Dody Reid

Once a teacher, always a teacher. And, Dody Reid might add, once a

swimmer, always a swimmer.

The Newport Shores resident and retired teacher has been holding

semi-weekly water aerobics courses for the Oasis Senior Center since

1984, the year she retired as a professional teacher.

“It’s a lot of fun,” said Reid, a 76-year-old mother of four grown

children.

Classes take place in the pool at the Newport Dunes on Tuesday and

Thursday mornings. In shoulder-deep water, Reid and up to 30 students

at a time perform a regimen of moves, some outright playful, designed

to build strength, endurance and overall health.

“We do silly things, like one we call the frog,” Reid said,

describing a maneuver in which participants put the soles of their

feet together. Then, she said, she’ll often combine the frog with the

chicken -- a funky, chicken-like arm gesture -- in a hybrid move they

call the “chog.”

“For some people, this is a really big social activity,” she said.

“They meet people they have things in common with. They become

friends. That part has been really rewarding.”

Reid, daughter of local developer Leon Yale, moved to Balboa

Island when she was 3 months old.

“Being in the water to me is probably as natural as being on

land,” she said.

Minus some time living in Germany, Indiana and Hawaii, Reid has

spent most of her life in Newport Beach. She taught for years at

Corona del Mar Elementary and at the former MacNally School in Costa

Mesa. She also taught elementary school for about 17 years in

Huntington Beach.

When she retired in 1984, she went straight into volunteering for

the water aerobics class -- a stint she says she loves.

“Once a teacher, always a teacher,” she said.

-- Story by June Casagrande,

Photo by Sean Hiller