ZUMBA

Mary convinced me that we should go to a Zumba class together. Zumba is this exercise class where you do some Latin dance moves.

Here's a video of some people doing Zumba:



We agree that I will likely be unable to perform most of the Zumba moves. Mary just said we probably shouldn't stand next to each other, or we'll laugh too hard. I found a Zumba class that happens outside at Lake Calhoun. It's free, but Mary said we ABSOLUTELY CANNOT Zumba OUTSIDE where people can SEE.

She has a real point there.

Okay, you can't really just quit writing your blog, so let's talk about Zumba. I've done Zumba before in a sporadic fashion - a class here and there, a video game, some cool moves in my kitchen while stirring chili. You know, just jamming on my own, pretty much.

But now, NOW!, I'm a Zumba regular. I go to an extra-long class every Sunday that's really hard with complicated choreography. In fact, last week the instructor told us that she's changing the name of the class because boring old Zumba routines are too pedestrian for our quality group.

Presenting: Urban Pop!

The teacher says stuff like, "Don't feel bad, you guys, but I choose the people to be in the front row because I need them to help me keep the class going." Don't come to the first row, she's telling the rest of us. And, maybe avoid the second and third rows, too. We lesser dancers need to stay farther back and just try our best to hold on.

After several months of practicing, I feel I'm moving up to the intermediate level, but when I look around the class, I have to admit that most people are still as good or better than I am. That's okay because, as I remind myself each Sunday, Urban Pop dancing is not a competition. The prize is showing up and getting a workout.

Doesn't that sound right? We're all winners?

I've been showing off my dance moves to the children (not impressed) and Dan ("Please stop"), and I told Lynne that I'd definitely be ready for a prime Dance Captain role in this year's teacher talent show number. "You got it," she told me, but I can't tell if she's serious. My brother sent me a YouTube video yesterday in which Zumba is listed as a prime criterion for being diagnosed as "basic" (not a compliment). The video, though, doesn't say anything about URBAN POP!

And now, this morning, I'm bringing my friend KK to the party. "You'll love it," I told her. And I'm 99% sure she's going to be laughing - both at me and the whole 100-person Urban Pop fantasia - through the whole 75 minutes.

I'll come back and let you know. Track the comments. Refresh. #bodyroll

A while back during the A to Z blogging challenge, I said Mary and I were going to try Zumba. Ditch the workout, the Zumba website says, and join the party!

"Wait," said Rachel. "Is that like the Shakira dancing workout?"

"Yes!" I said.

"Mary's actually going to be good at that, and you're really NOT," she said.

I mean, how did she even know that?!

Anyway, at the first Zumba workout we tried, it didn't really matter that I couldn't shake it like Shakira because our teacher Mickey couldn't really either. He was a cool guy with shoulder-length hair and a thick mustache. We did some butt-waggling, but not a lot of choreography.

After each song, I looked to Mary for validation. "See?" I said. "I did that pretty well."

The next week, we decided to try a different teacher, who would maybe be a little dance-ier. Sure enough, I could tell I would have a much harder time from the very first song where complicated hip shaking and ball-changing was required. In fact, the only way I could even begin to follow Megan's routines ("Now diva walk!" "Now salsa!") was to stare directly at her ass for the entire hour.

I didn't realize I was doing it until halfway through, but I totally was. That's just how I Zumba.

Mary and I went to Zumba this morning. Our teacher was Leslie. We picked her class because she had an awesome video on YouTube featuring her and her crew dancing on the Stone Arch Bridge here in Minneapolis. You can see the original video here.

For this challenge post, I first danced along with the YouTube vid in front of my webcam. Then, I uploaded and downloaded the original video using Zamzar. You're probably not going to believe this, but I did the absolute best I could during the dancing. Then, in a probably spectacularly stupid move, I edited my own dancing into Leslie's original video.

OMG. Challenge participants, this is called: LAYING THE SMACK DOWN.



p.s. in this video, I'm wearing a LOFT sweater and LOFT jeans. Nice!!

At many times in my life, I've been pretty into running and other ATHLETIC pursuits. I'm actually really proud of my marathon and triathlon finishes, especially the ones I logged after the children were born. It wasn't easy to exercise with those c-section incisions, I'm telling you.

In the last year or so, however, I've been on another break from ATHLETICS. Instead of running and stuff, I wore a pedometer to collect steps and did my Zumba Wii game. It was fun, and I feel like I stayed in pretty good shape.

However, I'm ramping things up just a tad right now. My friend Molly asked me to be on a four-person marathon relay team with her. It's Minneapolis Marathon on June 3rd. I only have to do like 6.6 miles, but Molly said the time goal is 3:30. That's 8-minute miles. I'm pretty sure that's beyond the realm of possibility for someone in my situation. So, I said I couldn't commit to the time goal, but I could commit to the team. She said that those ATHLETIC efforts would be enough.

Thanks for the inspiration, Oakland! I'm going to dedicate my Minneapolis Marathon leg to you.

Lee says she's not blogging until we're done with our NCTE talk, but I feel like blogging for me might open the floodgates of productivity. But I hope it opens them for tomorrow because tonight it's really close to my bedtime.

I was pretty productive today, getting grades entered and discussing them with the juniors. Most of the juniors were happy with their progress, so that was positive. Some of the seniors should be more concerned about theirs, but what can you do? Apparently, I signed up to teach the biggest slacker class at our school. It's a class where you feel like you can refuse to log into your computer for the entire period or just draw little cartoon people and giggle about it.

I don't know what to do about these problem behaviors, to tell you the truth. The students are eighteen years old.