The Berkeley Beacon

Issue date: 10/11/01 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Beacon photo/Stephanie Chelf Spend an afternoon working out to the Ramones and many other punk music classics.

This is the second in an occasional series devoted to health and fitness.



I lay on the floor of the Middle East in Cambridge, breathing heavily with sweat pouring off my face. Don’t worry, I didn’t collapse at a show. I was in the middle of Punk Rock Aerobics.

Yes, the smelly, dank, dark club was the site of an hour of rocking out while getting in shape hard-core style. Punk Rock Aerobics is the brainchild of longtime friends, Maura Jasper and Hilken Mancini. And their idea is beginning to catch on.

Punk Rock Aerobics is exactly that—Saturday afternoons the blond duo takes over the Middle East downstairs for an alternative exercise routine.

“We used to always hang out and drink beers,” Jasper said. “We would move the coffee table and start dancing around to punk music. One day we decided to start exercising to the music we like.”

They spent the summer choreographing routines and practicing with friends. They started official classes in August.

Mancini, a former dance student at the Boston Conservatory, left the school to be part of a rock band. Today, at 31, she can dance to all her favorite tunes.

Punk Rock Aerobics bloomed when both women were laidoff earlier this year. Mancini joked about her “really boring” job video archiving and was thankful for the layoff, which gave her the time to become a certified aerobics instructor.

To their surprise, the classes (one at the Middle East and the other in Jamaica Plain) have attracted nationwide attention. They are keeping things small and simple for now, but that may change when they appear in Rolling Stone this month.

“[The response] is much larger than we expected,” Mancini said. “We had this big idea, but who knew it would actually happen. We’re even getting sponsorship from New Balance.”

Jasper, who turned 36 Saturday, added that Sports Illustrated (SI) asked the women for input on their favorite punk rock music to work out to.

“I changed some of my choices to songs that [SI] readers will know,” Jasper joked during class.

When it was class time, the girls got to business. But the main focus is still on having fun.

Continued...

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