Zoooo--what?

Zumba.  The Latin-dance based aerobics workout.  I joined a new gym, one that costs - no joke - TEN TIMES LESS than my old gym, and they offer Zumba several times a week, at widely varying times.  At my old gym, they offered Zumba, too, but the new gym changes its schedule of classes about once a quarter, so if there's something you want to try, chances are that it will eventually end up in a time slot that works for you.  My old gym kept the same schedule all the time.  There are pros and cons to both methods...so far in 2009, I can't really get to any of the yoga classes I want, because they're at times that are highly inconvenient to me; but at the end of last year, there were two that worked well in my world.

I despise old-school areobics.  With a passion.  Step - hate.  Cardio-kick - hate.  Jazzercise - hate.  But I keep trying new classes in the hope that something will be fun, something will be one I'd like to stick with.  This attitude is what got me into a BOSU class - -which looked like such fun.  In the end, I hated it, but at least I gave it a shot.  (More than once, just in case you're wondering.  Three times.  The first one was the only class EVER I have considered walking out of in the middle of the class, just packing up my shiz and leaving.  Ugh.)

I was late to Zumba (shocker), but the tardiness was due to confusion at the door over my membership card.  Hopefully that mess is straightened out.  I walked into a dance studio full of 23 year-olds, mostly skinny ones.  Can I tell you that I'm glad for the death of the leotard for exercise classes?  That Jane Fonda/Oliva Newton John look of leotard, tights, socks, sneakers, and sometimes legwarmers?  Ugh, I hated that.  So at least the 23 year-old skinny bitches aren't one-upping each other with skimpier and skimpier outfits.  Mostly t-shirts and leggings, the sort of thing I myself wear to work out.

At first blush, the class was filled with cute young things, but as I looked around, I saw several other women in my age bracket and older, and I relaxed a little.  I also noticed that I'm not the only one who gets off-track from the instructor.  (I have 3 left feet!)  I might have been the only one in the room who had never done this before, though, because it seemed like everyone else had the moves mostly down. 

Ten minutes into it, gasping for breath, knees killing me, sweating profusely, I was wondering what the hell I had been thinking, wanting to do this.  But then the music stopped, and everyone grabbed water or just vegged for a few seconds until the next song came on, and it was slower.  I kept catching my reflection in the mirror through the next sequence; and wonder of wonders, every time I saw my reflection, I was smiling.  I was *gasp* having fun.  Astonishing.  Don't get me wrong, I was still watching the clock, like I have in every single exercise class I've ever taken, except for Pilates.  

But I enjoyed it enough to want to go back, I'm even looking forward to it.  Even though 3 days later I was STILL sore.  Damn, who knew that dancing was such a workout?