On October 23, St. Pete Beach resident Jane Putzel celebrates her 90th birthday. Not with a whimper, but with a pirouette and on pointe. Ever since she moved to Tampa Bay in 1977, she’s been teaching dance classes four times each week. Her business card says Exercise in Motion. It’s not dance routines, like Jazzercise, or dance steps. “I want people to relax, enjoy and express themselves through movement. Get lost with the music and work your body,” says the merry former ballerina, a self-proclaimed “stickler for detail” in the classroom.
Putzel’sminion of 60+ dancing ladies are legendary and faithful. Some have taken her classes for 20 years. “I teach at the Don Vista (SunTan Art) Center just south of the Don CeSar Resort at 3300 Gulf Blvd. St. Pete Beach, Monday & Thursday afternoons from 3:30 – 4:30 pm. I taught at the YWCA in St. Petersburg until it closed two years ago,” says the cheery octogenarian. “Then I sought out and found another location, the Sunshine Center, 330 5th St. N., in St. Petersburg moved my downtown classes there on Tuesday & Thursday mornings from 10-11 am.”
Born and raised in New Jersey, Putzel started her career in NYC as a bilingual secretary after attending business school where she learned shorthand and Spanish. With a passion for ballet and modern dance, she became a member of the Munt-Brooks modern dance company until she moved to Baltimore in 1952.
“The dance company was run by Hanya Holm, a talented contemporary of Martha Graham, who came from Germany in 1945 and brought modern dance to the U.S.,” recalls Putzel. “She became well known both for the dance company and later as a choreographer for Kiss Me Kate and One Touch of Venus. She lived to be 88 years old and taught until she passed away.
Putzel continued to work in Baltimore in an office but moonlighted teaching ballet in the schools for two years. Fate intervened and a blind date with a gent named John turned into a life together. They married and started a family (she has five children, 15 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren). When John retired in 1977, they moved to the St. Pete Beach home in which she still lives.
A widow for 13 years, Putzel’s life is pure joy through music and movement, interspersed with two mornings of tennis (Monday and Wednesday), dance classes Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. Friday? “Just a plain old housewife,” she says coyly, albeit one who enjoys watching Dancing With The Stars and attending the theater at age 89+.
Putzel’s anti-aging philosophy is simple. Before 1977, there was just the gym and hardly any fitness programs for older people. Aerobics was just starting to emerge as an exercise option, but Putzel was ahead of the curve. “I wanted to teach an exercise class based on my ballet and dance training,” she recalls. “I wanted it to incorporate flexibility, grace and balance.”“The music aspect is what I like to emphasize in my classes. I want to make my students aware of the music so they are expressing themselves through movement and not just doing it as exercise. The combination of dance and music fulfills them and changes their lives.”
Putzel enjoys changing-up her classes depending on the students’ mood. “I try to sense what’s up with them. If it’s Monday after a long hard weekend, I start with something slow and classical instead of jazz. You have to warm the body up, start slow and develop into a crescendo,” she explains. “The first 20 to 25 minutes are all stretches, then we move on to weights for 15 minutes, followed by floor mat arm, legs and hip exercises.”
Slackers beware, there is no chattering in her classes. Ever the ballet student, Putzel insists on the same discipline she learned long ago. Focus on the music and motion, embrace sixty minutes of concentrated exercising…or else!How will Putzel celebrate her Big Day? “I have no plans, my wish is that it be overlooked,” she laughs. “But I have five children so that’s not going to happen. They’re up to something.”
Written by Nanette Wiser