So much better than Jazzercise!

This week, as part of an employer-sponsored health day, I participated in a high-intensity physical challenge that required far more discipline and determination than anything I have ever experienced.  No, not a Warriorspartanmudderzombiesurvior run.  Worse.  And by worse I mean more chafing (both nipples and crotch) and even more public humiliation  What could be more physically and emotionally painful?  Zumba.

The mandatory-as-a-condition-of-employment Zumba class was one of a few health and fitness demos offered in an attempt to help workers work on their pear-like physiques.

I immediately knew I was in trouble when the instructor donned a Janet Jackson style headset and said the only requirement was to have fun.  Fun is a sunny day at the beach.  Fun is launching model rockets with my children.  Gyrating my hips and shaking my groove thang is not fun. 

Why couldn't I enjoy the forbidden dance of fitness?  Because I am a terrible, nay, horrific, dancer.  Elaine Benes cuts a mean rug compared to my ghastly flailing.  And my dancing isn't helped by the fact that I am supposed to do exactly what the instructor is doing, except as a mirror image.  This may sound easy to those familiar with the concept of body coordination.  I am, however, as a coordinated as a manatee. 

My spastic convulsions did not go unnoticed by El Profesor.  Telling me to "hang in there" was just the final humiliation I needed to call it quits.  Truthfully, he could have been addressing the guy next to me after I merengued into him for the third time.

I didn't particularly care for the dancing, but what I found positively offensive was the dance remix of Taylor Swift's "Trouble".  Unnecessary and artistically insulting. 

At the end of the class, El Profesor pitched the goodness of Zumba as a "super fun way to burn fat".  The only burn I noticed was in my loins...burning to move in rhythm with the pulsing Latin beat.  Arriba!  Oops.  ¡Arriba!