Zumba

So we are still members at the gym.  And for the last 4 weeks, I've been going to a Zumba class on Tuesday mornings.  My friend is to blame.  She loves Zumba, and has been trying to convert me to this activity for at least a year.  She finally wore me down, and now it is fun to see her on Tuesdays...so I've continued to go.

Just in case you've never taken Zumba, let me explain it.

The short description is that it is just like Sweatin' to the Oldies with Richard Simmons, except with many more chest pops and pelvic thrusts.

You cram into a room with about 1,000 other women.  At my gym a dress code of barely there spandex tops and teeny spandex capris seems to be required.  Tassles, botox, and breast implants are optional.  We all flail about in an organized epileptic fit to music so loud that it literally shakes the floor beneath your feet. (I know, because I have worked out in the space below the Zumba rooms...the music vibrates the ceiling of that room.)  The music is kept as loud as possible so that you can't hear any instruction from the Zumba teacher, and you must instead squint through all the other gyrating bodies to try and figure out that you are shuffling to the left...no wait, now she's wiggling her hips...crap now we're jumping to the left...shit, what am I supposed to do now?  The Zumba teacher is a preternaturally happy individual, who looks to be a very good dancer.  I often think it would be fun to just grab a folding chair and watch the teacher move.  She always has a huge smile on her face, probably to mask the nearly debilitating depression that because she didn't make it into dance school, she is left leading a bunch of slouchy, soft-in-the belly, uncoordinated stumps like me.  She shrieks with glee as the next song comes on, even though...come on...she must hear the same music several times a week, week after week after week.  She will shout over the incredibly loud din for you to cheer with her.  Sometimes if she is particularly moved, she will turn the music UP.  Either because she clearly has become deaf or to drown out the slapping of uncoordinated feet.

If you are like me, Zumba is incredibly frustrating.  But I find I have really learned new things about myself through this class.

Things I have discovered:

1) If I ever have a stroke which debilitates either the top or bottom half of my body, I will be okay.  Because there is already zero communication between the two.  I'll finally get the step that we're doing, and I decide to add in the beautiful dancer arms...and then my feet stop moving.  I focus on my feet, and my arms either stop moving or start flailing about in a very not beautiful way.

2)  I am missing some joint in my hips.  Seriously.  I don't even know how to tell my body to do some of the things the teacher is doing with her pelvis.  She swears it is just crunching up your abs, but her booty is doing some incredible shaking...and mine is just sticking with jiggling.  Not the same effect.

3)  Marching band has ruined me.  I want to count the steps and go left right left right.  But these are DANCERS, people.  Just FEEL the music, man.  So we miss a step here and there.  It goes with the flow.  Just FEEL it.  (For the record...I can't feel it)

4)  With each class I go to, I care less about how poorly I am doing.  I just flail about, hopping here and there, jumping around completely willy-nilly.  A few more weeks, and I'll just be wandering around, humming to myself, twitching and stumbling.  People might think I'm a mentally handicapped individual who has accidentally come into class.  Except that comparison would be very insulting to such a person.  They certainly have more rhythm and grace than me.

But I am starting to enjoy myself.  My friend laughs at me, I laugh at me...it's all okay.  I just have to keep avoiding the mirror at the front of the room so I can't see what a disaster I am.