And pumping! I'm talking about Zumba!!! Tonight after my (almost regular) Tuesday and Thursday body pump class, I stuck around another hour to figure out what this Zumba business was about. The same instructor who leads the body pump also leads this class and she mentioned it was a great cardio workout so I wanted to see for myself. Oh, and the fact that I had 2 pieces of pizza from Sam's Club and a giant pop for lunch left me feeling a little guilty. But it was only $4.88 for all of that! Anyway, Zumba is a dance class that incorporates different styles of dance moves into easy-to-learn but fast-paced steps. Here's an example:
My instructor was absolutely right. Our warm-up started off with us "pumping" our hips - I actually had to stop and giggle, loudly. Apparently this is normal because everyone else looked at me when I did. Let me tell you something else: this white girl CAN'T dance! But it sure was fun to try! Over my two hours of body pump and Zumba, I burned just over 900 calories and I had a great time doing it! I'm sure with anything, practice will make me look like less of a fool. I was also surprised to see that many of the people in Zumba didn't know what they were doing so I fit in great. I stood next to the man weighing in at over 200 pounds for added security, but I sometimes lost sight of how much space was around me and ran into him once or twice... whoops. My favorite parts were dancing to the songs on the radio that I really like right now since I sometimes jam out on my own. I'm going to try and make this a Tuesday/Thursday night ritual to try and put less stress on my body while running. As the weather is cooling off (65 degrees outside now!) I am going to need another outlet than the treadmill every day. I'm proud of myself that I tried something else new since I usually avoid dancing because I'm self-conscious. Time to get out of my comfort zone... slowly but surely! I'd recommend it for anyone who wants to break out a little and just have fun, especially because no one cares how silly you look!
