If you don’t move it, you lose it

Oh, are they diggin’ Michael Jackson’s, “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground).”

Dancin’ to it — the music pours out of the sound system at the Pearson Community Center in North Las Vegas — has definitely put more cut in their strut, more pride in their stride.

Thirty women — most of them baby boomers but a few a tad more mature — show off the line dance moves that 57-year-old teacher Raymonda Rizer believes work best to the King of Pop’s tune.

It’s a little after nine in the morning as “Flashin’ ” by Dial Tone the Producer gets cranked up. “Yeah,” the women yell across the workout room.

On Monday and Tuesday mornings as many as 60 women, including 63-year-old Ceola Scott who feels bad if she misses a session, take to the floor for the free program. Like many of the other women there, she finds exercise workouts in a gym tedious and boring.

Lucy Eatmon, the 78-year-old woman who started these Las Vegas FanciDancers dance/exercise sessions with the late Crystal Marble, watches as the smiling women turn, step, slide, stride in unison.

“We wanted to give women a fun way to do exercise,” Eatmon said. “When you sit around, too often you put on weight and have health problems.”

Rizer puts it this way: “If you don’t move it, you’re going to lose it.”

On this day many of the women are wearing pink T shirts in recognition of breast cancer awareness month. Terri Thomas says she wears hers in honor of her mother, Barbara Hammett, a 21-year breast cancer survivor.

Eatmon’s good friend Marble died of the disease last year.

It was in 2008 that Marble and Eatmon came to believe that the best way to get their arthritic friends moving was through line dancing.

“If it wasn’t fun, we just didn’t think they’d keep up much exercise,” Eatmon said.

Some of the women end up in dance competitions or dance in parades.

Rizer said several of the women showed off their steps during the Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade.

Scott, who moved to Las Vegas in 2002 after retiring from a 30-year career at General Motors in Michigan, said she is a true believer in line dancing as exercise.

“I do it for two hours straight and I love it because the music gives me energy and it keeps weight off,” said Scott. “Some of it actually becomes too strenuous for me because I had a knee replacement. I don’t like gyms too much.”

Scott, taking a breather as Chris Brown’s “Fine China” has the women twirlin’ on the dance floor, said that as soon the session ends, most of the women head to another room in the center and play cards.

“I can’t believe all the friends I’ve made here,” she said. “It really makes retirement fun. Many of us end up going places together like casinos or each other’s homes. “

Tammi Nash, who spent 30 years working for the IRS, agrees.

“It really becomes a wonderful way for making new friends,” she said.

Nash uses the line dance as exercise “to give me energy” for a busy retirement. She works part-time as a real estate agent, faithfully attends a book club, travels and works in a food pantry for her church.

“One thing I can say about retirement is that I’m never bored,” she said. “And this dancing exercise puts me in the right mood for the week.”

Scott, who’s snapping her finger’s to R. Kelly’s “Backyard Party,” says retiring to Las Vegas with its all night gambling and lounges and entertainment was even better than she thought it would be.

“There’s always something to do,” she said. “When I hear music, I want to move and I feel good. And so do all these ladies. You should feel good in retirement after working hard all your life and this helps make me feel that way.”

Paul Harasim’s column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Friday in the Nevada section and Monday in the Health section. Contact him at pharasim@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5273. Follow @paulharasim on Twitter