Zumba - Latin for torture

So, for the last year and a half, I’ve been in extensive physical fitness training. I’ve walked on the treadmill at the YMCA for 30 minutes three times a week darn near every week. Impressive schedule.

First, my goal was to be able to walk around China, breathing the grey air while carrying a baby for a period of 5 minutes. I accomplished that goal successfully. Next, my goal was to walk on the treadmill long enough to watch the “Ellen” show because I like it and if I am on the treadmill at the YMCA no one can interrupt me to ask me what is for dinner, why daddy did this or that or to complain about the color/shape/size or current availability of princess shoes. I have also met this goal although I modified it a bit. I don’t watch the second half of the show because too much TV will just rot your brain. Can’t have that as it would clearly be a health hazard.

So I’m at the gym, training, and I see a sign for Zumba class. Sign says it is a “fun and easy” way to get into shape that is set to Latin and contemporary music and, as it happens, the class is in 20 minutes. I figure, heck, I used to be a salsa dancer and Ellen is a rerun so what the heck why don’t I go check it out? So, after walking arduously for 15 minutes, off I go to Zumba, as it is “fun and easy.”

I get there and folks have big thermoses of water or humongous containers of water. One has a mini keg type. Most of the folks are dressed in these tight dance pants and sleeveless tops while I am in sweatpants a size too big for me and a non-matching baggy T-shirt. And, I don’t have a barrel or bottle or cup of water as my training on the treadmill just doesn’t reach that level of hydration need. But I continue to think, what the heck, I used to dance salsa, just how hard can this be? It’s posted as “fun” and the good folks at the YMCA wouldn’t, couldn’t lie, could they?

Next, in come the instructors wearing some type of hip-hop pants and tank tops and they appear to be in some pretty good shape. Scary good shape actually. And I notice that a handful of the participants appear to be about 18 and have a version of the tight pants that are painted on and mini tank tops which they also look pretty darn good in. This concerns me for a minute but the gal who is next to me tells me she is 50 years old and I notice her makeup is impeccable. Clearly, this class is a “fun and easy” way to get into shape as it wouldn’t make any sense for anyone to come in with great makeup that could be ruined should extraordinary exertion become necessary. I tell her that I’ve come for 30 minutes of the 60 minute class as my family expects me home for dinner, giving me an out should one become necessary.

And the class starts. Within seconds, I’m thanking the lords of the dance that I can get my feet to dance a mean salsa without tripping because, by gosh, if I hadn’t, I would have been toast. Splattered toast, butter down. And this is before I finished the warm up song.

Then it gets interesting. I’m supposed to be dancing like a maniac to cumbia and hip hop music, following the moves of the instructor all the while shaking my booty after the instructor shows the moves for each song to the “new folks” for 30 seconds before each song begins. Now, my booty shakes even when I walk so that doesn’t initially seem like it will present a problem. But no, they start and shake the booty like the women who walk around wearing the big feathers and not much else during Carnival in Rio De Janero after all have imbibed on mucho cervezas. We are talking shaking so fast you feel the breeze which implies that one has some control over the shaking which just isn’t happening for me considering I have the pendulous swing of the buttocks that comes from being 45 and having a shape that can best be described as “backloaded” but, by gosh, I continue to try.

Meanwhile, I’m keep watching the woman next to me. We are 15 minutes in and I suspect I might just fall out. Her makeup is still impeccable. I decide to continue, having no reasonable way to get out of the class now that pagers are obsolete. I pump it, I push it, I cumbia, I salsa, and I attempt to make a grimace appear to be a smile to show how much “fun” I am having. Thirty minutes goes by and I’m painfully getting the need for the water kegs as I run out of the class and into the bathroom to put my head under the sink facet to drink as much and as fast as I can while I “keep moving” as instructed.

And then I have a choice to make – go back in or leave and go home. I consider the fact that I am one shade redder than a tomato and feeling like I might collapse or puke. Logic tells me that perhaps I should call it a Zumba day given the particulars.

But, that would assume that I am willing to admit defeat as I’m falling out at 45 while a 50 year-old woman is still pumping, pushing, and dancing her happy self away in makeup that still hasn’t slipped off her face. I consider that thought untenable. So, I go back for 30 more minutes.

I somehow get home and the family is initially a bit concerned that I either got a sunburn or had red paint thrown at me accidentally. Nope, I tell them, Zumba. It’s “fun and easy”. I painfully change my clothes and somehow make it back down the stairs and decide to lie down on the hardwood floor to converse with my family. Figure it might give us all a new perspective. I quickly realize that I have no ability to rise again which doesn’t concern me as rising would mean I would have to walk somewhere and that isn’t happening. The cats and kids can just come visit me where I am. The daughter confuses my comment of “I think I may just die right here and now” to mean that I want to pay some version of “dead horsey” so I made a decision to self preserve.

I call the kids over and explain to them that their father and I had very carefully considered how big of a family to have and that there was a very strong reason we had decided on two of them. In fact, it was for this situation. I instructed each to take one of my legs and pull my big booty out of the living room and down the hallway so that I could crawl up the stairs into my bed. With effort, they succeeded.