Please don't make me say "Zumba es fiesta"

[parasitegirl]

I enjoy Zumba twice a week.

I am not proud of this fact. I don't recommend that other people take zumba classes. If they do, I ask that they watch not to injure themselves, don't believe that any dance form they are shown is an accurate portrayal of that genre, and they don't blame me.

I have been meaning to mention that for the last month my Sunday night class has grown even more surreal with the addition of hava nagila in the usual mix. Don't get me wrong, my love of balkan/roma/klexmer/fusiony stuff means that I quite enjoy many of the versions of hava nagila in my mix....

I don't know if I've mentioned that Japanese school children all know how to perform a basic circle dance to hava nagila. I like to forget this fact because gyms full of Japanese children dancing to hava nagila kinda freaks me out. In Zumba class the circle dance is not much different than what I have seen children do, but classes of 30-60 year old Japanese  men and women top children for "freaking me out when dancing to hava nagila." Adults in zumba class inexplicably only shout out "nagila!" when singing along.

Tonight's Zumba class will not have hava nagila, but it will have a new song with moves I have yet to determine if the instructor thinks are dance hall or bellydance (but to my eye are neither).

Comments

[philady.livejournal.com]

About a month ago, I started going to Zumba once or twice a week. I have to use dance to trick myself into exercising, otherwise I'm just not motivated to exercise. For what it is, I find Zumba to be rather fun. The first class I attended featured an interesting Spanish version of "Walk Like An Egyptian". Save for the occasional Pharaonic arms, it was thankfully free of any bellydance (or bellydance-inspired) moves.

I do wonder how those who do not have the benefit of other dance training get though it without injuring themselves, though. I see so much "duck butt" in that class, it makes my lower back hurt just to observe it.

This week, the teacher was telling us that a shoulder shimmy and a hip shimmy are connected--if you do one, the other one naturally happens. Hmm.

I do notice that my knees have been a bit crabby lately, though.

[parasitegirl.livejournal.com]

It is true that if you flail your shoulders wildly that the rest of your body is gonna get in on the action...!

[kimuchi.livejournal.com]

There have been some claims in rehab circles lately that the whole tucked/neutral pelvis thing is wrong, or at least carried to an extreme that goes beyond healthy posture. I'm still skeptical, since I think in most cases the "duck butt" has to do with hips messed up with too much sitting and that just can't be good.

[parasitegirl.livejournal.com]

Those claims are being heard in the bellydance world and come up in discussions on-line...but I still default to a neutral, but not agressively tucked, pelvis and make sure if I do pelvic drops it ends at neutral and not back.

[artemisia-danst.livejournal.com]

i'm resisting going to a class, cause i KNOW i'll get annoyed

[downrightamazed.livejournal.com]

The Zumba classes at my gym (Wisconsin Athletic Club) are sad, shabby affairs, possessed of a couple half-hearted students who inevitably quit after just a couple weeks. I know this 'cos the downtown branch kept shifting the timeslot of Zumba around in a misguided and wholly unsuccessful effort at catching the "after work" crowd or the "lunchtime" crowd, etc. Anyway for a while it was right after my pilates class (which continues to be insanely popular, due in large part to our intensely fit and brutal teacher) so I got to observe the sad phenomena described above.

The rap on it that I heard from a couple of the trainers is that the dance aspect terrifies most people, the "serious gym rats" don't take it seriously, and the dancers all take the dance-as-exercise classes that are actual dance classes taught by actual dancers so they can actually, you know, dance.

I have no personal opinion on the matter, just the above collection of observations, though I'll admit to falling into the "dance aspect of it terrifies me" crowd, and from what I could hear the music is awful, which is the surest way to drive me out of any place or event.

[alonewiththemoon]

I keep thinking about taking a Zumba class down the street from my house--it's taught by a skilled African dancer, so hopefully there'd be a little versilimitude in the movements taught. Mostly what keeps me away is not having any idea what footwear is appropriate, and not wanting to spend money on shoes.

[kimuchi.livejournal.com]

My gym has a Zumba class now. It's interesting to me that this seems to be more successful in getting into commercial gyms than Nia, which seemed to be a somewhat similar thing to me (if more improvisational and a little more hippie).

this

[bluemoonsaga.livejournal.com]

the zumba teacher around here was teaching EVERYWHERE & her qualifications were nil. i get put through the wringer everytime i apply somewhere if i don't get laughed out of the place first.

[bluemoonsaga.livejournal.com]

i signed up for zumba during the summer on a whim then i watched youtube??!! i thought this will kill me especially the part where everybody was in tennis shoes trying to slide around.

since then zumba has already gone bust around here. places are cancelling it.

maybe i will get students back.

[parasitegirl.livejournal.com]

It's doing well in Japan but I suspect there is less cultural emphasis on questioning your teachers and that that helps.

I don't think I have ever seen anyone in these packed classes modify a step or movement.

[sabrinabd.livejournal.com]

the hava nagila thing is really weird to me. how can grapevine-ing in a circle be good exercise. it sounds like a repetitive motion ankle strain thing to me...do they do he part where everyone runs in and crashes and runs out and pulls the arm next to you out of its socket? *yeah a lifetime of drunken hava nagila circles makes me cynical*

[parasitegirl.livejournal.com]

It usually falls into the mix at a part where people need to cool down a little but not too much and for the running in and running out the hand-holding is dropped (but kids do it when they dance it at school and they are trying to pull arms from sockets)

[stiobhan.livejournal.com]

hava nagila

ve nis'mecha