Keeping up with Jane How-to tapes buck up sales

Monday, March 23, 1987

RICK GROEN

BY RICK GROEN The Globe and Mail They call it the "sell through market" - videos designed for purchase, not rental - and the cutting edge of this growing sector is the instructional tape: how-to everything from building bathrooms to confidence, raising children to dahlias. Of course, the evergreen Jane Fonda, whose fitness sessions consistently lead the best-seller charts, is the reigning queen of how-to land. Now, she's back with her sixth cassette, the newly-released Low Impact Aerobic Workout.

Loosely translated, low impact means no jumping around, just lots of repeated stretches and brisk movement. Seems this one is designed for the relative beginner, for folks with stress injuries, or - in the kindly euphemism of the tape's dust jacket - "for people who have been sedentary." Naturally, the exercises bear the imprimatur of some medical type, in this case, a certain Doc Garrick of a west coast sports clinic.

Okay, just pop it in and on comes La Fonda, looking mighty healthy and backed up by a gaggle of energetic types decked out in mix-and-match leotards. Cue the music and we're off. Jane quickly builds up an impressive glow, all the while tossing out friendly encouragement ("Have a good time with it now"), specific guidance ("Chest lifted, shoulders back, tummy in"), or just general reminders to the apparently forgetful ("Keep breathing, breathing is very important").

Behind her, the class regularly chimes in with exhortatory hoots on the imaginative order of, "Oh, yeah." Before her, the camera remains static and serious, with none of the sexist angles that made the 20-Minute Workout such a voyeuristic hit on the commercial channels. Fifty minutes (and fifty bucks) later, it's all over. Worth every penny? Well, if the exercise program is half as well designed as the exercising professor . . . perhaps. Not so The Acupressure Facelift, the "first in a new beauty series" from that erstwhile bionic woman, Lindsay Wagner. As the title subtly hints, this how-to ignores the muscles and heads straight for the mug, opening with no-lines Lindsay posed by her goldfish pond and musing on the origins of this "ancient" massage: "The system is based on the Oriental technique known as acupuncture. The difference between acupuncture and acupressure is that we will be using our fingers." Now that's a happy relief.

From there, to the musical strains of some vaguely Eastern tinkling, Wagner sits in full close-up, guides us through a little mental warm-up ("In your mind's eye see a waterfall above your head"), then rotates a well-manicured digit on the pressure points of her well-scrubbed visage. And that's the entire tape: 16 points, 25 minutes, 30 bucks.

Now a jaded soul may argue that the price is a tad steep for the privilege of watching someone wriggling a finger all over her face. But this shortsighted view overlooks the sage counsel offered by our polished pro, essential wisdom that no mere rookie could do without. Like: "Remember not to push on the eyeball." Or, better still: "If you have a blemish, just avoid that point and return to it in future sessions when it has cleared." Thanks teach, and see you next term in Toothbrushing 101.