ZUMBA

Has anyone ever tried this yet? It's a new craze and I gave it a shot tonight. I decided to break up my gym routine tonight: 20 mins on the elliptical, 1 hour of Total Body Conditioning and then.....ZUMBA. I rarely do back to back classes but tonight I had the time, so I stayed for another hour long ZUMBA class.

Here's how it went down: The class was packed with 70 or more people (this included only 2 men). The nice young ladies behind me reassured me that it would be fun and easy to follow. They said to follow the people in front of me. Well that would have been great if the people in front of me had a clue about what they were supposed to do! Luckily, I was able to see through the sea of bodies and watch the instructor in the mirror. Let me tell you, this was some sea- big and small, tall and short, big chests-little chests, men, you name it. ZUMBA apparently is for EVERYONE.

The class started off with some fast Latin music. I seriously felt like I was back at an all inclusive resort in Mexico dancing with the hotel performers and all the other brave (or retarded..you pick) tourists at the after dinner show. We stayed in Mexico for a while and this group of ZUMBA dancers did it all. We even had sound effects from a girl who I named (in my head) Speedy Gonzales. Then we traveled to India for a song or two and looked as if we were in Bollywood. One of the men even took his shirt off and wrapped it around his head like a turban (he was white and I was shocked and giggling). Throughout Bollywood land I had visions of Chicken Tikka, Samosas and Mango Chutney while I was trying to focus on my snake moves. After India, we headed on over to PUEEEERTO RICO with some Reggaeton and the ZUMBA-ers (including myself) tried to shake it like Jenny from the Block. We finished our trip back at Mexico, right where we started, with the tourists at the all inclusive. I kept thinking that this would have been great if I had on strappy stilettos, a cute dress and a cerveza in my hand (I probably would have danced better too).

I'm still undecided about my take on ZUMBA. I did not feel as if it really was a workout. It was a dance class. However, it was fun and I had a good time. I kept saying to myself during the class "Just keep moving your hips and DO NOT laugh out loud". I'm not a great dancer but I'm also not a terrible dancer. These ZUMBA-ers were so awful they were entertaining...I definitely got the giggles a couple of times and had to compose myself. I think I will try it again, if anything just for those giggles....they work out my abs :-)