Zumba….A Spiritual Practice?

So it’s January. So it’s right after the New Years. So it’s time for our six weeks of attempting to fulfill our resolutions until life gets the best of us and we end up back in front of the TV watching reruns of the Vampire Diaries. So what if the place is packed with resolution adventurers and there is no room to shake my bootie. So what if I didn’t make any resolutions this year, at least consciously. Here I am in a Zumba class at Seattle’s Community Fitness.

And I have no clue, half the time, what’s going on. This is my third Zumba class and my third instructor. What is Zumba? It’s a latin-based dance fitness crazy! I don’t know if you remember, back in the old days, when we, okay, when I was young, they called it Aerobics. Ever since then it has been repackaged into other forms with different marketing to appeal to our need for diversity in our fitness workouts. And it works. And we still go. But do you think anyone would go to an “Aerobics” class anymore?

Hey, I’m not dissing it, I’m just calling it like it is. And I am here in class now aren’t I? And I’m waving my hands in someones face because I’m all turned around and I’m doing some hot salsa move backwards. Good thing there are not a lot of alpha males in class or they might get bent out of shape about me getting in their face.

I usually don’t go to these workout classes because they annoy me. I get disturbed when I’m going left and everyone else is going right. Or I step on someone. Or backhand them. I don’t want my workout mates have to explain to the grocery clerk that she got a black eye from a crazed Zumba dancer rather than the domineering, aggressive, violent love of her life. I don’t want that for her.

So there I am, annoyed, hands waving, being glared at by a woman wearing pink spandex (what decade is this?), and I realized that I am in the middle of a “spiritual practice”. My ego is rearing up, hooves pawing the sky, screaming “this is so stupid! You are so stupid! Everyone knows how to do this but you! You are getting too old for this! Why did you bother?” I visualize my ego as a horse. I got the image from a CareerTrak seminar and it just fits.

Suddenly, with a blinding flash of insight, or maybe it was the Source’s divine horse trainer giving me an attitude adjustment, I realized that Zumba IS a spiritual practice. Releasing the ego enough to actually have fun and burn some calories without going into story is a spiritual practice. Aha! With the exception of Pink Spandex, who gives a shit anyway? Ok, maybe the women behind me, who are trying to follow me rather than the instructor, care. It’s hard to follow along when you can’t see because you can’t wear your glasses. But really, what is the big deal? So I can’t read minds and know what the next step is going to be. So I’m always missing the first beat so I can see what the instructor’s doing. So I’m wiggling and jiggling to the left instead of the right. IT DOESN’T MATTER. And its not something that my horse needs to be worrying about.

Then I heard someone say “This one is always hard”. Everyone DOES know what they’re doing because they’ve been coming for a while! Duh! Well anyway…

Here is the practice: Find all the Zumba classes you can and go to each one once. You’ll have no idea what’s going on and you’ll be a danger to everyone around you. That’s okay. They filled out a waiver when they joined the class. They know the risk. Listen for your ego to pop in about how you suck. Then purposely get in its face, tell it that it JUST DOESN’T MATTER, and then get into it so hard and have as much fun as possible to prove that it doesn’t matter. If you don’t know what the hell the instructor is doing, do the hustle. Do the hustle with passion.

Do this and soon your ego will realize that you are clearly irrational and just can’t be talked to and will leave you alone. At least, that’s the goal. It certainly can’t hurt will it? Ok, have at it. Let me know how it all works out.

Zumba On….