Meet the Woman Behind Prancercise, the Greatest Fitness Sensation Ever

Remember Joanna Rohrback? The Woman Who Prances While the World Dances? She is having her day in the sun and prancing too!

Rohrback did an interview with The Daily Beast – amazing how she found time, seeing as “she can barely keep track of the interview requests galloping in” GET IT? – where she explained the genesis of this dance craze that could have swept the nation, had the Internet existed like it does now. The year was 1989 (cue mystical music or Bobby Brown’s “My Prerogative”):

“‘I must have heard a really good song I liked on the radio,’ Rohrback said. ‘I started moving in a rhythmic way, using ankle weights. And it just evolved.’

It felt like prancing, she said, like the way a happy horse frolics through a field of poppies. She was using her upper body and her legs, and because the whole thing was so fluid and natural, there was no pounding impact on the pavement. Prancercise was born, and it was beautiful.”

Rohrback believes that had she found investors, Prancercise would have been like Zumba. You know Zumba, that super-fun, not at all frightening work-out craze with a terrible name, featured in even worse commercials. Remember today as the day we learned that America missed out on the Original Zumba. You can try to relive what could have been at Rohrback’s website.

‘Prancercise’ Creator on Her ‘Wacky’ Workout and Being Too Famous to Prancercise [The Daily Beast]