Every type-A needs a zumba

Tuesday night at 8:15 pm I went to my first Zumba class. I didn't know what to expect, every infomercial, poster, or workout DVD I saw just had a girl shaking her hair around wearing half of a shirt and that had a 6 pack. But I declared February as "cardio month" and therefore I needed to sweat and I needed to change it up. My roommate Danielle graciously joined me and I embarked on a new fitness endeavour. Zumba drew quite an interesting crowd as the classroom quickly filled up and then a perky, tiny instructor in neon bright clothing bounced in and strapped on her microphone. A Flo Rida song started blaring and we were off and running. I had seen pictures on pintrest captioned "what I think I look like doing zumba" depicting a scene from Step Up 2 and another one that says "what I really look like" with Napoleon Dynamite getting his groove on.... thankfully the room was so packed that I couldn't see myself in a mirror to confirm that assumption. The first song, I was concentrating on the instructor's moves and trying my best to focus on whatever muscle was needed to move that way- hoping to squeeze out the 800 calorie burn that the instructor promised if we worked hard. As I started to get the hang of the moves and the repetition around the 3rd song or so, I suddenly realized that I wasn't counting anything....I wasn't logging my sets.... I didn't look at my watch. I have been counting reps, sets, intervals, circuits, laps, miles, calories, points, RPMs, PERs, and BPMs since I was about 13. Being a self proclaimed type-A personality... I've never minded. "How else are you going to run your life if you don't log it, schedule it, or make a list about it?!" (My reaction to basically anything.) But Zumba didn't require numbers or lists.... it was just dancing and sweating. By the last song I was making Napoleon Dynamite proud and was dancing like nobody was watching and I was also not analyzing which muscles I was working. It was the most refreshing thing I have done in a long time. Granted, I sweated more and was more sore from the High Intensity Interval Training class.... but I'm pretty sure I smiled more at Zumba as I reminisced about my old dance days. And doing a squat while Chris Brown is singing didn't seem as painful as squatting for 30 second intervals while Shawn-T from Insanity is saying "Push it!" I encourage all type-A's to let go every once in a while.... color outside the lines, don't look at the nutrition facts on the back of the box, leave your watch at home, wait until the last minute on a deadline, rinse and don't repeat, have dessert for breakfast.... or just dance!!