Recap: My first time trying Zumba!

Today I tried out Zumba for the very first time! Zumba is a high-energy, dance aerobics fitness program. Some of you may remember that I wrote/shot/edited a “student/health” story on Zumba in Edmonton back in the fall for NAIT NewsWatch. (Will re-post that at the bottom of this blog). It was back then that I had first heard of Zumba and even after filming/editing the piece and seeing how fun much participants had in the class (I even remember wanting to bounce around myself while filming!), I still didn’t try it myself.

But I had kept in touch with Lorena (or @i_ren) since doing the story, mainly via Twitter. I’d see occasional tweets about Zumba and it was just this month that I caught a tweet of Lorena announcing on Twitter that she’d be teaching Friday morning Zumba classes at Infinite Fusion (@infinitefit) for 7 weeks. It just so happened that with the way my practicum schedule worked out, I get Fridays off!

So I headed over to the studio this morning.

Tidbit: The studio is located one block away from my sister-in-law’s hair studio Blue Gemini.

Anyway, the one hour class was super fun! I wish I would have brought a face towel like most of the other participants did because I. was. sweating. Like crazy. Haha. We did a bunch of different dance aerobic routines to specific Zumba songs and also a few hits. My favourite was a Bollywood fitness routine for Jai Ho! So much fun. I should have counted how many different songs we danced to but I guess however many 3-ish minute songs you can fit into 60 minutes would be the answer to that. #Notgreatatmathematics

You could tell everyone was having a blast in the class. And it’s not like everyone was doing all the moves right either! I certainly wasn’t. It’s just fun and you get carried away with the bouncing and the jumping and with Lorena leading you can’t help but smile because her face is just beaming when she’s Zumba-instructing! Zumba really lets you move your hips and shake your body in ways that just seem ridiculous in any other setting.

I really want to continue with the classes but I’m not sure if I – as an unpaid practicum student for four months – can afford it. Since Lorena’s 7 class/week session already started, it wouldn’t make sense for me to pay the full $98-for-7-class-session now but I don’t know if I can drop $130 for a 10 class pass. I will have to do some thinking + financial organizing to see just how much I can allot to fitness endeavours.

I recently paid $30 for this Metabody fitness Groupon worth $350 normally. Great deal! So far I booked four classes in February for “fitness boot camp” sessions. So if I’m unable to add Zumba to my fitness-list then it wouldn’t be like I’m not getting ANY exercise in but the class was so fun I really do want to have it in my fitness routine!

*crossing my fingers it’ll work out*

I’m hoping I can pull some of my friends (real life) or even Twitter friends into attending with me too but so far haven’t been able to get anyone to bite.

Anyway, I walked away from my first Zumba class feeling very sweaty, tired, but fit and happy. It was a fun hour and for someone who loves watching dance but can’t really dance very well herself, it was a nice outlet to shake and jump around in a non-threatening environment :)

Here’s the video for NAIT last fall. It was voiced by my classmate Katie – written/shot/edited by me. Excuse the major blurry shot of the last interview. I know it looks horrifying but I felt the interview had to be kept in the story because she was the student in the student-health story!

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg0u6eVBG9c

Linda

1 Comment

  • Lorena says:

    Woohoo!! So glad you made it out. How can I not smile when I look out in the room and see all those wonderful faces! My participants ROCK!! Infinite Fusion has a fantastic atmosphere and participants that will try anything you throw at them.

    We covered 15 songs today — crazy hey?! I am so happy you liked the mix of music and yes, Jai Ho is one of my favourites as well. I am thinking we probably burn around 500 calories in an hour…some days maybe more!

    I certainly hope you can come again! It’s a small price to pay for health and happiness (and a sweaty good time)! See you soon!!

    Peace, Love, Zumba, baby!

    ~Lorena
    aka Zumba Ren
    (but that freeze frame shot has got to go!! haha)

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