Fit to Print Volume 22, Issue 4 : December 2013 | Page 17

Cor had grown up on the same block and
were childhood friends?
Cath: Not right away. It took a full year
for that to come out. I would talk to Cor
about my boyfriend, Steve, and to Steve
I'd mention Cor, but she was Corinne
Brown. So the connection wasn't made
right away. Then one night, after a year
or so, we were just talking. "I only know
one Corinne," Steve said, "but her name
was Corinne Losange." The lightbulb went
on! We were so young, we didn't know
anyone's married names. So all along until
that point it had been, "Nope, that's not
her!"
Ken: We'd only been married for a year.
Cor: Adorable Cathy keeps taking all my
classes and she's like a dancer. So I
thought, “I'm going to make her an
instructor.”
Cathy: This was a bad night…a very bad
night...
Cor: I'll never forget it.
Cathy: Cor had come from the city, she
had already taught classes...It was a
9:00pm class and I came to take it. Before
we started she was telling me about her

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day...
Cor: I was
cleaning the
gym...
Cathy: And I said
to her, "I wish
there was
something I could
do to help you."
Cor: I said,
"There is. You're going to teach." She
answered but it was such a whisper I
could barely make it out. "Oh, no."
"Yes, you are!" "No!" "Yes!"
Cathy: I knew enough about her after a
year that she was going to get her way.
So the class begins, and the whole time
she's looking at me and her expression
is, "This is happening."
Cor: And the rest is history. She started
teaching...
Cathy: And because I started out the
way I did, kind of reluctant and shy and
quiet, I've been able to help a lot of
instructors with their fears and doubts
since then, mostly because no one has
been worse than I was. Michelle
(Pepito) was my most recent...
Cor: Yes, Michelle. She was maybe even
more reluctant than Cathy. But it wasn't
all that different. I'd say, "You're going
to teach. I'm having hip surgery, I need
someone and it's going to be you." "No,
I'm not teaching!" she'd say. And I'd say,
"Yes you are!"
Cathy: And now Michelle's doing Body
Shred!
Cor: The person who said "Yes" the
quickest was Christine Chapman. She
started taking my class, and I said to
her "I need an instructor." "OK," she
said. Just like that. That was at 6
Grove Place. Another girl who got her
start there was Erin Frawley. Nobody
can believe it today, because she was
really, really young when she started
out.
Cathy: In those early days, we would
also so do remotes. We’d go to
Hammerheads in West Islip and see
workouts on their disgusting bar room
floors...
Steve: Why Hammerheads?
Cathy: Any place to get new
information and new ideas. That's
where another very early and popular
program was taught. It's really how I
wound up at Fitness Incentive. I walked
in, took one class, and there was such
attitude. I felt very uncomfortable,
Holidays 2013 FIT to Print

went back one more time, and that was
it.
Cor: I remember the day I got a phone
call. Cathy was coming to take my class,
and remember, she never missed—she was
like clockwork—but it was just before the
class and no Cathy. So the phone rings
and it's Cathy. She thinks she got hit by a
car BUT SHE ISN'T SURE! She really doesn't
know what happened to her. She thinks
she may have suffered a concussion. If
you can't remember whether you've been
hit by a car, there's a fair chance you are
concussed.
Cathy: I was riding my bicycle to the
studio to take Cor's Saturday morning
class before heading off to Belmont Park
for a family reunion—our first ever. And
to this day I still really don't know what
happened. Did I lose control? Jump a
curb? Get struck by a car? No helmets in
those days, of course. I was still in the
hospital and had regained consciousness a
day or two later, and thought, "I was
supposed to go to class with Corinne!"
I was so worried about that!
Ken: Remember what the gym was like in
those days?
Cor: You'd walk in, and on the left was an
extremely rudimentary desk with a
Rolodex filled with names, addresses, and
phone numbers. Payments were in cash
and figures were recorded in a black
notebook.
Cathy: The money went in a cigar box. We
had paper membership cards that would
be stamped with a rubber stamp—thump!
Everyone was terrified in those days of
contracts, so all we basically sold was One
Month Memberships.
Cor: $29.95 a month and a free pair of
Avia sneakers with a full year!
Cathy: Things got a lot better once the
mirrors went up on the long wall, and the

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