( 1982 ) 24 Year old Dave Stevenson the first male fitnes instructor at 21 McGill. A posh women's fitness club in Toronto, Canada. One of the first people to bring fitness routine into Canada.
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By JEAN SONMOR
Staff Writer
First,
the body has to be beautiful - long, supple, rippling with muscles.
And then the smile and the style have to be ingenuous - young,
appealing, graceful. A sense of humor's a nice asset, but, nothing
complicated or cerebral, thank you.
Good humored basic stuff.
Given those credentials and a smattering of
fitness know?how, a guy can write his ticket to fame and status
m the growing world of Toronto's lady fit-freaks.
Time was - a decade or more ago - Vic Tanny's
was the only game in town. The instructors were rigorously sex
segregated. Any woman with a nice body and the ability to count
aloud to 25 was fitness instructor material "for the girls."
The young instructors usually were nameless,
faceless fodder at the front of the class, counting. They didn't
always get 'round to doing the exercises themselves. After class,
you could catch them complaining over doughnuts and coffee -
bored and dissatisfied with their low-paying, low-status jobs.
'I'm mean. I'm vicious'
But times change. Today, the women who lead
the wild array of fitness and dancercise classes around town
are higher than kites on the business - can hardly wait to get
in there and lead their classes to the promised land of firmness
and ever-expanding energy.
Their charges look up to them with
something between envy and adoration. Often their advice on
how to treat a pulled muscle or backache is taken much more
seriously than the doctor's. But up the ante a little by putting
a MAN in that leotard at the front of the class and, bang, the
equation takes a quantum leap.
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DAVE STEVENSON
at 21 McGill: "Every class is like a performance. And each
one, I guess, could be my last."
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"It's a fact of life," says Debbie
Van Kiekebelt, "women respond to men." She's fitness director
at 21 McGill, the posh women's club that just hired its first male instructor, 24-year-old Dave Stevenson.
"His first class here had the usual 40. The second 45. The third 75. They were hanging from the rafters. Word had got out this gorgeous MAN was teaching the class. They were all there in their best outfits. You know - stomach in, chest out. Trying to impress. He came in saying: `I'm mean. I'm vicious. And I'm going to get you!' They loved it."
Body-wise
guys
shining stars
of fitness biz
Stevenson
reciprocates: "I love working with women," says
the 6-foot-3, 160 pound dancer, singer, entertainer. "They
look up to a man because, of his strength. I can relate to
them easier than men in a class; there's no competition."
He's concerned about striking the right balance
in his classes. The women have to have fun, but there has to
be energy and discipline. The first day at 21 McGill he laid
down the law. No chattering and walking in and out of class.
Apparently, the assembled crew of female movers and shakers
swallowed
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it whole and got on with their leg raises.
Stevenson uses much the same style on the youngsters he teaches
Wing Chung, a Chinese martial art he's been studying for nine years.In fact, it was (and a later love, jazz dancing) that give him his background for fitness teaching. He cares for his body as his "temple," his income, but his knowledge of the field is practical, not academic.
A starstruck kid at Central Commerce yearning to act, sing,
dance or whatever, he abandoned school early to travel with a show band
called Soul Express and do the TV show, Boogie.
Soul Express derailed somewhere on the East Coast in 1980 and Stevenson figured
it was time for some dance lessons. For two years he was immersed in studies.
He got a few gigs, but "there's no work for dancers in Toronto."
Besides, he has "trouble conecentrating on one art form. I want to do
them all."
When a job teaching dancercise came at The Workout on Yonge St., Stevenson
was delighted. Teaching fitness was not only a regular job but it allowed him to use
his mind, his body and his skill as a performer.
"Every class is like a performance. And each one, I guess, could
be my last. So I give it everything I've got. I believe in the energy
coming from me. Every day, I'm pushing for another goal another level. If I'm staying
the same, I know I ain't going nowhere."
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