Squeezing the Most out of Your Zumba Class

by Tish MacWebber | Jun 13, 2017 | Weekend Warrior

The Zumba adventures continue even while there is no class for two weeks.  I have found another comparison between Zumba, my body, and a musical instrument.  First, though,  I want to take you back to my pre-Zumba university days.  Back to when I lived on campus and went out dancing quite often (who am I kidding, four nights a week) to party when I really should have been studying.  When I started university, moving away from home was a big deal, and I was in control of my life for the first time ever.  I made new friends and shared rooms with roommates.  One, in particular, comes to mind in relation to this story.  We were in different programs, and at times, there were personality conflicts.  It happens, and it is a part of growing up.

This roommate liked animals more than people and had a different taste in music than I did.  We would take turns playing our favourite music when we were in the room at the same time.  These days, that would not be a problem, because I am sure every Millenial out there has an MP3 Player of some sort with amazing headphones so the issue I ran into would not be a problem today like it was back then.  Yes, I am talking about playing music on a ghetto blaster, also known as a boom box.  Back then (yeah, I know this ages me some) we had cassette tapes, and CDs were still new.  It was a thing for us to play the music you liked for other people, and see if they liked it as much as you did.  Sometimes it was great.  Other times it was overplayed.  The worst was when you had to listen to someone else’s music that you hated because it was their turn to play their music.

Living with this roommate ALMOST ruined Bon Jovi for me.  She played it over and over and over.  My love for Bon Jovi returned after a few years, but it was iffy for quite some time.  When she decided to play a different band, I was open to hearing something new.  Oh boy, was that a short-lived bit of hope.  The other band she absolutely LOVED and wanted to play when she wasn’t playing Bon Jovi was a band called The Who.  I tolerated it the first time I listened to it, but it really wasn’t my cup of tea.

Miles and miles and miles and miles and miles still haunts me when I think of it. Twitch.  There was one song that I found amusing.  Squeeze Box.  It is a funny little song that has more than one meaning.  A Squeeze Box is another name for an accordion, but if you let your mind drift a little left of center, you know what the song could be referring to if you have any sort of a gutter based imagination.  Imagine my surprise when this song popped into my head in the middle of a Zumba class!

As of yet, we have not done Zumba to Weird Al Yankovic or any of his Polka Parties. (How much fun would THAT be)?  Weird Al is the accordion player that I listen to, and I really like his music.  I love the humour in his parodies, and the fun he inserts into my day if I am listening to his music.  I digress.  The Squeeze Box reference refers once again to my chest.

You see, I am rather curvy, and just as my hips sometimes get in the way of my bowling, my “girls” get in the way at Zumba.  I crack people up whenever I think this stuff up, because then I act on it, or tell someone the joke to see if it is funny.  A few weeks ago we were reaching in front with our arms.  Sometimes I feel like my arms are really too short, like T-Rex short.  So for the instructor to see, I pretended to extend my arms longer at my sides, and then cross them in front of my stomach like she was showing us to do, holding the upper parts of my arms straight down, and just bending them to reach to the front from my elbows.  I look really funny when I am flailing my arms like that.  She laughed.  She lost track of what she was doing for a minute.

Then, in another recent class, we were doing a move that involves crossing your arms in front of you while you make your legs wobbly and move your knees to touch each other, and back apart.  I know that might not be the best description, but if you think of the funny dance when you put your hands on your knees and move your legs like that and cross your hands back and forth, it is like that, except we are standing straight up, and you are crossing your arms in front of you.  So when we do this, I hold my arms straight out and cross them back and forth, but because I have short arms, the “girls” become my Squeeze Box, just like that song implies.  I shared my accordion thought and got the desired reaction from the Zumba Crew that heard me.  Another funny analogy brought to you by me, an old roommate, and Zumba.

As the summer time hits, and we are all working out in the heat, please remember to hydrate.  And when your Zumba instructor is encouraging you to show some fire in class, remember, it is about your dance moves, even if all you really feel like doing is putting out the fire with the Zumba move I am going to call the, “Stop, Drop, and Roll.”  If you decide that you NEED to try this out, and you want to deliver it with a bigger impact, throw in the T-Rex arms.  Hilarious, until you get the ambulance bill.

Oh, and by the way, my ghetto blaster is still working, as is my walkman.  Long live the mixed tapes and the local radio stations!  I am looking forward to my next trip to The Zumba Zone!