Aerobic Grandma

Everybody knows that working out has physical benefits, and most of us understand its emotional rewards as well. There is also a third dimension, perhaps less understood, and that is the social side of the experience.

This is a lesson that I learned the hard way (one of many gained by that method). The first classes I taught in Florida were at a club in Bradenton, and I would come into a room full of gaily chattering students. At precisely the moment the class was supposed to start, I asked them too firmly to hush up — not a good decision. It is wiser, I have learned, to occupy my space in the front of the room and, well, first I just stare, as commandingly as I can manage. If that doesn’t work, I dial up the music until it overwhelms the chatter.

Only on the rare occasion when that fails to quiet the crowd do I shush them.

The learning here is that many students who choose classes for their workouts do so in part for the social rewards. They begin when folks arrive — one reason for fitness directors to schedule time between classes whenever that is practical. It is not a waste; it is an opportunity for individuals to discover common interests and expand their social networks.

Not infrequently, these relationships go beyond the actual class. I know this from other instructors as well as from my own classes at the Bayfront Park Recreation Center and the Longboat Key Club. There is perhaps no better example than the friendship of Roslyn Lurie and Gail Cardi, who know each other from my “Joy of Stretch Yoga” class at the Recreation Center.

Lurie has been doing yoga on and off over many years and credits it with keeping her body in good working condition. She practiced in the Chicago area before coming to Longboat Key, first as a snowbird, and full-time since 2011. In the beginning, she was at Whitney Beach, then in a house at the north end.

Lurie’s interests outside of yoga are many and varied. She has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and a master’s in adult education. Her work history ranges from installing mainframes in Chicago for IBM to training trainers at Turkey Point nuclear plant in Homestead for Florida Power & Light. She describes herself as a “class junkie who takes everything I never got to take in college, from the history of medicine to music appreciation.”

Lurie isn’t sure how she found out about the classes at Bayfront Park — either from reading the Longboat Observer or from a friend. But she knows how she found her present residence at Beachplace: A friend from yoga class, Louanne Lamp, suggested it. And she considers the class an important source of friends whom she remains close to after many years, even though some no longer go to classes. An example is Millie Rosenberger, a nonagenarian who only this season stopped after a lifetime of yoga classes, not from lack of interest but due to a cranky hip replacement.

Cardi spent her adult years in Rhode Island and Connecticut. She and her husband came to Longboat Key at the urging of their best friends in Rhode Island who had moved to Grand Bay. The Cardis bought at Bayport Beach and Tennis Condominiums and visited a couple of times a year until moving here full-time in 2011. That meant they needed more space, resulting in a 2013 move to a “west of Trail” house in Sarasota.

Cardi has “2.5 master’s degrees in clinical nutritional and urban studies.” She was a nutritionist in neonatal intensive care units for 25 years and maintains that license with continuing education courses at Sarasota County Technical Institute and elsewhere. She also has a passion for style; she wears high heels with her casual clothes and studies interior design and staging.

Cardi has done weight training since the 1980s but only discovered yoga three years ago when she recognized her need to work on range of motion. She thinks nothing of driving the 20 minutes to Bayfront Park for her yoga class.

“It’s the friends,” she says.

They would include Jo Anne Dickerson, a snowbird from Cape Girardeau, Mo., who calls Lurie and Cardi “best friends forever.”

“Something about yoga is conducive to meeting people you have something in common with more than regular exercise classes,” Dickerson says.

In season, Lurie and Cardi go to lunch with Dickerson. In summer, they go to yoga together at the YMCA in Sarasota, followed by lunch at Panera Bread. And there are many more stories like theirs of friendships formed in a fitness class — a fringe benefit of substantial value.

Molly Schechter is an ACE-certified personal trainer with a specialty in older-adult fitness plus YogaFit Instructor Training, SCF Yoga Fundamentals I and II and Power Pilates™ Mat Certifications. She teaches classes at the Bayfront Park Recreation Center and the Longboat Key Club. E-mail her at [email protected].