A member for five years, she looks forward to the aerobics classes where she kicks, jumps and dances toward cardiovascular fitness to the beat of high-energy music. It gives me a boost. But when asked for the name of the person considered by many to be the originator of aerobic dancing, Davies admitted she had no idea.
Aerobic dance seems to have been around forever and remains the mainstay in most health clubs.
Many are devotees of this form of exercise but, like Davies, few are aware of how it started. When Cooper was a surgeon with the U.S. Air Force, he developed an aerobics program for that branch of the armed services. In 1969, Jacki Sorensen, the wife of an Air Force pilot, was invited to be the host of a TV exercise show for wives at the air base in Puerto Rico where her husband, Neil, was stationed. Jacki, a dancer who gave lessons at the base, was a logical choice for the job. As fate would have it, Neil took home a pamphlet describing Cooper's program.