Once upon a time, my friend Holly from church told me she had gotten certified as a Zumba fitness instructor- and the conversation led to someone proposing a group of us girls be her guinea pig class. Wanting to be supportive (and plotting to bail out later once she felt confident and established in her instructing skills) I volunteered enthusiastically to attend a Zumba class to be held in our other friend Mandy's house. Well, I hardly knew what i was in for.
If you aren't familiar with Zumba you may be a little out of touch. Its a fitness craze (like a fad thats good for you) thats had ridiculous success worldwide- a fusion of aerobics and latin/hiphop/world dance to a blend of house mixed international rhythms, Zumba's slogan is: Ditch the workout, join the party!
Well, I joined the party alright.
Of all the people to end up doing Zumba, I nominate myself among the least likely. I used to do cardio kick boxing and enjoyed that, but...Zumba? Really? But once i got going with Holly's class, i started looking forward to meeting all the women to talk story, sweat like mad for an hour trying to keep up with the impossible tempo, and laugh ALOT. I may not look amazing when i try to shake it, but once i got over myself it was just plain fun to dance around and know i was getting serious exercise in the process!
Now we come to the most hilarious part of the story, where you will want to laugh. I can't really get into the whole story of why this is so funny, but heres the gist of it. Zumba flavor is modified slightly by every different locality and even every instructor- thats part of the nature of it. Well, the Maui version tends to have a little bit of extra hula hips thrown in, and in addition they like to highlight that shaking with tying arabian style coin scarfs around their hips. I outright refused- that was far too silly. I mean, doing an aerobic hip hop cha-cha with jingly things swishing around my backside? You have to draw the line somewhere, right? Well, i consented to try it one night just to have authority to it. Unfortunately, it turns out that i felt it improved my ability to keep in time with the rhythm and know if i was doing the motions right...the little "swish, swish, snap!" was oddly helpful. I relented.
To console myself, i ordered my coin scarf in leopard print. (It felt more like quirky me, and marginally less like an out of place arabian nights costume.) It arrived today. And I hate to admit it, but it makes me really excited for my next class:)
