My first impression of Zumba Sentao

October 6th. was my first time to try Zumba Sentao, when ZES Donna Giffen was doing a master class at the Zumbathon.

20 local instructors were on stage to do the warm up, before everyone grabbed a red chair and lined up for Zumba Sentao. I didn't know what to expect and as Donna showed us the routines, I found it more and more to be "Feminess" - a chair based dance routine to make women feel more feminine. Local gyms have offered this type of dance before. But ok, I saw the Zumba dance styles.. However, dancing merengue around an empty chair, just does nothing for me. I say, put a guy in the chair and dance around him, now that sounds more inspiring to me. The chair was moving, so I realy think there should be some sort of weight put on to the chair, if you have to dance around it. When Donna Giffen finaly made us sit in the chair, I finaly saw it. It's harder than you would think, to lift your legs up, when sitting on a chair. I see how Zumba Sentao could benefit people working in an office all day. But when you work like me, standing and walking all day... Regular Zumba is fine. I prefer to dance!

 

 

 

 

In the picture above, you see the three local Zins with Zes Donna Giffen, handing two women from the Danish Cancer Orginazasiton a cheque with the value 20.225 DKR collected at the Zumbathon for the Brest Cancer Campaign. I'm proud to say I have been at all 3 Zumbathons for this campaign!

 

Tomorrow I'll join the master class with Steve Boedt. He was so much fun the last time, so I'm predicting I'll have a lot of fun! Will try to take pictures, but it's hard to take good pictures in big rooms that are have a lot of lamps. I will try to catch the feeling on camera if it's possible.

I skipped Zumba on Tuesday to be with the girls.

This past week has been busy as always with Zumba Monday, Wednesday, Friday and today.
I skipped Zumba Tuesday as my friends wanted to take me to the movies.. Since I have a busy zumba schedule, I allow myself to take a day or two off if I feel like it. I'm glad I did it. We saw "Going the Distance" and the movie was great.. I prefer romatic movies when I'm going to the movies, so this was a great choise.

Wednesday the instructor introduced us to "waacking" in the last 2 minutes.. I never heard of waacking, but it seemed very funny, so I decided to look up waackng on youtube. Waacking is a way of dancing with your arms.. I always use my arms when dancing, but I never think about what I'm doing. With waacking you have to think a lot about what you're doing. Here's a short introduction of waacking.


I heard on the radio that yesterday was International "dress as your hobby day." So I thought yesterday would be the perfect day to break in my "Crazy Happy" Zumba top. I think the instructor liked it. He gave me the biggest smile and a cute litte "hello wave." Friday I had two zumba classes as always. And although he once said that he doesn't remember people's names, but their faces, he definitely know who I am by now. No wonder, I've been to every single one of his zumba classes at this gym. But then again, with his busy schedule of aprox 45 various dance and zumba classes throughout the country, it's nice to know that I've made an expresion so he remembers me!

This morning I took the bus to zumba and was there on time.
Today we had to learn some new routines. As always, my arms are trouble. When the instructor has his arms to the left, I have mine to the right and the other way around. It just feels more natural to me and I'm guessing it has something to do with my constant use of my arms whenever I freestyle dance at a club.. But I don't know. I try to copy his arms and get better.
One of the women asked me if I was going to the Zumba marathon in town next Saturday.. And I said yes. She then said that she wanted to go, too.. So I told her I didn't have anyone to go with and she said "let's go together".. That means a lot to me. Although I was determined to go even if I was going alone. We didn't make any specific plans on where or when to meet, but as we're going to the zumba class in the morning, we can make the arrangements then. I'm getting more and more exited about the Zumba marathon.

The Zumba marathon is just one week away. As I've heard that more than 300 bought a ticket, I know it's going to be hard to put my water bottle and towel in a corner as I'm used to. So I had to come up with a way of carrying my water and towel without it making it difficult for me to move. A friend gave me an idea and I think it's gonna work. She suggested a waist bag.. I had one, but as my usual water bottle didn't fit, I will have to use another one. But I have several so I already found a substitute. The bag is perfect cause it also has two smaller pockets where I could fit my wallet and ticket into. So it's a perfect solution.

I found my new favorite socks for when I'm working out.. They're short socks with a mesh on top leaving the feet to breathe. I got a great deal, so I bought 10 pairs. That should get me through the week ok.

Zumba is fitness and not dancing.. But to me it's a mix, but yes.. I notice that more and more of what we're doing in our routines is actual workout. Today I feel it in my thigs.

Zumba weightloss weekend

Friday I had Zumba straight from work.

One of my colleagues also started doing Zumba, and she was complaining about how her shoes were too hard to move on the floor, so I showed her my Zumba/ Dancing shoes. She said she would bye some when she was 100% sure that she was going to keep doing zumba.

When I started my Zumba adventure, I used my normal gym shoes that I had always used. I have weak ancles, so I found some gym shoes that worked out well for my ancles.. However, I noticed that they were not good enough for zumba. Then I saw a shop selling shoes they claimed were great for zumba. I tried them on a few times, but the problem of staying on the ground was still there. So I decided I was passionate enough about Zumba to buy real dancing shoes!

Friday was the first actual Zumba day with the male instructor this Fall season.
There were a lot of new people there, so he took his time explaining everything. I heard him say everything before, but I didn't mind, because I know he likes to talk to make sure that people know exactly what zumba is, how the body works etc. Of course he talked about my shoes and several people came to ask me where I got them, how they were, would they be suitable for their weak knees etc. etc. I like helping people. Why? Because I'm very passionate about Zumba and want to spread the joy.

The instructor had us dancing like cowboys to "Tribute to U.S.A." from one of the Zumba cds.. It felt silly to play air guitar and showing off invisible guns.. but I had the feeling that maybe he was trying off his routines for the Zumba Marathon on October 9th. We'll see.

Friday night I layed on my couch as always. I fell asleep and didn't wake up till 6 AM.. The downstairs neighbors were playing loud music all night long. Usualy I would be anoyed  about the loud music, but Friday night I didn't mind. I think the bas sound in the music, might have had a comforting effect on me that night. When I woke up at 6 AM, I decided to go to bed and sleep for another 3 hours before getting up.

Saturday I made a short stop at the Zumba shoe store in town. I wanted to pick up some flyers to bring to the gym since I have a feeling that more people from the new zumba classes, would want to stop by. I also got a bunch of flyers for the Zumba Marathon as well. I hope I can take them to the gym on Tuesday, although I still didn't get a spot on Tuesday or Friday this upcoming week, since I didn't sign up on time. Usualy a lot of people don't show up, so I'm hoping there will be a spot open for me.

Saturday I also went to the farmers market in town. I bought several vegtables.. More roots for my oven baked roots, broccoli, zuccini for my tomato soup which I plan on making tonight (Sunday)..
Since I was in town, I decided to shop a bit. I went to Outfitters Nation and managed to find a shirt that I thought could work with my Zumba tank top. I needed sleeves for that top, since I hate my arms. The shirt from outfitters nation is perfect! And best of all. It was a size XS.. I used to be a size XL, so to now be an XS feels amazing! Now this top was bought to be tight, so that's why XS is perfect. I noticed that the Zumba clothes for Fall actualy has sleeves, so I wonder if they finaly realised that some of us are not that happy about showing off our arms?

I also made a stop by the new MAC store in town. I always wear make-up and I've been missing a MAC store for ages. Now it's finaly here, so I stopped by to buy a new eyeshadow.

I woke up this morning and was pleasantly suprized when I saw that I finaly lost another kg. Total weightloss so far 17kg. (37,48 lbs.). That's a clean 10 kg. (22.05 lbs.) thanx to Zumba and 7 kg. (15,43 lbs.) from
before I started zumba.

Today I have a Zumba class in the afternoon. I know it's not right to call it Zumba, cause it's not. But then again, it is. It's a gym chain offering latin fitness, which basicaly is Zumba.. So I just call it all Zumba. I know that the best Zumba class is by the male instructor, who is a qualified Zumba instructor.. but the latin fitness instructors have also been educated, so it's fine with me. As long as they can make me sweat and have fun at the same time, I'm happy!