I had to stop raving after bunion surgery – so I became a DJ instead | Life and style

TIna Woods was sitting in a taxi when the dance bug has a song. It was after midnight and she and two friends came back from the 60th birthday of another friend. Southwest London has passed the window. They had a little drink. Going through Le Fez’s nightclub, they realized that they did not want to go home. “We were like: let’s dance before bed,” she says.

Woods, then 56, had gone to club in her twenties, but on the dancefloor of Le Fez, while her body caught the rhythm, she had “a moment of epiphany”, a pure euphoria shock: “The joy that I felt – the spirit, the body and the connection of the soul – was like a lightning.” She then knew that “dance and music were going to be a greater part of my life that I would never have thought”.

Woods, who lives in London but grew up in Montreal, Canada, has always been active. She likes to travel, climb in the mountains and Zumba. But now she started clubbing – with friends or with Nick, her husband almost 30 years old years.

“I started to enter the softer end of techno – melodic techno, Tech House,” she says. “I loved the rhythm, the bass – AfroBeats line and a Latin atmosphere. I realized that my brain responded to this music in an incredibly energizing way. It made me feel alive. ”

Woods had studied genetics at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. His first job, after having moved to London at the beginning of the twenty, was as a medical writer for a company that made training films for doctors. She worked in health care until the age of 53 and is now a consultant specializing in health technology in relation to longevity; She published a book on the way of living longer with AI.

In the joy she felt on the dancefloor, she began to see a link with her work. “I try to bring scientific rigor and understanding in this dance environment and music neurochemistry to understand what promotes health and well-being-and, linked to this, which could delay the aging process,” she says.

Since she was 56 years old, she has tested her biological age and said she is younger. At 60, a test put it at 35 years. The dance brought new intergenerational friendships, as with Yukari, an aspiring DJ Woods met on the Dancefloor while he was in Japan at a conference.

However, when she was 59, the pain of onions in her feet has reached unbearable levels. The problem was so serious that some of Woods’ toes dislocated. She decided to undergo surgery. “I thought: what is important in my life?” For me, it is to be mobile and energetic. ” She knew that surgery would require four to six months of recovery.

“How am I going to face?” thought that Woods, who has trouble relaxing. “But there is always a positive side, if you are looking for it. I thought: I will learn to mix music.” Woods underwent an operation in December 2023, a week before Christmas – for which his three sons gave him a DJ equipment gift. The learning process was underway.

One night, after recovering her mobility, she and her husband were on his way to a concert in eastern London when they stopped to have a drink instead Love Shack. “We continued to see people coming and going … They showed us this secret piece under the railway arches and there is this huge pulse group.”

Woods had found the place for its DJ debut. She discussed it with Yukari. “We were like:” Let’s do a concert, “says Woods. “Before we know, more than 200 people had registered.”

They called their rave of longevity of the event. Woods now DJS once a month; She djed in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami and London. Dancefloor is always a mixture of ages. “I find myself again, in a fun way. Psychologically, emotionally, sexually. Everything about whom I am as a woman, ”she says.

She does not intend to stop her consulting business: “DJ is not a career. It’s no longer a vocation. ” But his world has become “more lively … more electric … There are a lot of DJs successful in the sixties and the 1970s. So who knows?” I’m just a path, seeing where it goes. “

Live longer with AI: how artificial intelligence helps us to extend our health and live better as by Tina Woods is published by Packt