TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/071089/07108900.059

Text File | 1990-09-17 | 8KB | 130 lines

AMERICAN SCENE, Page 12

Pennington, New Jersey

Sweating And Sharing

For some women, aerobics provides more than a workout

By J.D. Reed


    Amid a tang of perspiration and perfume, 60 women in shiny
tights and baggy T-shirts strut to the strains of Jailhouse Rock.
In the large, carpeted room, the instructor, sleek as a seal in a
chocolate-colored unitard, takes the Elvis song from the record
player when it finishes and puts on George Michael's Kissing a
Fool. She cocks a hip and asks the women: "Will anyone else be
kissing a fool today?" She is answered by a breathless chorus:
"Yeah!" "I know I will!" "You got it!"

    Husbands, it's 10 a.m. Do you know where your wives are?
Selling real estate? Processing words? Marauding the malls? Forget
it. Every weekday morning in Pennington, N.J., an upscale village
of 2,200 about halfway between New York City and Philadelphia, a
number of busy wives and a sprinkling of single women put aside all
thoughts of jobs, husbands and children to gather for what has
become a new style women's club. In the aerobic dance classes at
the local Jazzercise center, women are talking about who's hot on
the silver screen, trading bargain tips and supporting new mothers
and divorcees. The workout classes have become a combination gossip
fence, networking center, self-help group, junior high locker room
and place to affirm grownup community values. "There's no place
like it," says JoAnn Mattia, 32, a physical-education teacher who
gets to four or five hour-long classes each week. "Everybody talks
about what videos to rent and which stores have the best sales.
I've made new friends here."

    Women in the speedy suburbs need a guilt-free place to gather.
Old-fashioned women's clubs no longer seem to fill the bill. The
country-club lunch -- a large helping of chitchat served with a
garnish of innuendo -- is too fattening and "unsupportive."
Self-employed or with part-time jobs, with homes to run and
volunteer work to do, what woman can spare three hours for the
afternoon bridge club? "Even though there's been a revolution,"
says instructor Anne Grossman, a part owner of the Pennington
Jazzercise Center, "we women have been taught that you don't waste
time. You have to tell yourself that you're going to do something
productive like exercise. A lot of women come because they want to
look better. They stay to socialize."

    On a weekday morning out on Route 31, between Pets of
Pennington and Party Things!, the Jazzercise center is alive and
humming. Driving everything from BMWs to Toyota pickups, women
arrive for class with coffee mugs in hand. The class is a mix of
violin teachers, novelists, horse breeders and substitute teachers
who range in age from 20 to 60. Some drop off preschool children
at the center's nursery; others gather in small groups to discuss
someone's vacation tan and the pros and cons of buying a car for
a 17-year-old.

    During the pulse-raising half-hours aerobic section of the
class, there is only time for a quick "How's everything going with
your (new baby, surgery, divorce, job, novel, college student)?"
When the women settle to the floor to stretch tired muscles and
rest racing hearts, however, the informal club comes to order.

    Husbands are a favorite topic. A fiftyish front-row regular
complains that her husband does the grocery shopping (the most
hated activity) every Saturday morning but says that he buys all
the wrong stuff. She has to go back to the market all week long.
The women agree: husbands don't know how to shop.

    Physical fitness and finesse crop up on the daily agenda. In
one of the last places that women regularly gather without men
around, there is much discussion of quads, glutes and pecs. Many
of these women know their cholesterol count, optimum training heart
rate and body-fat percentage. Says instructor and center co-owner
Karen Shaffer, 43, who bears a striking resemblance to Carol
Burnett}: "We talk about boobs a lot." Jazzercise is also an hour
of dancing, something that women seem to like a good deal more than
men do. Says writer and editor Phyllis Kluger, 51, a six-year
Jazzercise veteran: "I enjoy dancing, and, if I come here, I don't
have to think, `Oh, my husband never takes me out dancing.'"

    Family matters and suburban survival techniques get regular
attention. They are the cement that holds the classes together.
Says Grossman: "There's a sense of shared community here about the
fact that there's not enough time, the kids won't do the dishes,
and father paces the floor when daughter is out on the first date.
You need to hear that everybody else is going through it too."

    For some, the sharing has fostered deeper relationships. The
class has nurtured regulars through pregnancy, divorce and surgery.
Says Kluger: "If someone says, `Hey, I'm getting married next
month,' people start asking `Have you bought your dress yet?' An
emotion can coalesce around that kind of thing." When Mattia
announced she was getting married, a couple of the regulars threw
a swinging bachelorette party at Chippendale's, the male stripper
club over in New York City. Says the newlywed: "We rented a
limousine. We partied all the way in and all the way back." They
also brought back pictures of the goings-on to show the Pennington
class. Mattia and her new friends have remained close; they often
meet for dinner.

    The class is a kind of grass-roots media review board that any
pollster worth his clipboard would give a rating point to get in
on. Currently approved by the majority: any movie in which
heartthrob Kevin Costner (Field of Dreams) removes his shirt. The
video of the film Bull Durham, in which Costner takes off more than
that, is one of the area's hottest rentals. Television gets its
share of attention. Before summer reruns took over the tube, the
women found that Moonlighting was funny again, and the wacky comedy
of Tracey Ullman acquired a growing following. The women who
watched The New Perry Mason marveled at the good shape of Della
Street's legs. Mused Shaffer:"What exercises has Della been doing?"

    Sometimes, the class resembles nothing so much as a junior high
locker room. Says a regular: "We're free to be adolescent and
silly, like we were when we were 14, but without being mean." When
Shaffer played Prince's recent hit Kiss, with the lyrics, "I'll be
your fantasy and you'll be mine," she blurted out, "Not really.
What if Prince was the last man on earth? Would you be celibate,
or what?" The breathless women nodded in agreement.

    A kind of affirmative energy emerges from the group. "Once my
husband complained that we rarely saw each other anymore, that we
were like ships that pass in the night," says Grossman. "I told
him that everybody in Jazzercise felt that way too. But somehow we
get on with life, paying the bills every month and going to the
supermarket every week." As the women leave the center, headed
toward the market and rounds of errands, one realizes that the
aerobic women's club is more than a passing fancy. Grossman speaks
for many of her students when she says, "When we visited my
husband's mother in a retirement settlement recently, I couldn't
picture myself as a senior citizen wearing the suits that they wore
and going to bridge groups. When my age group gets there, we'll be
wearing sweatsuits, and we'll turn the bridge room into an exercise
studio."