Yes! Water Aerobics at the Koret Rec Center

This is not a San Francisco gloom and doom story. There have been too many of them lately. San Franciscans feel sorry for themselves and wallow in despair. You might call this a health and happiness story. Indeed, when I want to be happy and feel healthy, I join an aerobics class that meets in the shallow end of the huge pool at the Koret Health and Recreation Center on the campus of the University of San Francisco. I joined a year ago when I turned 80 and didn’t know a thing about aerobics. Now, I hate to miss a day. 

Three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I do exercises for an hour that lift my spirits, provide a real connection to friends and serve as a meditation practice.  

 I’m one of four men in the class. We’re outnumbered by the 20 or so women, some Chinese and some Ukrainians, all speaking their own native languages as well as English. We’re mostly elderly; our bodies reveal our ages and the wear and tear we’ve accumulated over decades. We’re not a cross section of The City ethnically speaking, but we’re close to it. 

Exercises that I could not do while standing on dry land I can do in the pool. Whoever invented aqua aerobics deserves my deepest admiration and respect. Some exercises, like opposite jumping jacks, are more challenging than others. They force me to break habits and move in ways I’m not accustomed to moving.

Recently, Bonnie Tsui, the author of Why we Swim, published a piece in The New York Times about her lap swimming and the culture of the women’s locker room. “Often I come alone,” she wrote. “But always I find company in the locker room— a conversation to dip into or just to listen to.” 

Occasionally, in the men’s locker room at the Koret, I’ll have a conversation with Fema, who grew up in what was once called the Soviet Union, and whose wife belongs to the water aerobics class. Fema might tell me what he knows about the war in Ukraine, where he once lived and where one of his sisters lives. Another sister lives in Moscow. They don’t talk to one another, Fema says. Everyone in the aerobics class talks to everyone else.

The male locker room is the space where we get dressed and undressed. We’re in a rush to exercise and don’t linger and talk at length about the weather or our favorite team. The guys love the hot showers. I do, too. I see naked tattooed bodies, physically fit bodies, big bellied bodies, hairy bodies and bodies that have seen far better days. In a way, all the bodies are beautiful. 

The locker room at the Koret reminds me of past locker rooms when I played football in high school and rugby college and later when I swam laps in the pool at Sonoma State University. I probably can’t do laps anymore, at least not the way I used to do them, but if I wanted to swim laps two dozen or so lanes are available.

My conversations at the Koret mostly take place in the pool, and, while we’re not supposed to talk while exercising, sometimes it can’t be helped. Gerry from Belfast tells me in an Irish accent about the latest movie he’s seen and that he urges me to see. Maggie will describe a walk or a restaurant she and her husband enjoy. 

We have no teachers, except ourselves. Marvin, a retired medical doctor, might lead the class, or else Colleen, or Anna or Deanna who calls what we have a community. She and the others are teaching me to do the exercises properly. The main thing, I’ve been told, is to use the water so that it provides maximum resistance. I’m learning to push and pull with my arms and my legs, so the workout is truly aerobic and gets my heart and lungs working. No one in the class moves in exactly the same way as anyone else. We don’t do water ballet.

When I first joined the aerobics class, the water felt very cold indeed. I could only stay in the pool for 30 minutes before heading to the locker room and a hot shower. Then, I purchased a Neoprene top which I always wear and that keeps me warm in water that is usually about 80 degrees. Now, I stay in the pool for 60 minutes and consider myself a real trooper. 

On Monday nights, I attend a yoga class around the corner from my apartment at Ocean Beach. Most of the participants are young women with young slim, fit bodies. A few young men unfurl their mats, extend their bodies and do the poses, but there is almost no interaction between the young men and the young women. 

One guy explained that he didn’t initiate a conversation because he didn’t want to be perceived as hitting on a woman. In the water aerobics class one woman told me that when she was in her twenties and a guy didn’t hit on her she was insulted. Different strokes for different folks. I’ll continue to practice yoga and also go to the aerobics class where the women welcome me like I’m a member of an extended family. I guess I am. And they’re members of my extended family that keeps doom and gloom at a distance.