Four Dollar Zumba

In an effort to get out of the house, fit into pants, meet new people, and have more fun, I joined Zumba. I own a Zumba PS3 game that I'm pretty good at. I wear a special belt that holds the PS3 Move, and I Zumba in front of the PS3 Eye, and I get all sorts of points for shaking my hips. Occasionally, the on screen instructor will remind me, "Don't forget to drink your water!" and other times she'll call out, "Doing great!" I don't usually leave the house for things that I can do in my living room, but the local Zumba is only four dollars. That's right, an hour-long workout class for $4. I can get behind 4-dollar-Zumba.

Here's why Four Dollar Zumba is even better than it already sounds. You go in and they punch your card. If you get ten punches, you get a free class, which means FREE Zumba. AND for every class you go to, you fill out a raffle ticket, and at the end of the month, they draw a raffle ticket and you get Zumba stuff, which means FREE stuff. Two opportunities for FREE. Usually, I say that if you have to pay for something, like shipping, then technically, it's not free. Here, it's different. Because it's Four Dollar Zumba.

During the first class, I looked at the clock after the "warm up" and saw that only eight minutes had gone by. I work out six days a week, and I felt like I was going to keel over. Apparently, at home PS3 Zumba doesn't push as hard as in-your-face Four Dollar Zumba. I kept up, though, and most of the other people in the class did, too, making every move their own. (That's a code that S and I came up with when we did Line Dancing. It means moving but not doing the right move. Which is fine because moving is the point of Zumba and line dancing. Not getting it right, but doing something.)

Everyone in the class is older than me except for two people, a brother and sister, who seem to be in their 20s. They are going to Zumba to lose some weight. I know this because the brother told me after one of the classes. This is how I make friends. People come up to me and reveal things that seem personal but I suppose aren't. Like he said to me, That last stretch hurt. This was the first thing he said to me. I was like, Then I think you should do the stretches that don't. Then I asked if it was his first time there, and he said that he comes all the time with his sister to lose weight. His sister and I waved at each other from across the room. Then the guy who punches the tickets and takes the money and moves tables around came up behind me and was like, Yeah he's a pro by now. Then the brother left and the ticket puncher guy asked if I liked Zumba. I was like, Yeah it's fun. Then he moved a table.  See? We're all friends now.

The other friend I made is a man who wears neon yellow shirts. I was stretching and he came over and told me he wishes he could stretch like me. I was like, It's years of doing yoga, and I'm not even the most flexible person I know. He was like, The sports I played probably made me not as flexible. He played soccer. I told him to stretch every day and he'd eventually get at least a little more flexible. Then he walked away, agreeing. Best friends.

One of the instructors told me that every time she looked at me, I was smiling. I noticed that myself. I don't usually smile through my at-home workout, but something about the class makes me so happy that I smile like a goofball most of the time. The rest of the time, I'm huffing and puffing, trying to stay upright.

Four-Dollar-Zumba turns into Four-Dollar-Zumba-Sentao on Thursdays. It's Zumba-ing with a chair. We use metal folding chairs that, at first, scared me. I thought the chair would collapse the whole time I used it. Then I kept telling myself, if people can sit on it, then you can lean on it. I kept up with most of the moves, but there were some that I simply physically could not do. Those moves involved squatting over the chair. I was pretty much sitting over the chair because my legs are not that long. I kept bouncing right along, though. It's not my favorite type of class, but it was still fun. As a bonus, the backs of the chairs have stickers on them that say things like, Get Sweaxy. You know, like sweaty and sexy all at the same time. Okay, bad example because I can't remember exactly what they said, but they were cute. Come to Zumba Sentao and find out for yourself.

What I don't get is why the classes are small. Well, for Sentao, I get it because it's a weird type of class. However, for regular Zumba that's only four bucks, I figured the class would be packed. But it's not. It's maybe 20 people. I like it that way. I have room to move around and not worry about accidentally running into someone. I think it's best for all of us to have that kind of room. It's much more room than in my living room with the PS3, so I think I'll stick with it for as long as they offer it.