Videotapes encourage Indians to get active

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There's a new set of videotapes on the market created to get people off their couches and involved in a more active, healthier lifestyle as a way to control or prevent diabetes.

But what makes these tapes different from all other exercise videos already out there is that they were made by Native people for Native people and are being given away, free of charge.

Rez-Robics for Couch Potato Skins and Rez-Robics-The Exercise Tape make up the two-tape set. The first tape uses humor as a way to motivate people and make them want to change the way they eat and become more active. The second tape provides them with a tool to help them reach that goal, with 70 minutes of exercises that combine martial arts with grass dance moves, all choreographed to the beat of Native music.

The tapes are the brainchild of Gary Rhine, the head of the independent video production company Kifaru Productions and the company's non-profit arm DreamCatchers Incorporated, and Pam Belgarde, a media producer and health promoter with Navajo Health Promotion.

The two first started talking about the need for videos like Rez-Robics in the early 1990s when they were both attending the one-year memorial for Winnebago Tribe Elder Reuben Snake, Jr.

"It was at a powwow grounds and we were sitting up in the bleachers, kind of looking over all these Indians eating coffee cake and fry bread, greasy food," Rhine said. "And Pam was just ranting about 'Man, I really want to try to affect the way that Indian people eat and exercise.' Because Reuben had been such an influential and wonderful leader and he had passed away from complications of diabetes... and he had passed away so early, in his 50s. And if he hadn't gotten diabetes, we'd still have him right now and he'd still be out there fighting for Indian people like he did his whole life. Not only him, but there's so many other wonderful people that we lose too early because of diabetes. And so she kept saying, 'I want to do an exercise video where we can talk about diet as well.' And I said 'Well, I think the people we want to get to are generally the ones who wouldn't even want to watch an exercise video, so it'd be nice to be able to do something with some humor, something that would attract people."

What Rhine and Belgarde were looking for was an Indian version of Richard Simmons. What they found was Apache comedian Drew Lacapa. They teamed him up with Elaine Miles of Northern Exposure fame, and the project that a decade ago was only talk soon became a reality.

The first video in the set includes a half-hour of comedy featuring Lacapa, followed by interviews with other people involved in the project talking about subjects like diet and exercise. It also features an interview with Tom Bee, president of Sound of America Records (SOAR), who provided the music used in the exercise tape and who has been dealing with his own diabetes for a decade.

"The idea is that somebody who gets the set is probably the one who's kind of motivated already, and they can be using the exercise video. And then they can kind of use the half-hour comedy as a tool to sucker their fat, lazy cousins. You know, 'Aw, I don't want to watch any exercise video.' And they say, 'No, no, no, this is a comedy. Just sit there. Here, have a Coke. Just have a soda and watch this.' And get them to watch it."

In the first video, Lacapa and Miles make a bet. If Lacapa can stay quiet for five minutes, then Miles must stay quiet for the entire evening. If he can't then he has to go to an exercise class with her. Of course, Lacapa loses the bet, and the two of them hop on a tandem bicycle and head off to exercise class.

"And they get there and she's into it, and he's just making every excuse and cracking up and making jokes and not being very serious," Rhine said." So over the course of the program, it comes out that Elaine, her mom and her aunt both got diagnosed with diabetes and her mom changed her diet and started exercising and s now in much, much better health. And her aunt refused to do any of that and lost both her legs. And that's a true story. And it comes out that Drew was diagnosed recently with diabetes and is very scared. And that's true. Now we didn't know any of that when we asked them to be a part of this, that kind of came out as we were developing the script and we used it. So if the fat, lazy cousins on the couch follow along with Drew and cheer him on as he makes fun of it all, then he makes this turn and he confesses that actually he's in denial and the way he deals with heavy stuff is by making light of it, and that he's scared. And so he ends up saying, 'Hey, if I can do it, you can do it.'"

Both Lacapa and Miles are back in the exercise video as well, as part of a group being led by Belgarde and Navajo martial artist Reggie Mitchell.

The exercise tape is about 70 minutes long, but that doesn't mean you have to do all 70 minutes the first time you put the tape on, Belgarde said.

"What I tell people for the tape is as long as you warm up-there's a warm up song, there's a stretching out song, and then at the end there's a cool down and we kind of stretch people out at the end-as long as they do those things, they can pick whatever they want in between and exercise ... they don't have to do the whole thing. And just have fun. That's the whole thing. Just have a good time and move your body."

Belgarde, like Miles and Lacapa, had a very personal reason for wanting to do the Rez-Robics project.

Because Navajo health service was involved in putting the video together, the tapes can't be sold, so Rhine applied for some grants and is distributing the videos for free through DreamCatchers.

"So instead of the normal FBI warning on the front that says don't make copies or we'll come get you, it says please make copies and give them to your friends and relatives. Just don't get caught selling them."