VENTURA : Workout Puts Pupils in Step With the World

Hans Meyer gets exercise like most 9-year-olds: He plays catch, wrestles with other boys during recess and occasionally tries out a Power Rangers karate chop.

That’s why his aerobics routine Wednesday looked decidedly staged.

Hans and 400 classmates at Montalvo School in Ventura were taking part in Project ACES, an acronym for All Children Exercising Simultaneously. Organizers said hundreds of schoolchildren in Ventura and Ojai took part in the annual event.

On a designated day every May, children throughout the world exercise simultaneously for 15 minutes, said Kerrie Anderson, wellness director at Pierpont Racquet Club, which helped organize the event locally.

The Ventura tennis club sent its top aerobic instructor, Sabrina Zan Faris, to lead an aerobics routine for the entire student body, plus teachers and Principal Marie Atmore.

The idea is to instill in children a love of fitness and to fight a stereotype that children today are “fat and weak,” Anderson said.

Last year, more than 20 million children, teachers and parents at schools across the nation and around the world took part in the event, which is endorsed by the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, Anderson said.

Not that any of this had a direct effect on Hans. He was most interested in watching his fourth-grade teacher, John Derby, try to make it through 15 minutes of power-stepping without giving up.

“Mr. Derby was sweating like crazy,” Hans said. “He pooped out a little.”

Kevin Downey, also 9, said he thought it was “pretty fun” to watch his Montalvo School classmates--particularly the girls--working out at the same time.

“Lots of people were laughing, but I wasn’t,” Kevin said. “It’s a good way to get my muscles all warmed up for baseball.”

Derby coordinated the event for Montalvo School, which serves kindergartners through fifth-graders. The fourth-grade teacher said he preferred to think of the day as a “celebration of physical fitness.”

“Exercise is something important and we need to be emphasizing it every day.”