Caught the Zumba Fever

Today, during my company's wellness program, we did Zumba. I have never done a Zumba class before. I watched the infomercial all the way through and put the Zumba DVDs on my Amazon wishlist for a couple of years. However, the price kept going up and I never got them. I've been meaning to head to Discovery Green in Downtown Houston to try their free Zumba classes, but haven't made it down there yet. So, I was really looking forward to this class when I first saw it on the list.

The class itself was awesome. I love Latin dancing. I love to shake my hips. I love Shakira's body (her stomach is my dream stomach). So, this was perfect for me. Some of the ladies I guess were shy, because they started laughing when we began moving our hips in a very Latin sexual way. I was like, "What are you 5? Get over it."

The instructor started the class with a warmup to get the heart pumping and to tell us that there are no wrong moves in Zumba. So, I moved to the beat. In fact, whenever I looked at her for too long, I lost the beat of the music and probably looked like a stupid white girl that has never danced before (ala Baby in Dirty Dancing). Some of the dance moves we did were not always in line with the music. I felt sometimes, we were going to slow or too fast. Since she said there is no wrong moves, I would speed it up or slow down to correspond with the beat. There was one move that I had trouble with and I kept looking at her, which made it worse. So, I just stopped looking at her for too long. I would just glance her way to get the moves and then look away. She only came over to me once. My favorite was the salsa (of course) and the last dance (no, not because it was the last dance). I liked it, because it was done to a really cool Shakira song and it just really works you. I also liked the belly dancing, but this one was hard for me, because I felt we were going way to slow for the beat.

All in all, I really enjoyed Zumba. It got my heart pumping, my abs/legs/arms burning, and I was sweating. However, Zumba class is not as fun when you are so very sore, especially in the the thighs. It was hard for me to bend low and move my legs around when they felt like twin freight trucks holding me down (metaphorically, since I don't think my legs are that big).

Also, Zumba was just what I needed to put me in a slightly better mood. Have you ever just woke up on the wrong side of the bed and then from there, your day just morphed in to something not great? Well, that happened to me today. So, I'm not kidding about Zumba being a great pick me up. Just remember that when you are looking for a change in your routine.

I canceled my Pilates class today, but I have Hatha Yoga tomorrow and I may try to run this evening. I'm not sure. I almost need a break day from exercising.