The Beauty of Zumba

Tonight was a double Zumba night for me. Well, really most week nights are double Zumba nights, but whatever.

First up was class at Acadia

I did actually pin my bangs back before class.  Anytime I leave my bangs down is a total disaster.

It’s a weird time of year for fitness classes.  Aside from mid to late December this is always the slowest time of the year.  Classes actually pick up again in the summer once school is out.  Everyone seems to be super busy with concerts, recitals, etc. that classes are always smaller this time of year.  At least for the participants in my classes that means they’ve got extra room to move for a few weeks. 8)

The worst part of double class nights, is trying to make yourself look (and smell!) presentable again for your second class when you really only have 5-10 minutes to fix yourself up.  Here I am ready for class two

I was feeling pretty tired tonight when I left home so I made a quick pitstop at Tim Horton’s to get one of their frozen Raspberry Lemonades.  So yummy!!

And bonus – the small is only a buck.  Gotta love that!

So tonight in my second class, I had a Latina girl.  I’ve got a few lovely Latina’s that take my classes on a regular basis but this one came with her husband as she doesn’t speak english.  He came to ask me about the cost and when class ended, etc. and relayed the info to her.  During class I couldn’t help but think about how wonderful Zumba is.  How many other fitness classes can you go into, not need to know the language the instructor speaks and still follow along in the class with everyone else?  Since Zumba is all visual cueing, language simply isn’t an issue.  Plus for her, since Spanish is her first language, she would know (or at least understand) most of the songs.  Certainly she would understand way more of the songs than I do.

I watched her and she was back there with this huge smile on her face the whole time, and it really made my heart smile.  It’s such a cheesy thing to say, but I can’t imagine being in her shoes.  In a country where you understand very few people, and then you go to a fitness class where you know nobody, and can’t even talk to anyone because of the language barrier and don’t have to worry about anything.  You’re just like everyone else there trying to follow along and have fun.  It is times like this that I feel so fortunate to be a part of this crazy Zumba family.

It always strikes me as funny that this super white girl (me), is teaching a latin based dance fitness class to latin people.  It just seems wrong somehow.  But they seem to be happy and enjoy my crazy white girl ways so it all works out in the end 😉

I hope everyone who was off today in observation of Memorial Day had a great day, and for everyone else I hope you had a good start to the week!