Staying Active, Staying Fit
Millions have been introduced to home fitness as a result of Jane Fonda’s popular workout videos back in the 80’s — the first-ever home exercise videos. With more than 17 million sold, initially on VHS, her series not only launched an entire generation of leg warmer-wearing aerobics enthusiasts, it also set the stage for the subsequent proliferation of yoga videos. Thirty years after her initial workouts were released, the actor, fitness enthusiast, and author is now releasing her own yoga practice videos. Fonda’s regimen has shifted, and it’s one she wants to share with those who have been following her for decades, as well as those new to the practice.
LA YOGA: Tell me about your own yoga practice.
Jane Fonda: I started yoga late in life, in 1996. As is my way, I went from not doing yoga to doing Asthanga. At the time, I was married to Ted Turner and found a great teacher who would travel with me so I had great and detailed teaching for several months. I practiced Asthanga for about four years; then I stated practicing Iyengar. Then I stopped for a while because of back surgery—I had arthritis, which is why I’ve had hip and knee replacements and I have only restarted yoga recently.
LA YOGA: What inspired you to begin?
JF: All along, there was a little wise voice in the back of my head that was a whisper at first: “You need to meditate; you need to learn to do yoga.” I’m wound tight, I have a lot of energy, I move fast, and I know that I need to slow down and go in. I didn’t realize how yoga does everything — it is aerobic, it works your muscles, and it works your soul and mind. It keeps you limber, balanced, and centered. It had a huge impact on me.
In my book Prime Time, in the chapter “The Work In,” I talk about learning to meditate while on an eight-day silent Buddhist meditation retreat at the Upaya Zen Center in New Mexico. Eight days of silent meditation in a group—that is hard! But if I’m going to do something, I’m going to go right into the fire.
LA YOGA: Why these videos now?
JF: It took me three years to do the research for Prime Time. All the research pointed to the importance of staying physically active, to the extent that it blew my mind. If you ask Dr. Oz and other experts what is the number one most important thing for people to age successfully, they would say to stay physically active.
I thought: Who better than I to help people do that because I’m old and I’ve build up credibility in the workout arena? Most of what’s out there is for people who can do what I used to do, and since I can’t do that anymore, my demographic is being left out. And I don’t mean just people who are chronologically old but people in their 40s who have never worked out, are out of shape or have had surgery, or people who are getting back into exercise or beginning it for the first time. These are all included in the demographic I address now.
LA YOGA: What do you do in your own life to stay balanced?
JF: Now I do the yoga videos, but before yoga, I knew that I needed to stay active. Something happens to me when I start to move: I feel so good and have such a sense of well-being that I miss it when I don’t have it. It keeps me centered. I come from a long line of depressed people on both sides of my family, and without staying active, I would tend to become depressed. The older I’ve gotten, the more important it is. I used to do it to look good but now I do it to feel good.
LA YOGA: How has your fitness regime changed?
JF: One word. Slower. When you grow older, you want to go slower or you will get hurt. You can still lift weights, but they are lighter. I no longer run, but I do walk. There is something about yoga that when you are done with it you feel elegant, taller, straighter, prouder, and wiser. I feel that I look better from the inside out. I know that 90% of that is attitude that comes from the inside. I think that yoga is one of the major contributors to that inside-out beauty.
LA YOGA: What has shifted for you as a result of your yoga and meditation practices?
JF: I’m kinder. I listen to people with more compassion. I am more patient.
As I describe in “Work In” in Prime Time, I had a powerful meditation experience that inspired me to study physics.
Meditating is hard. Once you achieve mindlessness, you know where to go and it becomes easier. It’s like you can’t do it, can’t do it, can’t do it, and then you can. My “can” happened on the seventh day. There were sixty of us at the temple at Upaya, and there was a noise that accompanied the sensation and I felt as though I was being sucked into a tunnel—the doors were opened and we went out the doors and over the tops of the trees and over the hills and out there.
On some non-cognitive level, I experienced the fact that we are all one. We are made from molecules of the stars and we are all just fields of energy. Yoga helps remind me to not be stressed when I breathe and realize that we are just part of the stars. Yoga is the thing that brings me back there.
LA YOGA: Did these experiences surprise you in any way?
JF: Totally! It has helped me. It’s not easy being 75 when you have been a movie star and things are shifting and you’re not in the same place in terms of market value in a profession that emphasizes market value. The stress of that, of having children, of all the issues that confront us — such as “Will I earn enough money to pay all the bills? — all that was put into perspective.
Yoga practice offers a link to the state of mind which I have come to cherish. As you get older, it can make the difference between living a self-realized life or not.
LA YOGA: Speaking of acting, how does it feel to be acting again?
JF: It has helped me to be in the moment and stay present. Whenever a young actor happens to let it be known that she does yoga, I think, “She is going to be okay.” I wouldn’t want to be a young actor for anything. It’s much harder now; it was harder for me than it was for my dad. It’s become more competitive with more pressure on the wrong things. People old and young need something to maintain a perspective.
Yet, if you are doing yoga and thinking about what you have to do during the day, you aren’t really doing yoga. You have to be present in your body in the moment to get out of it what there is to get out of it. When you are present in your body, you are capable of compassion and empathy for yourself as well as others. Your brain isn’t just between your ears; it’s in your whole body, the neurological system in your whole body.
LA YOGA: What intentions are you setting for yourself in the New Year?
JF: The same as last year: Slow down and be in the moment.
Felicia Tomasko has spent more of her life practicing Yoga and Ayurveda than not. She first became introduced to the teachings through the writings of the Transcendentalists, through meditation, and using asana to cross-train for her practice of cross-country running. Between beginning her commitment to Yoga and Ayurveda and today, she earned degrees in environmental biology and anthropology and nursing, and certifications in the practice and teaching of yoga, yoga therapy, and Ayurveda while working in fields including cognitive neuroscience and plant biochemistry. Her commitment to writing is at least as long as her commitment to yoga. Working on everything related to the written word from newspapers to magazines to websites to books, Felicia has been writing and editing professionally since college. In order to feel like a teenager again, Felicia has pulled out her running shoes for regular interval sessions throughout Southern California. Since the very first issue of LA YOGA, Felicia has been part of the team and the growth and development of the Bliss Network.