Man Says Thanks to Exercise Guru, Produces Yoga Video

Edward Kantor of Sherman Oaks is the valentine of two women. One is his wife of more than 50 years. The other is his exercise guru.

Ulla Anneli says her heart skipped a beat when a crippled Kantor hobbled into her yoga class two years ago. “I was thinking how glad I was my insurance was paid. He looked as if he might die on the spot.”

Kantor found yoga beneficial to his physical and emotional health, and he and Anneli ended up making a yoga video for the elderly. Kantor underwrote and produced the video in appreciation of how much Anneli had helped him.

Kantor and his wife, Alice, celebrated Valentine’s Day early last week on the occasion of their 59th wedding anniversary. “She lived across the street from me when I was growing up in Sioux City, Iowa,” says Kantor. “My mother told me to marry her and I’ve never regretted it.”

The couple moved to the San Fernando Valley in 1942 and he worked for Lockheed in Burbank. Then, he opened a Valley manufacturing business, which he ran for 35 years, putting company logos on things like ashtrays and coffee mugs.

Last year, the Kantors were on a trip to Las Vegas. “When I bent down to get into the limo, I couldn’t straighten up,” he recalls.

The limo driver told him that instead of looking to doctors or chiropractors, he should find a yoga instructor, says Kantor. When the couple got back to their Sherman Oaks home, he checked through the phone book.

“I found the International Rejuvenation Center in Studio City and called to check on class times,” says Kantor.

The next day, much to the consternation of Anneli, he showed up.

Anneli remembers distinctly the day Edward Kantor arrived for his first yoga lesson, a 79-year-old man coming into the class leaning heavily on his cane, his face a deadly pallor.

“I told him just to do as much as he could, maybe just the breathing exercises,” says Anneli. “I thought he would be discouraged and never come back again.”

Wrong.

The next day there he was present and ready to see how much he could do on his second day. “When I started yoga, I was an old man,” says Kantor. “My blood pressure was up. I had a pacemaker. I was stooped over and could hardly walk.”

Within months, he says, his blood pressure was down 30 points. “This certainly impressed my cardiologist,” says Kantor, who adds that his mobility had improved so greatly he threw his cane away.

Then, the Northridge earthquake destroyed the business that Ulla Anneli had lovingly built since arriving in the Valley from Finland via Sweden and New York.

“I am a registered nurse who has always been interested in reversing the body’s aging process,” Anneli says. “I had put all the knowledge I’d collected from medical doctors, and other healers, into the Valley Rejuvenation Center, which I’d run for eight years before the earthquake destroyed it. I felt as if a part of me had died.”

Anneli says she came to the United States, finally settling in the Valley about 18 years ago, because she was looking for a healthy lifestyle. She is married and has two teen-age daughters.

She was working as an R.N., when she started taking yoga to increase her stamina and health. She says she was, after a year of study, asked by her instructor to teach a class.

By the late ‘80s, she had opened the International Rejuvenation Center in Sherman Oaks, which offered patrons like Kantor not only yoga, but information on eating well and being holistically healthy.

Her 1993 book, “Rejuvenation,” published by Wexler & Berow is an amalgamation of all the anti-aging techniques she has studied and taught. It is, she says, still available in some New Age book stores.

In spite of healthy living and a relentlessly upbeat demeanor, she admits the closing of her center hit her hard.

She started teaching classes at other facilities like L.A. Fitness in Sherman Oaks and the Art of the Dance Academy in North Hollywood and Kantor faithfully followed. Anneli says Kantor suggested the video altruistically to cheer her up.

Kantor denies that. “I thought about how much she had helped me and I wanted to share the help I had gotten with other older people who are going through the aches and pains of old age as I was. A video was the perfect solution,” he says.

Anneli agrees, pointing out that many older people are unable to drive or get around as easily as they used to and that the video, entitled “Stretch Your Stress Away,” is a good idea for homebound folks.

Kantor and Anneli went to Phase L, a Valley video company, in April. The result is being sold for about $20 through ads on television, first-time producer Kantor says.

They don’t expect their video will muscle Jane Fonda off the charts, but they both say they are happy with the tape.

For Kantor, funding the production was a thank- you note to his yoga teacher.

For Anneli, the video gave her something positive to think about after her dreams came tumbling down.

Big Day About to Bloom for New Studio City Shop

Guillermo Rastelli, a 49-year-old Peruvian native, is looking forward to this Valentine’s Day.

He is the owner of a 2-month-old flower shop in Studio City and he expects today to be his busiest day so far.

He expects a run on red roses, which he will sell for between $65 and $75 a dozen. He blames the growers for making the prices go sky-high.

Rastelli is a first-time business owner, along with his wife of 18 years, Mirium, a native of Bolivia. The two met on a blind date arranged almost 20 years ago by mutual friends.

Together, they went to classes in flower arranging and small-business ownership at Cal State Northridge in preparation for taking the big step of putting their savings into a business.

So far, they have been happy with the neighborhood reception of their flower shop.

The only thing that’s bugging Rastelli is what does a florist give his wife on Valentine’s Day?

Overheard:

“I wonder what my neighbor is going to give his wife for Valentine’s Day this year since the rain washed away most of my flowers. He usually sneaks into my garden when he thinks I’m not looking and helps himself to a bouquet.”

One woman to another at the Cheesecake Factory in Warner Center.