My Zumba King get-up got me the prize for best costume in my Zumba class last Halloween–a CD with the Monday night instructor’s twenty favorite Zumba songs. I burned it on to my computers at work and at home, synced it onto my iPod Nano, keep the CD in my car, and added it to my Cloud on iTunes. Since October, I listen to at least a song or two from it practically every day.
Last week, I got another CD at the Zumbathon I attended at the YWCA. This one contains 17 songs from my Sunday afternoon Zumba instructor. It’s also been downloaded everywhere I have music. I even created a special playlist with all my Zumba songs–35 all together. In case you’re wondering about them, the other two are by Shakira and somehow ended up elsewhere in my music library. They’ll turn up.
Yesterday and today, instead of going for a run, I stayed home and worked in the yard. I really, really wanted to run. But the yard work had to be done, and I knew if I ran first, the yard work wouldn’t get done. I popped my earbuds in, selected the Zumba playlist, hit shuffle, and then cranked up the volume to a comfortable, head-filling but not obscene level.
And I danced.
In the privacy of my back yard, I put on some serious Zumba. I remembered a surprising amount of the choreography, and filled in what I couldn’t remember with moves of my own that I didn’t have six months ago. I shook my booty and shimmied like a desperate hooker in a seedy strip club. I had so much fun I did it again for several hours today.
Honestly, I’ve always been somewhat prone to dancing in the yard. I can’t help it. I was born to dance.
But before Zumba, the music I listened to wasn’t strongly associated with any specific choreography. Sure, I’d get caught up in the music once in a while and pull out some of my old dance club moves, just to make sure I can still be butch and manly on the dance floor. Y’all, thirty years ago I had it going on.
Zumba has changed all that. Oh, I’ve still got it going on, only nine-months of Zumba have really dialed it up. I’ve reached the point where I don’t even think about how girly some of the moves are. I just do them–to the best of my ability, in the middle of my yard, without a thought to any neighbors who might be watching from inside their own homes. I probably have my own channel on YouTube by now.
Yesterday afternoon, the new Zumba clothes I ordered earlier in the week arrived. Yay! Now I have three pairs of Zumba shorts and five Zumba tops–enough that I’ll always have something cute and trendy to wear to Zumba classes. My partner made fun of me and my Zumba wardrobe. I pointed out that he had purchased special shoes to wear in the spin classes he takes, and gloves for weight-lifting. He argued that those additions improved his performance and enhanced the quality of his workouts.
He’s absolutely right. Zumba clothing improves my performance and enhances my workouts, too. After dancing in the yard to every Zumba song I know for the last two days, this afternoon I went to Zumba in my cute new Zumba clothes. I really cut loose. I swear, I was having so much fun busting my groove I might have even experienced one of those coregasm things women get when they work out.
And I’m looking good, too. Yup. All the stuff I’m doing is making a difference.
I’m tan from running with my shirt off. In my form-fitting red tank top, it’s obvious I’ve been working out for months. And I got moves that would frighten some people. Seriously. Four hours of booty shaking every week for more than six months has produced results. Just come by sometime when I’m working it in the yard. You’ll see that hips don’t lie here in…
My Glass House