We Can Work It Out

Now that Oldest Daughter has a job and a driver’s license, she’s fulfilled one of her long awaited goals...joining a gym. She loves working out and participating in sports and she’s good at them!

Let’s just say she didn’t get that from me.

We toured the gym, which was really nice and my eyes gleamed at the sight of the pool and the hot tub. I’m not a strong swimmer, by any means, but I enjoy it, I find it relaxing and hey, how can you not like a hot tub?

The have some 30 day "test drive family plan" so I signed us up for that. The only annoying thing was the guy pushing us to take the personal trainer route.

OK for Oldest Daughter, but unless the personal trainer is Bon Jovi, I don’t need one to show me how to sit in a hot tub.

Last night, I went for the first time. I instantly recalled how much I don’t care for locker rooms...and naked people. Call it what you want, but I am terribly uncomfortable around naked people. Particularly, completely unclothed people sitting in the sauna (which I really wanted to try!) all hunched over with their unmentionables dangling everywhere, picking their toenails.

Gag.

I swam for a bit and then went to the hot tub until a bunch of 20 something buffoons came in and started splashing around. They weren’t naked, but they were annoying so I got out and decided to walk around the gym and see what else I could find.

There’s an area over by the aerobics room called the “women’s workout area”, where the more mature women seem to congregate so they don’t have to stairmaster next to the likes of Britney Spears, Paris Hilton or worse.

I went there and decided that since I like bike riding, spinning might be my thing. I really liked it, but I really don’t want to lose any weight and I was getting freaked out by the amount of fat and calories the machine said I was burning. I have the opposite weight problem that a lot of people experience. I lose weight very easily and it’s very difficult for me to gain weight.

Perhaps a personal trainer might not be such a bad idea, after all.

While I was spinning, this fabulous music started seeping out of the aerobics room. I hopped off the bike and went to peek in the windows and saw something that I liked even better than the hot tub!

What was it, though? I had never seen this before!

One of the ladies there told me it was Zumba. I watched, entranced at the dancing moves and the music and went home to read more about it.

Zumba turns out to be a fitness program based on latin dance, although, I definitely saw some belly dancing moves in there, too.

It’s been a long couple of dancing free months for me. My friend’s band dis-banded and there hasn’t been any rock chicking.

I had to quit my belly dancing classes last fall because of the kids’ schedules and I was really disappointed. Not that it was likely I’d ever be booking gigs at The Hookah Lounge due to my inability to seductively swing veils, but dancing has always been a great anxiety reducer for me.

Believe me with the issues I have, I probably should be dancing all the time.

Since I could no longer take my belly dance class, I checked into the ballroom dancing classes at a local Arthur Murray studio. I want to do that so badly, but can’t find a willing dance partner.

Enter ZUMBA! It looks like it’s totally my thing and coincidentally, last week was the end of the kids’ cheerleading, musicals, volleyball and wrestling so I actually have some time to work it in...work it out....whatever! I’m excited!