Zumba! Latin dance class still growing in popularity

She followed her favorite Zumba instructor around Bradenton for classes in venues such as the YMCA and other community centers.

Zumba is a trademark blend of dance-fitness exercise that combines Latin-style dance steps, fitness moves and exhilarating international music. Zumba creators call the classes a “fitness party.”

“In Zumba, they say ‘Come in and enjoy the party.’ You don’t feel like you are working out and that is the key,” said Aguirre.

“It keeps you happy because the music keeps you happy.”

Her devotion to Zumba eventually gave her an achievement to celebrate: She had salsa-ed, cha-cha-cha-ed her way to a weight loss of 83 pounds.

Only a few months after starting Zumba, Aguirre became an instructor. Today, she has her own following at places such as Shapes Fitness for Women on Cortez Road and YMCA branches in Lakewood Ranch and Parrish. She teaches 25 classes a week.

Since Zumba’s creation in 2001, the popular dance-fitness exercise has spread to 125 countries, according to the Zumba website. An estimated 12 million people take Zumba classes every week.

Still hot in 2012

Meanwhile, Zumba fever seems to be getting even hotter. Last October, the American College of Sports Medicine ranked it No. 9 in the top fitness trends to expect in 2012. The survey is created annually through polling more than 2,000 fitness instructors; the ranking for 2012 was the first where Zumba edged into the Top 10.

In Manatee, the “high season of Zumba” begins this month, said Esther Forestandi, a popular Zumba instructor who teaches at the Anna Maria Island Health and Fitness Center, and other local fitness and community centers.

Classes swell as winter visitors return to Bradenton and their favorite Zumba spots, she said.

Forestandi estimates the average age range of her students is between 45 and 75. Her oldest was an 89-year-old snowbird. Youngest: a 4-year-old and “you should have seen him dance!”

“The greatest benefit of Zumba is how you relax and have fun,” said Forestandi.

“People come in and can forget about their problems. They’re having a little fun … and they’re making noise, all kinds of noises.”

Students have told her the classes are their therapy, where they can decompress.

“It’s really nice for me. People have come up to me and said ‘You don’t know what it’s meant to me (to take classes).’ One woman was taking care of her mom and she had a lot of stress from being a caregiver. She would leave class saying she felt so good,’’ said Forestandi.

It will make you sweat

An aerobic interval-type workout, Zumba includes a warm-up and cool-down. As the class progresses, students can pick up the pace or slow it down, depending on how they want to push themselves. Fitness moves such as bicep curls are blended into the routine to add toning.

Like other aerobic exercise, Zumba is good for the cardiovascular system and designed to make you sweat.

“Everyone wants to sweat!” said Aguirre about her students.

For the people with two left feet, not to worry. Zumba is dance-exercise but it’s OK to not follow all the steps when you’re learning. It may feel a little frustrating, but just move side to side until you can catch back up, said Aguirre.

Other types of Zumba

In addition to basic Zumba, there are other forms that are specific to special needs or preferences. Aguirre teaches Aqua Zumba at Shapes for people who want a pool workout that is “salsa in the water” and gentler on joints.

She leads Zumba Gold classes – a slower Zumba-style for older adults – at senior community centers.

There also is circuit Zumba, such as the classes at Curves on Manatee Avenue that add Zumba moves to Curves’ 30-minute circuit routine.

To find a Zumba class in the Manatee County area, go to the Zumba website, www.zumba.com.

One thing to know: Don’t wear athletic shoes with treaded soles to class. They aren’t good for the side-to-side and front-to-back dance steps; wearing them means you won’t be able to slide your feet. Cross-training shoes or aerobic dance shoes are recommended.

Susan Hemmingway, Herald health correspondent, can be reached at shemmingway@hotmail.com.

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Posted in 2012 top zumba dance , 2012 zumba , latin zumba , zumba , zumba dance , zumba fitness

Fitness Matters: Dance class or dance fitness?

What’s your style?  “Dancing with the Stars” or Zumba?

Burning calories, toning muscles, and having fun all at the same time sounds too good to be true.
Dancing has many benefits including burning calories, building stronger bones, lubricating joints (which helps with arthritis), helping control cholesterol, benefits heart and lungs, strengthens stabilizer muscles that aid in balance and helps to elevate our endorphin levels.

Perfect footwork and body movement patterns make dance an art that becomes a workout. The attention to posture and technique is the center of the performance.

Having an instructor that is patient, has years of experience and teaching correct form is extremely important. It may take more mental work in the beginning to get the steps right, but eventually you will be able to put it all together and feel the workout.

A few years ago, I enrolled in ballroom dance lessons, hoping to learn some dance skills and grace. Like anything worth having, it takes practice, patience  and persistence.

Zumba is on the other end of the dance spectrum. It’s an hour-long workout with easy to follow fast dance moves alternating with slower moves for an interval-training workout that tones muscles and burns calories.

Dance steps are borrowed from meringue, salsa, reggaeand cumbia. The allure is from the perception that it’s more of a dance party than an exercise routine.

With Zumba being so popular, classes can be enormous and filled with enthusiastic but inexperienced folks looking for a great workout. Yes, I was one of these folks (a few months back) trying to better myself by trying something new.

My best advice is to take an intro class to learn proper technique so you can avoid injury and have a good workout.

If you are a Zumba fanatic, be aware of any aches and pains you may feel. Overuse injuries can occur in this type of workou, too, especially if you don’t cross train with other forms of exercise. Zumba involves a lot of pivoting and side to side motions, so having the proper footwear can save your knees and ankles from injury.

No matter what your dance of choice may be, moving and having fun will be a step in the right direction for your health.

Terri Allred, owner of Rochester International Dance Studio, which offers dance and dance fitness classes such as “Shimmy Fit, Latin Fit, and Bollywood Fit” has some tips on what to look for in dance classes and dance fitness classes.

Dance classes:

• Professionally Trained Teachers.

• Breaks down moves with attention to muscle groups, skeletal motivation of movement and posture.

• Culturally authentic moves.

• Can be slower paced initially while learning blocks for progression of skills, coordination, rhythm and tempo.

• Some classes teach choreography and some teach improvisation (free dance in response to music).

• Usually much more individualized attention and feedback about correct movement.

• Can create community and friendships.

Dance fitness classes:

• Want to experience the fun of the music or cultural style but not build skills for dance.

• Faster paced initially since goal isn’t to master a progression of skills, but to get an aerobic workout.

• Can be mixed cultural styles, movements, not necessarily correct posture or technique but goal is movement, not skill.

• Little individual attention, just follow along.

• Can have party atmosphere- feel like you are a member of something.

• Usually much more aerobic than introductory dance classes.

(Terri wanted to note that classes at the RIDS are smaller groups and offer more individual attention than most, and do pay extra attention to posture and technique their classes.)

Shelly Greenfield as an athletic trainer and writer in Rochester. Fitness Matters features the fitness stories of area residents. To offer your story, e-mail sports@postbulletin.com.

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Posted in dance fitnes classes , dancing salsa , dancing salsa steps , salsa circuit , salsa dance , zumba fanatics , zumba fitness

Take Zumba, add water

Aqua Zumba is new version of the popular fitness program

The slogan says it all: Ditch the workout, join the party.

It's that kind of light-hearted mentality that is inspiring people in the Valley and the rest of the world to burn some serious amount of calories while having fun.

Zumba has become a standard at Lehigh Valley gyms, with about 545 classes found within 25 miles of Allentown. Since the fitness style was popularized in 2001, it has acquired new shapes. One of the most dashing: Aqua Zumba.

Offered in a handful of locations in the area, it takes the dazzling music and energy of Zumba and brings it to the pool. It's made of seductive dance moves, laughter and endurance-building choreographies that thrive on water's resistance to make you sweat without you realizing it.
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"It doesn't feel like you are working," says Karen Burger-Lewis, a South Whitehall resident who recently participated in an Aqua Zumba class at the West End location of the 24-7 Fitness Club in Allentown. "You are sweating but you are not sweaty."

Aqua Zumba is also an asset for people who suffer from joint conditions that keep them from high-impact exercises on the ground. Playing in the water allows them to build strength without straining. It is also a good way to defy the sweltering summer heat.

"I only do aquatic stuff 'cause I hate to exercise," Burger-Lewis admits. "It's good exercise. And it's fun. You punch the water instead of the boss."

In just a decade, Zumba has grown from a happy accident to worldwide phenomenon. One day in the mid 1990s, Albert "Beto" Perez darted off to teach an aerobics class in his native Colombia and forgot his traditional aerobic music. He improvised using a mix from the salsa and merengue tapes that he had in his backpack.

People could not stop smiling as they followed him in the class. The energy electrified the room. That energy is still reverberating in gyms around the globe.

The concept exploded later in Miami thanks to the business savvy of entrepreneurs Alberto Perlman and Alberto Aghion. The three Albertos created Zumba Fitness in 2005 and have not stopped innovating. First came the DVDs, then the apparel and now you can find Zumba for Wii, Xbox and PS3.

The Zumba promoters attribute its success to its vivacious Latin music and dance moves. This was likely indispensable for its initial success in Miami, but what's interesting about this style is that it seems to ring true to everyone irrespective of culture. It invigorates that universal human yearning to move and to play.

Laura Warmkessel teaches her own version of Aqua Zumba. While she follows the standard Aqua Zumba choreography, she doesn't use the recommended Latin Zumba music playlist. And it still works. Short of a J.Lo hit or Lou Bega's "Mambo No. 5," her music has little Latin influences. But her students dance, splash and smile to Rihanna's songs with the same excitement that salsa aficionados display when they are dancing to the original Zumba music.

The beat is contagious and boisterous enough to trigger the desired response. A few minutes into the class, and people forget the water temperature — cold enough to make you shiver at the beginning of class. Inhibitions slide off and in little time you find yourself dancing in the water, looking like a fool and enjoying every minute of it.

The water movements make you feel like you are dancing in slow motion. While the effort might not seem evident at first, people soon begin to take small breaks, showing that the party also takes its toll. Amid all the spraying, the swerving and the dives, you can burn around 400 calories in an hour-long class. Regular Zumba classes are said to eliminate between 500 to 800 calories.

"If you don't sleep well," Warmkessel says, "I'm not doing my job."


Source Milton Carrero

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Posted in 24-7 Fitness Club , aqua zumba , Aqua Zumba class , latin dance , salsa dance , zumba classes , zumba fitness , zumba music

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

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