Zumba time……..let’s shimmy!

So the decision has been made, if I want to eat cake I HAVE to exercise, lots! I’ve never been a huge fan of the gym but am hugely aware of the importance of exercise, especially if this is what’s going to enable me to indulge my passion and go for afternoon tea (fairly) regularly. I recently attended a conference where the guest speaker was the fabulous Paul McGee otherwise known as ‘The Sumo Guy’ http://www.thesumoguy.com/ in the words of the man himself SUMO is all about ‘dealing with change, building better relationships, developing a resilient attitude to life, maintaining morale and motivation, dealing with stress, inspiring confidence, releasing potential, building character, creating possibilities… these and many other positive results are at the heart of SUMO – Mastering Challenges… Skills for Life!’

Shut up and move on!

After a brilliant motivational talk from Paul we were divided into groups and sent into different workshops, a slight twinge of fear passed around the room as we all realised we had purposley been seperated from our colleagues, eek! The workshops were titled 1, 2, and 3 and we didn’t have a clue what to expect from any of them until we opened the door and by then there was no turning back. The first workshop I went into was a ‘Zumba class’ I’d wanted to try Zumba for a while and was so chuffed when I realise we’d be spending the next 40 minutes doing just that. Zumba is a Latin inspired dance-fitness workout, first created by Columbian fitness instructor Alberto ‘Beto’ Perez  during the mid 90’s in what he describes as a ‘happy accident’. After dashing to teach his usual aerobics class he realised he’d forgotten his traditional aerobics music. He improvised using his own mix of music from tapes he had in his backpack (traditional salsa and merengue music he grew up with). Spontaneously he created a new kind of dance-fitness, one that focused on letting the music move you (instead of counting reps over the music). His class apparently loved it so on that day, a revolutionary new fitness concept was born – the Zumba^® Fitness-Party, which now it would seem is taking over the world! The first routine we did was Jai Ho by the Pussy Cat Dolls, I loved every minute of it! I knew right away this was something I could easily get into, it was hard work but so much fun, it was time to get my shimmy on! http://www.zumba.com/