Vamos a bailar Zumba!

MANILA, Philippines –  Gone are the days when I could eat a plateful of rice, three servings of dessert and still maintain a 24-inch waistline. It’s called age.

In protest, I have enrolled in so many fitness classes and even have a mini home gym with an assortment of barely used fitness equipment. But the longest I have lasted in any regimen is two months. I would get bored or get stressed at the thought of exercising that I would flop back on my bed and sleep. Not exactly a calorie burner.

But all that has changed. In one of the Board meetings of Ballet Philippines, Zumba was mentioned as the newest dance exercise class in our dance school facility, Arts in the City, in Fort Bonifacio. Zumba? You mean samba, the Latin dance, right? As it turns out, Zumba was correct and samba is just a part of it. 

Zumba is a dance cardio exercise that involves all sorts of Latin dances: samba, cumbia, merengue, reggaeton (a Latin hip-hop), salsa, calypso, with some jazz, belly dancing and Thai boxing moves thrown in. I was easy to convince and promptly arranged a special class exclusively for me and a group of friends.

It’s been quite a ride since then. And what a difference an exciting regimen makes! I look forward to my Zumba morning classes with anticipation. The music of Zumba alone is a pick-me-upper. We sashay to the music of Shakira’s Waka Waka, the rhythmic beat of Que Te Mueve Merengue, Santa Que Cumbia, Baila, Menea Y Goza Quebradita, original tracks created by Grammy award winning composers specifically for Zumba. The rhythm is largely Latin, part Caribbean and all upbeat pulsating contagious fun! 

The music gets us dancing and the steps are perkily named Booty Circle, a salsa-cum-belly dancing routine with full circle hip gyrations and standing abs exercises; and Tobago, a sliding merengue step. Another favorite is a reggaeton move where on bent knees, we stomp our feet and flail our hands in a circular sweep to end up in a knee up hip-hop move. 

Hip-hop? Reggae? I’m not exactly of the hip-hop generation but it comes seamlessly when dancing Zumba and transitioning breezily to different moves accompanied by pulse-quickening music.

Via, our Bali-trained ZIN (Zumba Instructor) whose 22-inch waistline is a constant inspiration, told me that Zumba was one of those fortuitous mistakes. A celebrity aerobics teacher, Beto Perez, forgot his regular aerobics music and improvised in class by using the salsa and merengue music in his backpack. Instead of counting repetitions over the music, he improvised by incorporating Latin dance moves…and Zumba was born! 

It has since gone international, sweeping over 110 countries. And each class is not called a class, it’s called a party! As its rather cheeky slogan says, “It’s time to take the ‘work’ out of working out! Let’s start Zumba-ing!” 

I’ve been Zumba-ing for months now, and it’s done wonders for my ego. A certified non-athletic person, I am now in an optional level of Zumba. I don’t just dance the steps now, I accompany the dance steps with resistance training and lift light dumbbells in an hour-long Zumba toning program. I certainly get more repetitions in Zumba than the circuit training I used to do with a personal trainer. 

When my friends and I started several months ago, we would pantingly request for five water breaks in our one-hour class. Now, we can go through the entire hour with just one little break. That it’s fun and perky and has many variations that defy the term “routine” or “regimen” are some of the reasons I’ve been coming back. Zumba also lets me relive my disco-dancing high school days! 

Recently at a concert with an all-female band, my friends and I noticed that the skimpily clad singers were dancing and shimmying in a rather familiar way! We laughingly told our husbands that they were dancing a la Zumba and that we could certainly dance with the best of them! 

For sure, it’s safe to say I’ll be Zumba-ing my way to fitness. It’s fun! It’s happy! It’s living life in vivid color and dancing out loud! Vamos a bailar Zumba!

For inquiries on Zumba and other dance classes such as adult ballet, ballet, hip-hop, and pole dancing, call 399-2211 or 889-3028. Arts in the City is located at 7th St. corner 26th St. (across the NBC Tent), Global City, Taguig.