ZUMBA!

Zumba!

It is not often I look back on my past; pain and tears surface immediately.  But how wonderful it was this past year to flash back into my past and fix something that was terribly wrong: dancing.    Welcome to Zumba! 

Bunny Dimmel of Liverpool works out in the Zumba exercise class at the the North Area YMCA, on Wetzel Road.

At 2 years of age, my mother insisted I take dancing lessons.  An intense Russian ballet teacher, that hit my leg with a narrow stick when I made a mistake, was chosen for the job. Aside from the occasional tappings on my leg, that teacher destroyed my self-esteem.  I did love dancing, and I loved all of the many kinds my mother enrolled me in over the years, but it was emotionally crippling to be an ugly duckling in a room full of swans.  It wasn’t my face that was ugly, it was my stomach.  My Russian teacher had no use for an overweight swan, and she let it be known to everyone, all the time.  We endured each other for 15 more years; but the memory of it all lingered a lifetime.

The last year I danced, the evening of the recital, we were all lined up waiting to go on stage and she came back stage and screamed, “Who is the leader of this dance?”  I had led the dance for the entire year and no one dared say my name because they knew how angry she was at me for not losing weight for the recital.  I too stood there silent, ashamed to defend myself, and finally she pointed to me and said, “Get to the end of the line, and hopefully no one will see you!”  I didn’t go to the end of the line; I walked 3 miles home, in costume and make-up, with silver-heeled tap shoes on and a raincoat over me.  I vowed I would never dance again as long as I lived, even though I truly loved it.

When I heard the YMCA was offering Zumba classes, Latin-American aerobic dance, a part of me that had been dead for years, reared its head in curiosity, and so I gave it a try.   I was worried about my leg (injured in an accident) not co-operating with my spirit, but I was free from nasty comments about my size and I was in the place that had re-built my self-esteem, so why not?   Who would have ever thought that the YMCA would rekindle the spirit of dance still in me after 40 years?

We don’t look like typical dancers.  Our costumes are not shiny and sparkly; stretch pants, cargo pants and a variety of knit tops adorn our different size bodies.   My sneaker clad feet bring back the memory of a clean blanket being placed on the floor before me while my first pair of toe shoes was tied to my legs.    A piano player is not sitting in the corner waiting patiently for us to begin; a boom box is about to blast Latin-American music that would make the dead move.  My two favorite Zumba instructors don’t use a stick, and they have made my body move in more ways with encouragement and enthusiasm than my Russian dance teacher ever did.  I am thrilled to be a part of their free spirits.     

This non-traditional dance class combines a group of women (and some brave men) in all sizes and shapes, and from many different age groups.    In my first class I met a grandmother, her daughter, and her granddaughter.   It is unbelievable that at my age I am standing next to teen-agers getting ready to dance with them.   

The music begins, and we begin clapping our hands, and we all start moving.  Who cares if the whole room is going to the right, and some of us are going left?  We laugh when we are all turned in the wrong direction, and if our feet are out of sync, our singing is even more off-key than our feet.  But there is a harmony in that class that I never felt before.  We are all there for the same reason: we want to move, and we want to move to a beat.  We feel good about our bodies, and we don’t care that we are all different sizes. Isn’t that what dancing should be about?

That Zumba class has done more for my head, my self-esteem, and even my crippled leg than I ever thought possible.   At this age in life, I have been given an opportunity to move to the music, laugh, exercise, and remember peacefully why I loved to dance.  If you need something to lift your spirits, Zumba will soar them to heights unimagineable.