Chair dance with me?

You know that by now I am almost a resident of The Sunshine Place, a senior’s recreation center on Jupiter in Makati. I go there to teach writing and other seminars but more importantly I go to exercise. While I have pain every time I stand up or get out of the car, nevertheless I enjoy my classes there.

Every Monday morning I go for an hour of Zumba Gold classes. In the beginning I couldn’t follow the movements, felt totally stupid. Now I am better. I can last for 45 minutes so I sit but join for the cooling down. After that my classmates and I sit share lunch and talk about our lives. We are beginning to form friendships.

After a bit of rest we go to our Aerobics Gold dance class with Danny Vinculado.  After these two dance classes I am on the verge of death from exhaustion. Please don’t expect anything from me on Mondays because that day I am almost catatonic.  When I get home I take two painkillers, collapse into bed and sleep by 8:30 p.m.

On Thursdays I go for a yoga class for seniors. I love this class. Yoga is exhausting on a very deep level so after the class I go to the Chair Dancing class.

What is a Chair Dancing? I did not know either. But a few weeks ago the dance class I went to after yoga was cancelled. I went to the second floor to ask what else I could do and there I saw the Chair Dancing class. You sit on chairs facing the teacher and follow his movements. You move your arms and your torso more than your legs but you also move your legs. But you are always sitting down. The Chair Dancing teacher is also Danny Vincula, who from his movements has ballet in his background. I found it to be a suitable exercise after yoga. Also my arms are horribly flabby. So I decided to join.

But Chair Dancing has a wonderful side effect. The music brings back so many memories. Last  class he made us move to Pearly Shells, reminding me of the time my girls were little and they were taking Hawaiian classes, their tiny grass skirts and the crocheted straw flowers I used to make to brighten up their costumes.

Then we did folk dances, reminding me of the Field Days in the dusty playground of our grade school, learning how to sway-balance during PE, dancing the Curacha onstage, playing the role of the man because I was tall, a moustache painted on with eyebrow pencil.  One summer we danced the Pandanggo sa Ilaw putting so many clips on the top of our heads to hold the candles in place.

Then I remembered doing time with the Bayanihan before I left for school in Europe.  I learned to do the Tinikling and the Jota Moncadena with a tall, slim, guy. Thirty or 40 years later I realized my partner was Lito Atienza, who by then had become Mayor of Manila. Why don’t we teach folk dancing in school anymore? Folk dances form us as Filipinos, teach us different movements in our culture, enrich us even if we laugh about it.  I vouch that memories are a wonderful part of being 72.

 But Chair Dancing is not an original invention of The Sunshine Place. Neither is it good only for memories. One morning when I arrived early they invited me to join a Chair Dancing class on TV. They played a disc and there it was Chair Dancing for people with dementia, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease or anyone else interested, like me. This class is handled by foreigners who are ballet dancers and they teach you the steps and what they’re called in French. On the screen you see that it’s a class attended by men and women who follow according to their personal paces but nobody is told he or she is doing the wrong thing.

This brief experience with the Chair Dancing disc enlightened me. For the first time I understood why dancing while sitting down can work wonders on your body. You move following a teacher but you don’t get as exhausted as you would if you were dancing the Zumba.  Parkinson’s disease, according to my friend Harvey, freezes you over time. There comes a time when you cannot smile anymore. When you dance to the music everything moves including your face. You giggle and smile at your memories. Your spirit awakens moving to the music.

So now I love Chair Dancing. It doesn’t exhaust me to the verge of death. Instead it enlivens me.

If you want to try exercise that is easy, fun and effective, I recommend you come to The Sunshine Place on Thursday mornings at 11:30 and try it.

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Sunshine Place is located at 56 Jupiter St. Makati. For information, call 856-4144, 856-4162 or 0917-881-3565.

Please send your comments to 0917-8155570.