Zumba-riffic

I took my first Zumba class in Germany sometime late last summer or early fall. My mom, who was completely unprepared to have a child like me that loathed the outside from birth (at least I'm convinced of this), spent a lot of time trying to convince me or make me go outside. Back then, we didn't even have the skin cancer defense like we do now, and even so, she would have handed me a bottle of sunscreen and made me go anyway. She did it out of love. I'm almost positive. I have sneaky suspicions she also occasionally did this to keep her sanity, but she gets no flak from me on that count. I totally, totally get it.

Since I proved to be a challenge to get outdoors, I got to try lots of sports. Over the years, I participated in soccer, softball, basketball, cheerleading, gymnastics, and dance. With this wide variety of experiences, you'd think I'd be athletic. Nope. I was the kid who was looking for the four leaf clover in the outfield. I have an issue with perception depth (didn't know it then, of course) so I had trouble hitting the ball, catching the ball, making a basket...you get the idea. The fact that I always closed my eyes didn't help, either. Mom, who loves pretty much all sports, must have been mystified how her daughter could be so bad at so many sports. Fortunately, I was pretty good at dancing. It gets depressing being really bad at everything, even though I really didn't care all that much at the time. I was just glad I didn't have to keep playing.

Dancing was a good solution for everyone. I was passably good at it, liked it, it was inside and I got to wear cool costumes. I liked gymnastics too, but I didn't have the advanced flexibility or upper body strength to do well. I never could do anything on the parallel bars, and I wanted to so badly. It seemed like it would be like flying. And I never progressed past the roundoff - not even a single handspring. I think gravity just loved me too much to let me very far off the ground. heh!

Anyway, so dance was my exercise of choice over the years and when I learned that Zumba was a dance exercise class...well! Sign me up! I loved it. LOVED it! When we got to North Carolina, I was thrilled to see that the YMCA that let us have a 14 day pass offered Zumba classes too. Chris and I just happened to meet at the Y one evening right before a Zumba class started so we went to that instead of walking the track or the treadmill. She liked it too, and I liked that every class and every instructor was different. That way you (meaning I) don't get bored. Nice!

The Y we joined here has Zumba classes too. Wahoo! I went to my first one a couple weeks ago and was pleased with it. It was challenging, but not impossible. More importantly it was fun. I met a really nice lady there and we've gone to several classes together. Last Tuesday, we went to a later Zumba class at a different Y. The instructor was older and I agreed with Samantha when she said that hopefully this would be an easy class to follow.

We back row habiters have trouble seeing the instructor since the room is large and the classes are always really, really full. But I've never been much of a front row type of person and don't see myself starting that now. When our instructor last week started talking, she said something about routine #19. Ummmmm.....there are routines? And there are at least 19 of them? This does not bode well for us novices. I mean, I get that routines are necessary, but I really thought that it was more of a free flow type thing...let the rhythm move you and all that. The class only lasts an hour and about halfway through, she literally had us galloping across the room. Repeatedly. Routine #19 requires way more energy than I was expecting to expend at 7:30 on a Tuesday night. I had a lot of trouble with some of the steps and on one or two occasions, I thought that I might need to consider getting an portable oxygen tank to strap on before doing too many more routine #19's. Wowsers! Even better is that the room is mirrored, because what overweight gal doesn't enjoy seeing everything jiggle and bounce? All the more reason to stick to the back, where at least the skinny pros towards the front hide a portion of a hip or fat roll. Every little bit helps. Samantha, my Zumba partner, is worried about not knowing the steps. I'm worried about living through the class. But we are going again tonight. I will not be defeated routine #19!!! I will master you! Muahahaaaahaaaaaaaaa.