Zumba, or How I spent my Cyber Monday

(By Slick)

Yeah, it’s Monday!  Monday is my favorite workout day, or I should say night.  It is Zumba night at my local community center.  For five dollars I can go and spend an hour having fun and get a great workout. According to our local instructor, Zumba promotes a party atmosphere using Latin-inspired dance moves along with very upbeat music.

There are lots of great aspects of Zumba.  Though the music is upbeat, mostly dance/hip-hop style, Zumba moves can be done at different levels.  You can just move your feet, add arm movements, tighten abs or other target muscles, and if that is all too easy, you can add hops and more exaggerated moves.  As it has only been a couple of days since Thanksgiving, our instructor performed the more advanced movements, all while yelling “Burn turkey, burn.” 

Another great feature is that you are not limited to Zumba classes. There are also Zumba DVD’s and many gaming systems offer Zumba games, including Wii and Xbox 360.  I haven’t purchased any of these; I really like the personal aspect of attending a class with an instructor.  I am not sure you can get the energy and personal attention from a video game.  As I have only been attending Zumba classes for a couple of months, maybe when I have more classes under my belt, I will venture and try a video game.  Another way to try Zumba without upfront fees is to download from video sites online, such as youtube.  

For me, I like it because I can listen to music and dance around like I was a kid again.  It doesn’t matter than I am pretty uncoordinated and sometimes move left instead of right.  It just matters that I get out there and have fun.  Which I think is the most important aspect of any workout routine.  Fun means I will keep trying and keep coming back.  Plus it is an amazing stress reducer.

If you have gotten this far, you are probably wondering what this has to do with Cyber Monday.  In the spirit of Cyber Monday, my local instructor offered discounted prices for her classes, good for today only.  And in the spirit of Cyber Monday, I purchased 20 classes.