Some People Move Our Souls To Dance: Jackie Stack, August 20, 1948 - November 15, 2007

My road from Couch Potato to 46'er and Triathlete began with many small steps - 4 inch steps, in fact, and each step was set to music. For 5 years, these small steps were patterned and guided by Jackie Stack, a five-foot tall dynamo who led me and my classmates through 45 minutes of Step Aerobics twice a week.

Our first classes together were on the second floor of the crumbling armory at the corner of Washington and Lark Street. The room was large and the ceilings were a good 12 or 15 feet high, but Jackie never needed a microphone to be heard over the music. It was amazing how much volume and energy could come out of such a small package. And there was never - ever - any question as to who was in charge.

This is not to say she was a tyrant - far from it. She was a leader, and she lead, and inspired, by example.

Jim Coyne has bought and re-habbed the armory, which now houses the latest version of the Albany Patroons, and various concerts and other events. But we used the armory long before there were any improvements. It had air-conditioning, of course, as long as you opened up the giant windows and kept them propped open with the sticks stored on the sills. And that was in the winter time - it got pretty hot in that room with 20-25 of us all trying to keep up with Jackie, especially if you were in her second class of the morning. (Yes - she often taught back to back classes and she was just as dynamic in the second class as she was in the first)

In the summer, she turned on two giant fans - which looked like they had powered Everglades’s air boats in a past life - in the front of the room. We still didn't have any trouble hearing her. Those fans really didn't cool us down too much - only a bit and only if the breeze made it to a bare patch of your skin and evaporated some of the sweat she'd forced you to earn.

The armory had running water, too. The shower downstairs in the locker room worked most of the time. Of course, the water wasn't necessarily warm - this was especially true in February when there was no hot water and your choice was to go back to work as either a pig or an icicle. If it rained the night before a class, you had to look sharp - both down to see if there was water or crumbled pieces of ceiling tile on your step and up - to make sure another one wasn't going to fall on your head.

Jackie made step aerobics a wonderful place, self-contained and all embracing. I loved going there. When we were there, we were in our own special world. My friend Ellen said it best:in Jackie's classes, it felt safe to try, and she never felt intimidated. All of us felt the same way.

I spoke at her retirement party, and kidded that this was the first time I had ever seen most of my classmates with their clothes on, and that I still didn't know anyone's last name.

Jackie knew everyone, though. And she knew what they did, and she knew their children and she knew how things were going for them. Pretty amazing considering we only met twice a week for 45 minutes, and there was the little matter of learning and mastering the routines.

She knew what kind of music everyone liked, too, and she did her darnedest to incorporate it into her classes. So, while lesser teachers relied on canned, 32-beat “step-aerobic" music, we had the real thing - Bon Jovi, Huey Lewis, John Cougar Mellancamp, Journey, Hank Williams, Jr., Gloria Estefan, Leane Rimes, Cher - it went on and on. Made it a lot tougher for her to choreograph the routines - I remember talking with her about "caesura's" - in context with a line from "Eddie and the Cruisers" - and about how real music was much more interesting to dance to but it was it tougher to choreograph because when she was creating her routines, she had to account for the eccentricities of real songs, which had things like caesura's.

Her routines were wondrous. She worked really, really hard to create excellent routines. She thought about every detail, from picking out the music, to fitting it together, to making the routines interesting and fun and challenging. We all looked forward to the new sessions, just to see what she had come up with. She went to
workshops, too, to make sure she kept up with the new steps and that she incorporated them into our routines. Every class had to have a warm up, followed by stretching, followed by the routines - starting slower and then building to a heart pumping, muscle building climax, and then slowing down, cooling down and finally, for those of us who wanted it, floor work - sit-ups, push-ups, and even some Pilates
moves - my favorite was the "dead-bug". And everything was perfectly set and timed to music - wonderful, dance-able, sing-able real music. It was a marvel.

She encouraged everyone to work at his or her own level - she stayed after to work with the rookies so they could master the basics, and she loved teaching us veterans the more complicated variations. Truth be told, she stayed after class with some of the veterans - ok, it was me - when I couldn't seem to master some
combination or move. It always seemed a lot simpler after Jackie took a minute or two to work with me.

For the last three years of our five years together class was held in one of the dance practice dance rooms beneath the Egg. It was a much nicer space - but a little claustrophobic. The seasons were reversed, too. Because of the HVAC, we were cold in the summer with the A/C and hot in the winter, with the heat. We bought fans for the
front and back of the class - the big ones from the armory never made it over - used them mostly in the winter.

The room had mirrors all along the front wall - except for where the pillars were. Jackie danced with her back to the class, but she could see us all in the mirrors. Except me - I almost always screwed up at least one step during the class, and I didn't want her to see me do this. So, I positioned myself in the back of the class, right where she couldn't see my reflection because of where the column
interrupted the mirror. Of course, this didn't work if she put some kind of reverse step in, which she often did, so I was facing the back wall and she was looking directly at me. Didn't work if I tripped over the step and made a lot of noise, either - I mean, she wasn't hard of hearing, believe me.

Jackie attracted quite a crew to these classes. Some of us were together for years, and we got to be good friends, even though we rarely saw each other outside of class. Jackie promoted such warmth and good fellowship that this was a perfectly natural thing to do. We would tell stories and gossip and share information and rumors. I marveled at some of the women who could sing the songs as we were
dancing, during the toughest parts of the routine (across the top,lunge, straddle!). They knew all the words, too. Me, I was maybe good for a chorus or two, if I had enough breath to get it the words out. Usually I didn't, because I was working hard just to get enough air into my lungs to make it through the routine.

Truth be told, I guess I was the class clown. I tried to get everyone, including Jackie, to laugh, or at least smile and I usually succeeded. Jackie was great and I got away with a lot. I was careful not to step on her toes, though, and mostly I didn't. If I did, I knew it right away and immediately shut up. I didn’t make that mistake too often, though.

I remember these classes and my classmates and Jackie as a part of the best experiences of my life. After 5 years of Jackie's classes, I was no longer a couch potato and I had the heart, lungs and legs to begin climbing the High Peaks of the Adirondacks - I could never have done that without her. And I had wonderful friends
and memories. It nearly broke my heart when Larry, the head of the Healthy State Program and Jackie's boss for years, retired and Jackie decided that it was time for her to do the same and to move on to other things in her life. I suppose I really knew it was ending when she gave the steps away to my classmates who wanted them - yes, those wooden classics had made their way over to the Egg, too.

Jackie organized a couple of luncheon reunions after that - but it got tougher and tougher to get together as time went on and other commitments intruded. I saw Jackie from time to time: in the park with her granddaughter; or driving through Albany in her dark green convertible; once I even saw her and her granddaughter at the Prime Outlet Mall in Lee, MA. The last time I saw her was in Washington Park in September - I was jogging with a friend and she was driving by and recognized me. She beeped,waved and yelled out a "Hi, Ron" as she drove by.

I have never gone to another step aerobics class. People who know how much I loved Jackie's class have encouraged me to go, but it wouldn't be the same - it could never recreate that magical confluence of time and place, of music and friends - and Jackie.

Jackie died about a month after she was diagnosed at age 59 with pancreatic cancer. A classmate attended the funeral with me and we were reminiscing about Jackie after we touched her casket and said good-bye for the last time. Sue pointed out that Jackie was one who wasted no time, who got things done once she made up her mind. So, she continued, it was fitting that Jackie learned that she was going to die, accepted it, crafted her own funeral, said good-bye to her family and loved ones, and then went, all within a month. She would have wanted it that way. I believe that's true: passing suddenly would have given her no time to do the things that she knew needed to be done, and lingering was just not her style - she was a women who got
things done.

I cannot give you a full portrait of this remarkable woman who was my teacher and my friend. Her obituary, written by those who knew her much better, can be found in the Times Union. I only knew her for a short time, and only in a limited context. But she was a huge presence in my life. Every time I hear Cher singing "Do You Believe in Love after Love", Brian Adams talking about "those were the best days
of my life...”, or especially, Jon Bon Jovi telling us he did it his way, "Just like Frankie said", my feet move and I remember the steps and the patterns, and I think about Jackie - and miss her.