Sweating With the Older Sisters

I WROTE BEFORE OF MY DECEMBER VOW to do a little more, err, shaking of my booty. I’ve kept it up, save during “vacation,” when I was without childcare (or school). Now that school’s back in session (thank heavens), I’m back at the gym, dancing up a storm. But this isn’t your ordinary cardio class.

My new fitness ritual takes me two or three days a week to a community center in a nearby town. It’s nicer than “community center” suggests–with a large pool, lots of fitness equipment, and on-site day care center, it’s an amazing resource for our rural area. I don’t know what the median age is in the county where the facility is located, but I’m willing to bet it’s over 50, if the patrons of my gym are any guide. I am always, always one of the youngest women (every once in a while a brave man joins) in a very crowded class. The teacher is, I’m guessing, in her 50s, and most of the women busting a move alongside me are in their 60s.

The fourth or fifth time I went, I ran into the mother of a friend of mine. She’s, you know, mom-aged, i.e., in her late 60s or maybe even early 70s, but she’s in awesome shape. She was excited to see me, and quick to add how great it was to see some younger women (I’d dragged two other “young”–i.e., in their 40s–friends along with me) at the center. I asked her if she came to the class frequently, and she replied, somewhat sheepishly, that she didn’t. It was too easy for her.

I was drenched in sweat, and sore from classes I’d taken the previous two days.

OK, this ego-crushing moment aside, exercising with women a generation older than I am has mostly been an inspiring experience. Where I live now, in stark contrast to my former home in Los Angeles, I see little plastic surgery, abuse of injectables or other strategies meant to ward off aging but often, in my opinion, just drawing more attention to the cruelties of time. The women in my class are round and lean, white-haired and hennaed, exhibiting every variety of beauty and vanity and lack of those qualities you can imagine. But without exception, those women are moving, swiveling, dancing. They’re sexy, perhaps, most of all, because they’re clearly having fun.

I’m lucky to have a number of women I count as close friends who are 15 or 20 years older than I am. But our interaction tends to take place over a glass of wine, not a water bottle and a yoga mat. Seeing older women in this light was a game-changer for my view of myself and my own aging, and my view of my companions in cardio.

I started taking this class in a moment of desperation to shift my focus and kickstart my exercise habits, realizing that in this economy (how sick of that phrase are we all?) hiring a personal trainer was just not an option. It felt a little like a spoonful of bitter medicine, but one I’d force myself to choke down. Instead, I can’t wait to go dance and box and kick and sweat every week with a roomful of sisters, senior and otherwise.

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