Web Posted: 11/07/2005 12:00 AM CST

Mary Heidbrink
Express-News

The women start the workout routine with a strut and end it in a slow melt, spilling onto their partner's laps like strands of buttery spaghetti slipping from a plate. There are nervous giggles and embarrassed laughs, audible evidence that most of the participants are way beyond their comfort zones, in large part because their partners are also women.

Delcia Lopez / Express-News Sylvia Shaefer works on her pole moves during a recent Soft Sensuous Moves class. The 64-year-old grandmother says many people only hear that it's striptease, not a striptease exercise class. But she loves it and, she says, 'Physically and mentally, it keeps me young.'

If this sounds like a class not fit for a proper lady, think again. It's a typical scene in Soft Sensuous Moves, a class touted as "stripping exercise workouts for everyday ladies" developed and taught by René Mulholland.

The backdrop is a very unerotic gym, Women's Super Fitness in Leon Valley. As other women use weight machines and ride stationary bikes, Mulholland's "strippers" keep an eye on the mirrors, checking their moves as they imagine the plain gym mats and molded plastic lawn chairs as a setting for seduction.

The nine ladies use each other as "subjects," switching roles to practice their moves as they turn, straddle and dismount, all the while working to develop a smooth, flowing technique.

"It's a striptease, not a race," Mulholland shouts more than once.

She gives more instructions as the women approach their partners, seated in chairs. They should "never be able to touch you," she reminds them. "If they are really touchy-feely, tie their hands behind their backs. Remember, this is your dance, not theirs."

Yes, the techniques the ladies learn in the beginning class can be used to entice their partners, but this also is a real workout, complete with abdominal work that elicits groans from the women scattered on the floor. Later, while lying on the floor, cycling their legs in the air, the women are instructed by Mulholland to arch their backs like 1940s Varga Girls.

Mulholland, a personal trainer who specializes in working with those 40 and older, strives to keep her clients engaged with new and unusual workouts. "I cannot stand doing the same thing all the time," she says. It was this attitude that led her to develop the class.

She was at a local bookstore one day when she stumbled across Sheila Kelley's book "The S Factor: Stripping Workouts for Everyday Women." She tried the exercises, felt how they were working the muscles of her back and abs and decided to add some moves of her own. She also checked out several stripping workout tapes, and modified the routine to accommodate older clients who lacked the mobility of a pole dancer. She describes the final product, Soft Sensuous Moves, as a mixture of Pilates, yoga and low-impact aerobic exercise.

While crafting the class, and in her personal training sessions, Mulholland noticed how many women had low self-esteem and a poor body image.

"Even the women who were very thin didn't feel they were thin enough," Mulholland says. "The body image is just horrific in this country."

So Mulholland, who learned motivational techniques during her previous career as a sales executive, made positive thinking a large part of Soft Sensuous Moves.

"No one is allowed to bring in negative thoughts. It has to be all positive," she says.

For example, when she greets a woman by asking how she is, she expects them to respond with something out of the ordinary. "They must say something like 'I am absolutely fantastic, I am incredible, I am luscious.'"

Participants also pick a "stripper" name they'll go by in class. Mulholland is Wicked Pleasure. Other names include Bounce, Luscious Lolly, Isis, Brown Sugar and Tickle U. It's all part of "stepping out of the box," something Mulholland pushes her classes to do.

Michelle Ryon, a 36-year-old stay-at-home mom, was up to the task during her first class — she introduced herself by dropping to the floor, doing a split and announcing, "Hi, my name's Michelle!" She stresses that although the class does have a sexual tone, it's really about feeling good about being a woman.

Mulholland concedes that her techniques have been criticized by other women and a few personal trainers. "They feel women should be hard and tough, boot camping it, lifting those weights," she explains. "But women can be exceptionally strong in their femininity. Women in business feel like they have to be strong to keep up with their male counterparts, but this gives them a chance to let their hair down."

Michelle Ryon's husband, John, has a different take on what the classes have done for his wife and their marriage.

He and Michelle had fertility problems while trying to conceive.

"We had to use all this scientific stuff for three years of our lives," he says. "Being intimate was a chore, something that wasn't very much fun anymore."

After the birth of their son, the Ryons decided that "maybe it was time to start doing things for ourselves, instead of raising kids and trying to reproduce," John says.

Michelle, adventurous by nature, decided to try Soft Sensuous Moves. It turned out to be the right move.

John says, "She goes to dance class and then we get a babysitter and she shows me what she learned that day."

Thirtysomething musician Erica Vigliante took the class to help her loosen up onstage. Even though she's in a band that plays at nightclubs regularly, she is shy and confesses she had trouble looking at the crowd while performing. Taking the beginning class helped.

"I think I was surprised at the level of confidence that came with it," she says. "You really throw yourself out there. You build your confidence up that way. I feel sexier taking the class."

Sure, it's easy feeling sexy when you are young and agile, but Sylvia Schaefer, a 64-year-old widow raves about what the class has added to her life. "This just took me up a notch," she says. "I'm not lonely, but I'm alone, and it really makes me feel good about me."

Schaefer says her grown children were a little apprehensive about their kids' grandma taking a stripping class. She says most people, including her kids, hear only that "it's striptease," not that it's a striptease exercise class.

"Physically and mentally, it keeps me young," she says. "I joined the gym for stamina to keep up with my grandkids, but I joined the class for me, and I'm not sorry. And that's the best reason."

To learn more about Soft Sensuous Moves, contact René Mulholland at (210) 863-3591 or visit www.soft sensuousmoves.com.

mheidbrink@express-news.net