Bettie Page's Love of Fitness

Ahead of her time in countless ways, Bettie was working out long before most women were and kept it up throughout most of her life. Below is a brief excerpt from The Little Book of Bettie: Taking a Page from the Queen of Pinups.

~A gal's gotta stay fit if she's gonna spar with gorillas!~

BY TORI RODRIGUEZ

Among the infinite reasons Bettie fans are awestruck by her: She just looks like the epitome of health and vibrancy in her photos, with glowing skin and more muscle definition than was common for women of her day. There is good reason for that. Bettie was the rare woman in that era who worked out—in a New York City gym, no less! Back then, women might use “reducing machines” designed to slim the body with minimal physical exertion, according to Natalia Petrzela, PhD, a history professor at the New School in New York City, and the fitness historian for Well+Good. These contraptions “were often adjacent to beauty salons or located in private homes—not in gyms, which were still considered the preserve of sweaty, grunting men and entirely inappropriate for respectable ladies who often kept their high heels on during a reducing session.”

Not our Bettie! It seems she was right there with those sweaty, grunting guys putting in some real work. She loved to swim, go dancing or walking, play sports, and do calisthenics. I’m also convinced that she was doing yoga. These various forms of exercise often showed up in Bettie’s photos—for instance a Camel Pose or Plow Pose here, a squat or a lunge or an ab crunch there. 

~Bendy Bettie ~ This pic appears in the Bettie Page Yoga video as the inspiration for the Plow & Half Shoulder Stand poses!~

This sparked my idea to create the Bettie Page Fitness workouts that are inspired by Bettie in several different ways. Each move in the workouts is based on a specific photo of Bettie, with an emphasis on the amazing balance, perfect posture, and core strength Bettie displayed. I don’t encourage women (or myself) to try to get the “Bettie body,” since her shape was largely determined by genetics. And while her body was undoubtedly spectacular, there are many different types of beautiful bodies, and not solely because of how they look.

If you study Bettie’s movements through hundreds or thousands of poses, you’ll notice that the great majority of them are big, open, expansive, and outward—you can tell she was unafraid to take up her rightful space in the world, both physically and figuratively. By emulating her body postures, we are harnessing that same energy and cultivating those traits. They are what scientists now call “Power Poses,” and they have been found to reduce stress, improve body image, and increase confidence. I’ve purposely included lots of power poses in the Bettie Page Fitness workouts, which also happen to be the first-ever body-positive fitness videos. 

~Joyful Bettie ~ This pic appears in the Bettie Page Fitness: Total Body Strength & Cardio video as the inspiration for the Star Jumps cardio burst!~

Like Bettie’s fitness sampler platter, a solid exercise practice should include...

[Check out The Little Book of Bettie to learn more about Bettie and fitness, including two new Bettie-inspired workouts I created for the book!]

Missing Alexis

[Content warning: Suicide]

The photo above shows me in the late 80’s with my first BFF, Alexis, who would have turned 43 today. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia after we graduated from high school, and she made the decision to end her suffering 17 years ago. I'm missing her deeply today as I always do. I would love to see her alive and thriving, but I'll have to accept that I can't. I'm infinitely thankful for the time we shared and that she still "visits" me sometimes in my dreams. If you have time for a longish read, here's a piece I wrote for her years ago and have revised slightly to reflect the passage of time. I hope you'll read it and hug your loved ones extra tight tonight in honor of my girl. I'll add more photos of Alexis to this post in the coming days. ♥♥♥

We were opposites from the beginning. It was Thanksgiving week, 1980, and our kindergarten classes were celebrating together with a bit of un-PC dress up that makes my grownup, feminist self cringe: Alexis was a Pilgrim and I was an American Indian. As with our costumes, the differences between us were plenty: she had olive skin, deep-brown hair and a small frame, while I was blonde and “big-boned,” as people (annoyingly) referred to my larger build. She was quiet, obedient and reserved; I was the loud-mouth, hyper and rebellious and always seeking out our next misadventure.

Despite this early encounter, it wasn’t until a couple of years later when we ended up in the same second-grade class that we actually became friends. All those differences fell away: we just clicked. From that point on we spent nearly every weekend at each other’s houses, playing Go Fish, having contests to see which of us could drink the most miniature-bathroom-cupfuls of water, trying to stay up “‘til the next day” and never once making it. One of our favorite pastimes was going to my brother’s baseball games and sloshing around in the creek behind the field, collecting overly-ambitious baseballs. When we went through our lazy preteen stage, we would lie on the couch for hours, her feet next to my head and mine next to hers, watching entirely too much TV. Headbanger’s Ball was the hands-down favorite, and our hair rivaled that of the men in the glam bands we obsessed about (we were in on the first round of Bret Michaels, for one).

Alexis was an artist and drummer and animal-lover, and she had a bunch of different pets at any given time, including a snake, birds and horses. She drew the most amazing, elaborate sketches of unicorns, maidens and castles, down to the tiniest detail. When my mind flashes back to one of those drawings, I’m awed at her talent and more surprised still that I didn’t recognize it as extraordinary at the time. I’m also pained by the thought that her rich imagination would eventually become her enemy.

There were other beautiful things about Alexis that slipped by me, too, like her protectiveness of me, her tender concern that is apparent only now in hindsight. As a teenager, I fell asleep in the school clinic after pretending to be sick because I’d smoked a joint in the woods near the school and since I was a weed rookie, I couldn’t keep it together enough to sit in class the rest of the day. No one noticed when school let out that I was still in the clinic snoozing. As my parents tried to figure out where I was, Alexis had another friend take her searching for me because she was too worried to sit back and wait for word of my whereabouts.

The saddest phase of our friendship was when our interest in boys blindsided us, at far too young an age, and tested our connection to each other. It never broke, but it still pisses me off that we were so wrapped up in getting attention from boys that we let it take priority over the special bond we had. I also regret having temporarily tossed her aside for another friend, one who matched my larger appetite for trouble - and a car to facilitate the mission, before Alexis and I were old enough to drive. This friend was absurdly jealous of Alexis’s exceptional lbeauty and didn’t want her around, and I didn’t protest like a friend should. I know now that it was all normal adolescent stuff, but it hurts so much more since I know I’ll never have a chance to make it up to her.

Tori & Alexis circa 1991

As the frenzied searching years of our early adolescence settled into the more mellow late teens, Alexis and I began to regard each other with a familiarity and fondness that can only come from knowing each other nearly all your lives, much like I imagine sisters feel. Throughout high school, we were part of an inseparable quadruplet of girls (Ahoo and Liz completed the group) who bonded over hip hop, heavy metal, cigarettes, and excessive amounts of yapping and laughing. But as our senior year drew to a close, it seems we had all developed interests that diverted our attention outward. Alexis and I continued to check in with each other on a regular basis, but we made little time for each other as we became more entrenched in our first serious relationships. We were both partying way too much, but I was somehow managing to stay in college, studying psychology, while Alexis seemed to struggle with figuring out which direction she wanted her life to take.

I guess I should have suspected something was wrong when I called Alexis and she explained that she was about to move out of her condo because she was having nightmares and there were “too many bad memories” there. Maybe if I’d probed a little, she would have confided in me. I don’t quite remember the context, but I probably wasn’t expecting such a heavy statement. Maybe I just wanted the call to be quick and easy, a hi-just-checking-in-now-let-me-get-back-to-my-life call. So I didn’t push, and she didn’t offer any details. My heart drops to my stomach when I try to imagine even for a minute what I now know she really meant.

We spoke on the phone many more times after that, often saying, “We have GOT to get together – this is ridiculous!” She had moved back in with her parents in our old neighborhood – she was just a short walk away, yet somehow we couldn’t seem to connect in person. She did stop by my parents’ house once while I was out shopping with my mom, and she told my dad that she just wanted to come by and see the house where some of the happiest times of her life took place. They were some of mine too – me and my soul sister, together learning about life and love and each other.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I invited Alexis to my baby shower, and she said she’d come. The morning of the shower, I went to my parents’ house to get ready, and when my mom and I went outside to leave, there on the porch was a gift bag full of baby gifts with a casual note from Alexis saying that she couldn’t make it after all. It was obvious that we were home, yet she hadn’t even knocked on the door. That’s when it finally began to register that something was really wrong.

Just before my daughter was born, I moved back to our old neighborhood too. Surely, two childhood best friends could squeeze in some face time living in the very same neighborhood. But no, her puzzling avoidance and my airtight daily routine conspired to keep us apart.

I clearly remember the details of our conversation when we spoke in the spring after my move. It stands out because it was an upbeat conversation–and a real one, not just a gratuitous check-in. It also stands out because it was our last. She had recently started a new office job, and she really liked the people she worked with. We talked about my kid, just an infant then, and I insisted that Alexis come over to see her. We agreed that she would come for dinner soon but didn’t set a date. About a week later, I noticed her number on the caller ID but she hadn't left a message. That missed call still haunts me, of course.

The following week, after my family went out for Mother’s Day dinner, we gathered at my parents’ house. My mom checked her phone messages and there was one from Alexis’s sister saying she had some sad news. When I called back, her father answered and told me right away that Alexis had died. He asked how much I knew about the problems she’d been having, and I guess that in struggling with my answer I made it obvious that it wasn’t much. He explained that shortly after we’d graduated from high school, Alexis began having troubling symptoms and was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia. When it had become too much to bear she took a taxi to Walmart and bought a shotgun, then went to her favorite place in the woods just behind our neighborhood. I wonder what she thought about before ending her life there.

I went to her memorial service pushing my infant daughter in her stroller, hating the irony of the thought I kept having: “So this is how you finally meet my daughter.” I didn’t recognize anyone except her parents and sister. I longed to see someone we had both known, someone I could grab onto and cry, “Can you believe it?!” But instead I stood around awkwardly, at one point viewing the pictures of her on display. They showed the sweet, soulful, endlessly gifted and beautiful little girl I’d met two decades earlier at a kindergarten Thanksgiving party.

Alexis in 6th, 7th, 8th, and 11th grade yearbook photos

I wanted her back so badly. Instantly I felt the crushing pain of knowing that we had lived just over a mile apart and yet hadn’t laid eyes on each other in years. It’s the kind of thing that you can’t rationalize, can’t explain away, not really. You just have to live with it. I didn’t make the time to see my best childhood friend even after it was obvious she needed someone, needed me. I took time for granted and just knew there would always be another day, another call. You also wonder, more so with suicide than with most other types of death, if there was something you could have done. Even though my mind knows it’s unrealistic to blame myself for a suicide, I couldn’t help but wonder if I had just made more of an effort, really insisted that we see each other, would my presence in her life have made the difference?

I became a textbook case, going into denial about whether she was even dead, clinging to the remote possibility that she really wasn’t after all, that maybe she and her family had concocted the whole scenario to give her a fresh start in another country or as a different person. Crazy, I know, but still, I didn’t fully accept that she was gone until I ordered her death certificate and had it in my hands, facing the simple, brutal, final truth.

It’s been 17 years since her death, and when I think of Alexis, I’m indescribably sad that she had to go through all she did. I grieve the growing old she’ll never do and the family of her own she’ll never love. I mourn the gentle spirit and magical artistic talent the world will never get to experience. And I miss my oldest friend who knew me to my core, who loved and accepted me unconditionally.

I have dreams about her every once in a while, and in them it’s like we’re both aware that she’s gone, but there is a sense of peace and comfort as we talk and enjoy each other’s company like we did countless times over the years. That unmistakable fondness we had for one another is there too. In one dream, we were laying feet-to-head just like we did as kids, chatting away and lazily passing the time. I like to think she’s visiting me in my dreams.

At Alexis’s memorial service, I started to cry as I approached her mom. Trying to be strong, she hugged me and said, “Don’t.” But I do. I have many times, and I am now.

*****

• Please know that suicide is preventable, and having suicidal thoughts is not a flaw or sign of weakness.
• If you are in crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.
• To learn more about risk factors and warning signs, visit afsp.org/signs

Maintaining a Body-Positive Fitness Focus

In "The Body" chapter of  The Little Book of Bettie: Taking a Page from the Queen of Pinups, there are two Bettie-inspired workouts -- the Pinup Power Pose Workout (strength & cardio) and the Bettie Page Body-Weight Workout (calisthenics – Bettie's fave!). Here are the tips from that chapter on how to keep it body-positive when you do these routines or any time you exercise. Enjoy!

Negative Emotions Are Key to Well-Being

Feeling sad, mad, critical or otherwise awful? Surprise: negative emotions are essential for mental health

BY TORI RODRIGUEZ

A client sits before me, seeking help untangling his relationship problems. As a psychotherapist, I strive to be warm, nonjudgmental and encouraging. I am a bit unsettled, then, when in the midst of describing his painful experiences, he says, “I'm sorry for being so negative.”

A crucial goal of therapy is to learn to acknowledge and express a full range of emotions, and here was a client apologizing for doing just that. In my psychotherapy practice, many of my clients struggle with highly distressing emotions, such as extreme anger, or with suicidal thoughts. In recent years I have noticed an increase in the number of people who also feel guilty or ashamed about what they perceive to be negativity. Such reactions undoubtedly stem from our culture's overriding bias toward positive thinking. Although positive emotions are worth cultivating, problems arise when people start believing they must be upbeat all the time.

~Most or all of the images used for this article appear to be by an artist tagged AKG14~

In fact, anger and sadness are an important part of life, and new research shows that experiencing and accepting such emotions are vital to our mental health. Attempting to suppress thoughts can backfire and even diminish our sense of contentment. “Acknowledging the complexity of life may be an especially fruitful path to psychological well-being,” says psychologist Jonathan M. Adler of the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering.

Meaningful Misery
Positive thoughts and emotions can, of course, benefit mental health. Hedonic theories define well-being as the presence of positive emotion, the relative absence of negative emotion and a sense of life satisfaction. Taken to an extreme, however, that definition is not congruent with the messiness of real life. In addition, people's outlook can become so rosy that they ignore dangers or become complacent [see “Can Positive Thinking Be Negative?”].

Eudaemonic approaches, on the other hand, emphasize a sense of meaning, personal growth and understanding of the self—goals that require confronting life's adversities. Unpleasant feelings are just as crucial as the enjoyable ones in helping you make sense of life's ups and downs. “Remember, one of the primary reasons we have emotions in the first place is to help us evaluate our experiences,” Adler says.

Adler and Hal E. Hershfield, a professor of marketing at New York University, investigated the link between mixed emotional experience and psychological welfare in a group of people undergoing 12 sessions of psychotherapy. Before each session, participants completed a questionnaire that assessed their psychological well-being. They also wrote narratives describing their life events and their time in therapy, which were coded for emotional content. As Adler and Hershfield reported in 2012, feeling cheerful and dejected at the same time—for example, “I feel sad at times because of everything I've been through, but I'm also happy and hopeful because I'm working through my issues”—preceded improvements in well-being over the next week or two for subjects, even if the mixed feelings were unpleasant at the time. “Taking the good and the bad together may detoxify the bad experiences, allowing you to make meaning out of them in a way that supports psychological well-being,” the researchers found.

Negative emotions also most likely aid in our survival. Bad feelings can be vital clues that a health issue, relationship or other important matter needs attention, Adler points out. The survival value of negative thoughts and emotions may help explain why suppressing them is so fruitless. In a 2009 study psychologist David J. Kavanagh of Queensland University of Technology in Australia and his colleagues asked people in treatment for alcohol abuse and addiction to complete a questionnaire that assessed their drinking-related urges and cravings, as well as any attempts to suppress thoughts related to booze over the previous 24 hours. They found that those who often fought against intrusive alcohol-related thoughts actually harbored more of them. Similar findings from a 2010 study suggested that pushing back negative emotions could spawn more emotional overeating than simply recognizing that you were, say, upset, agitated or blue.

Even if you successfully avoid contemplating a topic, your subconscious may still dwell on it. In a 2011 study psychologist Richard A. Bryant and his colleagues at the University of New South Wales in Sydney told some participants, but not others, to suppress an unwanted thought prior to sleep. Those who tried to muffle the thought reported dreaming about it more, a phenomenon called dream rebound.

Suppressing thoughts and feelings can even be harmful. In a 2012 study psychotherapist Eric L. Garland of Florida State University and his associates measured a stress response based on heart rate in 58 adults in treatment for alcohol dependence while exposing them to alcohol-related cues. Subjects also completed a measure of their tendency to suppress thoughts. The researchers found that those who restrained their thinking more often had stronger stress responses to the cues than did those who suppressed their thoughts less frequently.

Accepting the Pain
Instead of backing away from negative emotions, accept them. Acknowledge how you are feeling without rushing to change your emotional state. Many people find it helpful to breathe slowly and deeply while learning to tolerate strong feelings (see "Breathing Techniques for Less Stress & More Energy") or to imagine the feelings as floating clouds, as a reminder that they will pass. I often tell my clients that a thought is just a thought and a feeling just a feeling, nothing more.

If the emotion is overwhelming, you may want to express how you feel in a journal or to another person. The exercise may shift your perspective and bring a sense of closure. If the discomfort lingers, consider taking action. You may want to tell a friend her comment was hurtful or take steps to leave the job that makes you miserable.

You may also try doing mindfulness exercises to help you become aware of your present experience without passing judgment on it. (See "How to Live in the Now" for a mindfulness primer to get you started.) One way to train yourself to adopt this state is to focus on your breathing while meditating and simply acknowledge any fleeting thoughts or feelings. This practice may make it easier to accept unpleasant thoughts.

Earlier this year Garland and his colleagues found that among 125 individuals with a history of trauma who were also in treatment for substance dependence, those who were naturally more mindful both coped better with their trauma and craved their drug less. Likewise, in a 2012 study psychologist Shannon Sauer-Zavala of Boston University and her co-workers found that a therapy that included mindfulness training helped individuals overcome anxiety disorders. It worked not by minimizing the number of negative feelings but by training patients to accept those feelings.

“It is impossible to avoid negative emotions altogether because to live is to experience setbacks and conflicts,” Sauer-Zavala says. Learning how to cope with those emotions is the key, she adds. Indeed, once my client accepted his thoughts and feelings, shaking off his shame and guilt, he saw his problems with greater clarity and proceeded down the path to recovery.

***

This article by Tori Rodriguez originally appeared in Scientific American Mind magazine. Tori is an Atlanta-based writer, psychotherapist, and mind-body health & fitness expert. She is the owner of Bettie Page Fitness, author of  The Little Book of Bettie, and editor of the official Bettie Page social media pages and blog.

Compassion vs Competition!

Guess which mindset improves body image and disordered eating?

~Photo by Bunny Yeager~

Do you ever compare your appearance to that of other women? (Okay, trick question because there’s no way you can be human and never compare yourself to anyone, especially in our era!) But if you find yourself doing it a lot, choose to view other women with compassion instead.

A new study by researchers at the University of Waterloo is the first to “demonstrate that trying to cultivate compassion for others—by [mentally] wishing them to be happy and free from suffering— may, in turn, benefit one’s own body image and eating attitudes,” according to university reps.

The researchers instructed one group of women choose this mindset when they found themselves making negative judgments about their looks in comparison to another woman. Meanwhile, another group was instructed to think of ways they might be superior to the other women, and a third group was told tried to distract themselves to deal with the comparison urge.

The compassion mindset was the most effective approach – it not only reduced the degree to which women compared themselves to other women in terms of appearance, eating, and exercise habits, but it also improved their body satisfaction and reduced disordered eating behaviors.

So, you know what to do: Go forth and choose compassion over competition!  Not saying this will be easy (it won’t), but it’s absolutely doable and worth it. Look at it as an ongoing practice rather than an achievement – again, you’re simply cultivating this mindset, not trying to master it. You’re not going to feel compassion from your heart every time, so don’t judge yourself when you mentally wish someone well through gritted teeth and with inner resistance. 😉 BUT you can make the choice to go with the higher mind focus – whether you’re browsing your IG feed or IRL – and keep coming back to it each time that green-eyed monster tries to rear its head.

With love,

Tori

Bring on the Bettie! Channeling the Queen of Pinups

The traits we love about Bettie are so vivid, it seems like we can reach out and grab some for ourselves – and we can! Here’s how.

BY TORI RODRIGUEZ

Almost 60 years after Bettie Page blazed a trail with her brief but mighty modeling career, countless women worldwide still emulate her iconic look: the style, the expressions, the poses – and of course, the bangs. The reasons for this go far beyond simple aesthetics. There is undeniably something about Bettie – lots of things, actually! – and we want to tap into those qualities that make her so timelessly special.

Perhaps she’s like a mirror, showing us the possibility of being our most joyful, passionate, brave, creative, sensual selves. When you look at Bettie, those qualities are so vivid that they almost feel tangible, like you can reach out and grab some for yourself. There’s a sense that they are freely available to us too, with the reminder that Bettie gave us just by being unapologetically herself.

For many Bettie fans, she resonates so deeply because we see ourselves in her.

She is truly the embodiment of joy, freedom, confidence, and fully expressed, shameless beauty and sexuality. By intentionally calling on the various traits we admire in her, we can cultivate them in ourselves. This is part of what inspired my company Bettie Page Fitness, home of the first-ever body-positive fitness videos. Each move in the workouts is based on a Bettie pose, and I encourage viewers to embody some of Bettie’s empowering and health-promoting physical characteristics, including her stellar posture (the “Bettie lift” as I call it), balance, and core strength. In the spirit of Bettie’s strong example of self-acceptance, these workouts encourage viewers to respect and accept their bodies, and to exercise because it feels good and is good for us, rather than for punishment or to conform to a specific standard.

Many of Bettie’s poses were what psychologists now call “power poses.” These are big, open poses that take up a lot of space – versus being closed off and hunched over with arms crossed, for example. (I think of power poses as symbolically claiming one’s place in the world.) Researchers have found that power poses can boost confidence and body image, reduce stress, and increase creativity. By infusing our workouts with moves similar to hers, we can further encourage those effects.

Bettie doing the Wonder Woman stance... a classic power pose..

As with the physical context, we can also choose to be like Bettie in any other way we choose. Some Bettie fans talk about having a “What would Bettie do?” sort of thing going on. By sometimes moving and living like she did, we can experience the feeling of being fully alive and in charge of our bodies and lives. When we need more courage, authenticity, playfulness, sensuality – whatever it might be – we can summon it from our muse, who thankfully has left us with endless examples of what those qualities look like. She’s an archetype of self-actualization, really. Whether in your workouts or any other area, ask yourself how you might “bring more Bettie to it.” It’s sure to be a fun experiment, and it might just change your life.

~To shop Bettie Page Fitness videos, yoga mats & more, click HERE!~

The Odd (But Awesome) Way Happiness Is Contagious

It turns out there’s a solid reason for the term “infectious joy”—research confirms happiness really can be caught.

BY TORI RODRIGUEZ

In a 20-year longitudinal study of almost 5,000 people that was published in 2008, researchers at Harvard University and the University of California at San Diego found evidence for “clusters of happiness.” The sunny emotion was shown to spread across social networks, extending up to three degrees of separation—as in, it can spread to the friends of your friends’ friends. Neighbors seem to be most influential—if one becomes happy, the other is 34% more likely to follow suit; an upbeat friend who lives about a mile away boosts your happiness odds by 25%; spousal influence is 8%; nearby siblings: 14%.

“Emotional contagion is deeply rooted in our evolutionary past,” says study co-author Nicholas A. Christakis, MD, PhD, MPH, a physician, sociologist, and director of the Human Nature Lab at Yale University. “One can think of emotions as a primitive form of communication: it is of use to me to notice and copy your fear, disgust, anger, or happiness.” Indeed, these less pleasant emotions are contagious too, so just be mindful of this subconscious influence we can have on each other’s moods.

A study published in PLoS ONE showed that you can pick up someone’s joy just by watching someone else watching the happy person (like a happiness middleman!), meaning our moods can affect people we don’t even know—and theirs ours, and without our awareness. 

A joy transfer can take place even if you’re not physically near the person: a study that Christakis co-authored in 2014 found that emotions also spread among friends on Facebook. “When people make a positive change in their lives by being or acting happy or optimistic, they not only benefit themselves but many others – and those others are generally people they care about,” Christakis says.

~This article by Tori Rodriguez was originally published by Prevention Magazine.~ 

Your Body Knows Best!

So learn to listen to its cues for guidance about how to treat it, instead of all that monkey-mind mental chatter (which is often infused with negative messages from ourselves and others) that can leave us feeling lost, defeated, and confused. In upcoming posts, I'll explain the importance of body awareness and offer tips about how to hear what yours is telling you. Check back soon! 

~Photo by Bunny Yeager~ (If you want a censored version for sharing, see our FB or IG)