Zumba!



I have a little secret.

Many many years ago, in the mid-1970s, I was one of a handful to first introduce aerobics to Australia. I kid you not.

I had discovered Jazzercise in the USA at the time. In Melbourne, I was attending a local gym which had circuit training, which was more like calisthenics. The men liked it because it reminded them of football training, and the women hated it - for the same reason.

After I discovered Judy Missen Shepherd's Jazzercise, I practised some of her moves, combined some of the familiar circuit training movements, located popular music (it was disco then - that's how far back it goes, and no one worried about copyright) and pleaded with the gym owner, Brendan Edwards, a former famous league footballer, to let me try it out.

The first week, a few women came to the class when they heard the music. By the fourth week, I was on staff, 50 women were joining in, and a new exercise fad was born in Melbourne. Truly, I kid you not.

I would also include short dance routines which I had learnt in jazz and african classes I took from time to time, just to jazz it up a little, and these went down well with the crowd, especially those who had some dance history.

Later, after I graduated from college I dropped out of the gym scene, much to my and my doctor's regret.

When I took up folk dance, and saw the range of line dances to pop music, it reminded me of my aerobics days, and how if I was still teaching I would include some line dances in the workout. I always wondered why no one ever offered Israeli line dances as a separate workout alternative (Is Mona "Ohevet Ozevet" Goldstein doing this?), and indeed last week in Lili's class, I programmed a medley of 5 or 6 lines, and had the small crowd huffing, puffing but happy!

Why couldn't lines be offered as an aerobic workout style?

Well, I was surfing a new blog site just published today called "Worthwhile" when I came across the following entry:


A Favorite Mistake
by Kate Yandoh on Passionate Work

We're adding a new kind of dance to the studio, a Latin-fueled fitness craze called Zumba. Its inventor, aerobics instructor Alberto Perez, once forgot his tape of class music. He grabbed salsa and cumbia cassettes from his backpack and improvised some moves to match their spicy rhythms. The crowd went wild, and the boy who used to dance on Columbian street corners for change has sold $20 million of videos in seven months of infomercials, signed a national deal with Kellogg's, and packs them in at classes around the country. Zumba apparently burns around 400 calories an hour. Hasta la vista, Pilates.

Many a fine idea has sprung from a space-out. Why not take your next one and dance with it? Make up the steps as you go.


Well, who wants to be the first to get IFD lines as the next workout craze?

There are some videos to watch at the Zumba site, some small some big - but gosh, it sure looks like IFD!

Posted: Mon - April 5, 2004 at 11:17 PM         |

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