Getting our Zumba on

My 15 year old daughter just got a gym membership at the same gym my husband and I belong to. We took a look at the group exercise classes and picked a few that we thought might be fun to try out together. The first one that jumped out at us was Zumba. For those of you that haven’t tried it yet, Zumba is a latin dance inspired workout. Or as I like to call it, the perfect way to embarrass your teenage daugther.

This morning we tried out our first class. We had a bit of a debate about what to wear, and decided on lululemon t-shirts and she wore leggings and I wore shorts. We got to the gym and had to ask where the class was held and someone even walked us right there so we had no opportunities for backing out or running away. A body pump class was just finishing and they had so many things to put away that we both decided to skip that one. Seemed like a lot of work.

We told our Zumba instructor that we were new to the class and had no clue. She was super nice, gorgeous, ebullient, and welcoming. We were off to a good start.

I have three things going for me, where Zumba is concerned:
– I have great cardio from all the running
– I love latin music
– I am very enthusiastic.

Things I do NOT have going for me that it turns out are quite critical to the Zumba experience:
– Any latin dance experience
– rhythm
– the ability to move my legs in one direction, swivel my hips, and shake my arms around, ALL AT THE SAME TIME.

We laughed so much during the class. Whenever I met my girl’s eyes, we dissolved into giggles at my lack of coordination. Everytime I felt like I mastered a step, we moved to a new step. Usually while I was still doing the first step with large amounts of enthusiasm. Our instructor was lovely and kept seeing us be a disaster and then saying “Okay, let’s break this one down” and explaining it slowly.

Overall, we survived the class, definitely enjoyed the music and atmosphere. We’ll definitely go back and try to get better at this. We think the best plan of attack is to watch a couple of youtube videos on basic Zumba steps before next Saturday. And let’s be honest, whenever no one was looking and I couldn’t figure out the steps, I just jumped around and shimmied and hoped for the best!