Richard Simmons passed away this week.
I’ve been thinking a bit about Mr. Simmons over the past few days. Why, you might ask? Because I used to do Sweatin’ to the Oldies.
I attended a very small, rural elementary school in West Virginia. We didn’t have a PE teacher, so classroom teachers were supposed to incorporate phys ed into our day. When I was in first grade, my teacher would take us to the school gym a couple of times a week. She’d roll out the VCR cart and pop in Sweatin’ to the Oldies. We danced along with Richard in his short shorts and sweated to the point of exhaustion. To this day, when I hear It’s my party, and I’ll cry if I want to, I think of my 7-year-old self doing the exaggerated crying hand motions (and Judy’s wearing his riinngg - point, point, point to your ring finger). I have no idea if we did this routine ten times or a hundred times; memories are weird in that way. I don’t remember hating it, though, not in the way that I dreaded middle school gym class (where the activity was almost always warball, which was basically dodgeball on steroids). I remember being fascinated by Richard’s energy and the way his workout companions were people of all sizes. They seemed to be having fun, unlike the Barbies in leotards I’d seen on my mom’s Jane Fonda workout tape. Maybe a seed was planted then, that exercise is for every body. Maybe that early experience with group exercise led me to step class in the early aughts and then Bodypump in my twenties. Was it that first experience with group fitness that has kept me chasing an exercise high for most of my adult life, even though I’m not really an athletic person? Is that why I sometimes wake up at 5 am for an early summer spin class, when I could be sleeping in?
Given a choice as a first grader, I probably would have chosen to do something more developmentally appropriate for PE, like freeze tag or four square. Maybe Sweatin’ to the Oldies was just the 80s version of GoNoodle and my teacher was ahead of her time. Either way, it was one of those character building experiences that I’ll never forget. Thanks, Ms. S, for that bizarre introduction to group fitness. And rest in peace, Richard Simmons. You were one of a kind.