At the pandemic’s onset, I quit the gym. In its place, I purchased a step platform so I could participate in a beginners’ aerobics fitness cardio class, featuring instructor Jenny Ford, via YouTube. In the safety of my own home, I soon learned about lift steps, knee lifts, arabesque lunges, V steps, side steps, the grapevine march, and various stretches.
Sometimes my cats joined in, tripping me up. Goat yoga is manageable – so I hear from my wife – but cat aerobics is not. I bet Jenny Ford, too, would struggle if cats were involved. It certainly would make for an interesting video.
I spent more time with Jenny Ford than with my own wife in COVID-19’s infancy. Brynne lived 2 ½ hours away. We were isolated from each other because she was a speech pathologist specializing in elder care. I didn’t want to unwittingly spread COVID to nursing home residents through her, nor did I want to catch, through her, COVID from them.
Daily, Jenny Ford streamed her way into my life for 30 sweat-filled minutes, via a video uploaded in 2014, which kept her eternally young and fit. At one point, forever young Jenny Ford commented, “I’m sweating.” Trust me, she was not sweating. She just wanted me to feel better about my own sweat that she had caused. She’s sweet like that about sweat. It was as if she could really see my sweat, that she was really with me in my living room.
At first, I tried to keep up with Jenny Ford, mirror her every move, but it was impossible. She sustained a perpetual, peppy bounce, provided no pause to allow me to gulp water or kick away a cat. She merged seamlessly with each section of her routine. She was all legs and hips and arms and smiles, a marvel of momentum. My legs felt heavy, as if encased in buckets of concrete. I was destined to swim with the fishes – that or I was just an idiot who accidentally stepped into not one, but two, cement buckets. Her arm movements befuddled me, especially the one during side steps that resembled an archer gracefully plucking a bow’s string. To keep things safe, I kept my arms to my sides. She was grace; I was gristle. My hips resembled rigor mortis, lost any semblance of a swivel. Jenny Ford was the epitome of fluidity. I was the Tin Man in need of WD-40. At one point, she looked straight at me and asked, “Are you breathing?” How did she know I wasn’t breathing? What I needed was an AED.
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Jenny Ford’s beginner’s aerobics class was serious stuff. I longed for the gym where I was in charge of my own movements (as few as possible) and pace (do reps, check texts, do reps, play Wordle …). In other words, a less taxing workout, a workout without work. I improved with each jaunt with Jenny Ford, even mastered the grapevine march – not an easy task for someone robbed of rhythm at birth. The aches and pains lessened. I became drunk on step aerobics endorphins, like a cat intoxicated on catnip.
I relied on Jenny Ford, not just for the workout, but also for her verbal affirmations deposited into my bank of self-esteem during social distancing.
“Nice job!” she’d say.
“Step … knee … down … down … Looking good!”
“Up … up … down … down … nice job!”
“Great job!”
“You’ve got it!”
I could do nothing wrong in Jenny Ford’s streaming eyes. Never had a woman spoken so kindly about my displays of basic physical effort.
I looked forward to our arabesques, the most precarious of positions! Bending forward on one leg, I lunged and reached for Jenny Ford who was bent forward on one leg lunging and reaching for me. We faced each other in this very vulnerable pose, bonded by balance, defying gravity together – step aerobics in the time of COVID-19 – and I thought, “We got this!” The word clandestine came to mind.
OK, I was reading way too much into our synchronized arabesque lunges. Isolation makes for a lonely time.
Out of guilt, perhaps, I confessed to Brynne about my daily 30-minute meetups with Jenny Ford. Brynne visited YouTube to size up “the other woman” I was spending time with. She responded, “Uh huh!” in that playfully accusing way of hers.
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It was much like the time when she found a Tupperware bowl in my cabinet that she’d hadn’t seen before. She examined the plastic bowl closely, as if it were actually one of my dress shirts with lipstick (not her color) on the collar. “Who is she?” she demanded. “The lid actually matches the bowl! Your lids never match.” I felt myself go pale. I stammered. I had no idea where that bowl with its tell-tale matching lid came from. Had someone planted it there? Had I hosted one hell of a wild Tupperware party and blacked out?
“I bet you borrowed it from your Mom,” she reasoned, letting me off the hook.
“I think you have a crush on Jenny Ford,” Brynne said over the phone once. She was joking, of course. My wife isn’t the jealous type. Lucky for me, she never witnessed our arabesques.