Joyous Zumba:Dance and exercise to a Latin beat

(July 21, 2011)  Six bucks can buy you a margarita. That’s also the fee consummate musician and merrymaker Marla Joy charges for the Zumba classes she teaches from Fortuna to Trinidad.

“Drink one margarita and you might consume 300 to 600 calories,” Joy says. “You might feel OK, but for six dollars come in and get a better high than a cheap margarita and burn 600 calories. You don’t need three or four drinks to reduce your inhibitions and express yourself dancing. We get right into business for an hour.”

Zumba is an aerobic-cardio fitness system of short dance combinations taken from merengue, salsa, cumbia and other Latin-inspired steps choreographed to mostly Latin rhythms. Zumba classes incorporate fitness exercises such as bicep curls, knee lifts and squats into the dance combinations. The rousing music and choreography make for a jubilant atmosphere, more of a dance party than a fitness class.

Zumba was born of a happy accident in Cali, Columbia, in the mid-‘90s when aerobics instructor Beto Perez forgot his aerobic music and grabbed cumbia, merengue and salsa tapes from his backpack, then improvised steps from those dance traditions for the workout he was leading. The crowd loved it. And this totally fun craze began.

When I lived in New York, I didn’t need a gym membership. I walked everywhere and swam at my neighborhood pool. I could take modern dance classes of infinite styles any day of the week from morning until nightfall. Disappointed by the lack of modern dance classes here in Humboldt, I joined HealthSport and started taking Pilates, which, by the way, along with being great for anyone’s back, is particularly good training for dancers. Delving into the minutia of muscles and bones while doing Pilates is an absorbing addition to but no substitute for dancing.

Why not aerobics? Way too mindless for me, and bad for the knees. My best friend from high school, a size-two aerobics queen, would drag me to a class whenever I visited her. She and her friends would be high kicking it, all buffed out in the latest gym fashions, flashing tennis bracelets, pumping their arms in the air. (It was the ‘80s). It was a demanding workout, but too repetitive and I found the pop music annoying. Yet there was a palpable group energy; the women were definitely experiencing a collective rush. That’s what I needed: a big, sweaty, group-dance high to get me into the gym on a regular basis. But I wanted one with some artistic merit.

When I saw fliers for Marla Joy’s Zumba classes, I saw the potential for a wild ride. Joy is an incredibly hot and versatile musician who plays flute, bass and drums. Hip to dance, Joy has collaborated with choreographer Laura Munoz in live performances — she even wrote music for Munoz’ piece Take Off Your Skin — and more recently accompanied the modern dance classes Munoz teaches at Dell’Arte. Joy taught Israeli folk dances for the band Chubritza; she also gets crowds dancing playing bass in the Cajun band The Bayou Swamis. A musician teaching a musically rich form like Zumba was a sure win.

I like that she’s older, too. At HealthSport the younger Zumba instructors I encountered emanated positive energy and clearly taught the steps. But they did it to the max without considering the varying ages and levels of fitness in the room, or reminding participants to listen to their injuries and limitations, or suggesting modifications (not doing squats as deeply, for example). They were young fillies who do not yet harbor concerns for the longevity of their bods.

Source Stephanie Silvia

Posted in Cumbia , health sport , Latin-inspired steps , Marla Joy’s Zumba classes , Merengue , Salsa , zumba dance , zumba fitness , zumba fitness class