My break up and make up with Zumba

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​I wanted to talk about something more personal to me. This blog is a little way of me getting thoughts off my chest, to promote what I do (I run an online classes business on the side), and to motivate/inspire people into fitness; into ANY kind of fitness!

A while ago I wrote about a crazy whole garrison Zumba I did and how it was pretty awesome and my love for Zumba. Shortly after this my love for it disintegrated. My personal fitness goals were shifting and I was suffering from a number of niggles, plantar fasciitis being one of them. The numbers in my Zumba class and other classes I ran had also died down so much it was disheartening to take them. I love to put absolutely 100% into my classes. I was becoming physically and mentally drained from teaching them.

In October last year I decided to stop all classes. I was getting an increasing amount of work at school and I wanted to ensure I was spending more time with my kids before we went back to the UK. I knew we only had around 9 months left in Brunei. Another reason was that I was becoming increasingly disheartened with taking the classes. It is not like the UK whereby it is a business and a nice side income, I was not earning much at all, relying on donations as well as ‘competing’ (unofficially!) with other trainers on the garrison for an extremely small amount of possible participants. We are unable unfortunately to open up our fitness classes to anyone beyond the garrison which is a huge shame as over the years I have been here a number of people from the local community have approached me about attending. At the time I decided to stop the classes I had become resentful of anything clashing with my classes and I did NOT want to feel like that. They were not worth feeling that way over. I was becoming negative and it was affecting me mentally. It had to stop so I drew a line under them and decided to focus on my own training, my online group and my kids!

Fast forward to xmas time and I was watching old videos of my zumba classes. The buzz came back from watching them. I missed it!! I missed the atmosphere, the crazy amount of sweat, the jumping about like a mad woman, creating of moves to the songs, seeking out songs… I missed Zumba. I also missed teaching classes in general. 

I decided to start up a Bootcamp for free for my work colleagues. That gave me the push then to re-start one class, a Zumba class. I am back in my happy place now teaching my one Zumba class a week every Wednesday evening. Numbers attending, the buzz and atmosphere are all brilliant. Currently I am on a week off with our visitors but back to it next week and I can’t wait!

Fitness, teaching classes and teaching Zumba is such a huge part of me. It is what I have done since I was 19 (13 years). As I said in my previous blog about Zumba I honestly used to look down at Zumba. I started to look down on it again, it wasn’t fulfilling my fitness goals, I wasn’t sitting back and realising what Zumba ACTUALLY is all about. Zumba is a great way to get fit, but it is SO MUCH MORE than that. Here are some benefits of Zumba, in my words. You may think of more.
 
ZUMBA benefits:

1. Fitness- yes, it is great for fitness. You will get out of breathe at some point. You will raise your heart rate, put your muscles under strain and burn calories. It is movement and ANY movement in my eyes is great for fitness!
2. As adults we rarely (without alcohol) get to jump about to music, it feels AMAZING! Dancing is so good for the soul!
3. Social aspects. Again, as adults sometimes outside of work and home chores we rarely mix with other people. In a Zumba class you get to mix and laugh amongst other people. That boosts your dopamine, creating feelings of pleasure, mental warmth and increased motivation and zest for life!
4. You can move at your own level. Honestly, within a Zumba class, anything goes. If you cant follow the routine you can just ‘fake it until you make it’ !

 
In conclusion, if you are reading this and haven’t tried Zumba ever, or haven’t done it for a long time, seek out a class. Give the class some time- go at least 3 or 4 times to the same class, give it a chance. Seek it out for all of those benefits. Alternatively I do post up ‘Dance Fitness’ classes onto my group. Join my group for access to those. 

Join my online group here. 

Read about the crazy Garrison Zumba here.