped, turned and jogged four with the rest of my entourage as Frank Sinatra belted out "I Did It My Way."  We kicked high and knee lifted in unison to "A Chorus Line."   All of a sudden I was on stage again.  The Dallas Cheerleaders better watch out.

Here were forty pairs of legs, thigh rocking and step together stepping in a large circle around the gymnasium.  The tape player rendered our moving theme.   "Cause you're every woman in the world to me.  You're my fantasy.  You're my reality."

In the ladies room after class, we cleaned up, dressed and applied fresh make-up.  Like dancers after a rehearsal or performance, the conversation was spirited and cheerful.  We had sweated up a storm, perhaps even tightened a few muscles and trimmed a few inches.  There was a sharing, a camaraderie.

Attending the biweekly class was something I anticipated eagerly.  The friends I made there agreed.  We not only had enough energy to complete the class with enthusiasm, we learned the words to the songs and sang along, too.  We left the session invigorated and enlivened.

The fantasy lasted more than one hour for me.  As I sauntered out of the meeting hall, poised and motivated, I moved joyfully through the rest of my day.  I even sent away for a tape recording so that I could practice at home every day that I didn't take a class.

Now with a knee bend sweep, I transform my mundane world to the world of standing room only.  To the lyrics of "Fame," the crowd cheers as I hustle, jog and disco lunge.  "Remember my name.  I'm going to make it to heaven.  I'm going to learn how to fly."

Why is Aerobic Dancing so successful?  At last, every woman can belong to a select group honored for their physical dexterity and creative flair.  In adulthood, membership in this club makes a dream come true.