My Ten Year Zumba® Mini-Career Comes to an End

Out with the old, literally.

“Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.” — Desiderata

Before the end of 2022, I decided to stop paying my monthly instructor fee to Zumba Fitness, so I do not have a license to teach it any longer. I am a veteran of the dance-fitness model for ten years.

It made no sense for me to continue paying the steep fee as I had ceased to find students for the variation I taught, “Zumba Gold” jokingly referred to as “Zumba Old.” It is low-impact exercise choreographed to Zumba® music, but without the knee-cracking movements designed for the young and sinewy.

People my age and older are not going to group fitness classes often now and exhaling forcefully. We’re still in a pandemic unfortunately, and we’re a “vulnerable population” due to age.

It is what it is.

And it was a privilege to be a Zumba® Fitness instructor for a decade.

I never intended to make it a full-time gig, but because there was a demand for subbing classes in the cluster of gyms and rec centers around me, and I could organize myself in a heartbeat to get out the door, it worked. It produced enough income to legitimize fitness expenses, of which I have many.

One expense, and the highlight of my Zumba® Fitness career, was the instructors-only Zumba Cruise in February 2018. We could bring non-instructors with us, so I was able to convince my daughter to come along. We had a blast.

My husband had said, “no way, but thanks!”

The fun thing about being in a 24 hour party with music on a a cruise ship in the middle of the sea is that there are never noise complaints. Who is around to complain besides sea gulls?

We bounced up and down to “world” music, the specialty of Zumba® Fitness on the sunny decks of the ship and down below.

After dinner each night, my daughter and I were so tired we could not partake in the partying which continued with more and more and more world music.

We were out like lights.

There are people who do not tire easily I guess such as ER nurses and the super-fit. Energizer bunnies maybe, but even they fall over sometimes.

In addition to group fitness for the older crowd, cruises are also going the way of the Dodo due to the pandemic. So much has changed so quickly hasn’t it?

The treat of the entire cruise was meeting the celebrity instructors, called “Z-elebrities” inside the loop. We met Beto Perez, the founder of Zumba® Fitness and the irrepressible Danish teacher, Steve Boedt, who gets to live in Belgium’s bucolic Brugge, of all places, and travel the world spreading Zumba-love. Some people have all the luck.

It was six foot-three Steve Boedt who introduced me to bellydance through Zumba® Fitness. Well, technically, not real bellydance, that would come later via my treasured Belarus teacher near my home, but fitness-bellydance. Close enough.

All Zumba “dances” are fitness-based, so one doesn’t walk into a class and expect to do real Salsa or Samba because the Zumba® routines are fitness versions of the world dances.

Which is super-duper fun anyway and a great idea . Thanks Beto.

Sometimes a Brazilian will come into a class and say, “That’s not samba!” but soon enough, even they are converted.

So long Zumba® Fitness! Thanks for the fun times and the good instruction. I improved as a teacher in many ways.

And at least I know the routines now and can enjoy others’ classes, crackly knees here and there.