Zumba craze hits Flagler

By Brittney Gibely | gargoyle@flagler.edu

It’s the newest fitness experience, taking over the way people used to exercise with thousands of instructors all over the United States. Zumba is part dance class, part fitness class.

Flagler College hosts this new craze along with other local fitness centers all over Florida. The class is taught on Monday and Wednesday nights at 5:15pm. The instructor is Flagler student Jillian McClure. In her dance session she teaches salsa, merengue, cha cha, cumbia and belly dancing. All the moves are coordinated with modern and traditional Latin hits.

Zumba not only teaches you new dances, but the moves also sculpt your body while you have fun.

“After taking Zumba for eight weeks I lost six and a half pounds, and I feel great after every session,” Flagler student Lindsay Imwold said.

In the ’90s a man named Beto Perez stumbled upon this new way of exercising. When Perez was teaching an aerobics class in Columbia, he forgot his aerobics soundtrack, and had to follow through in the class exercising to his Latin favorites. He danced to the Latin rhythms and thus came up with Zumba. The dance style took off from there and has since been a huge hit all over the world.

Laughing while engaging in a fun new fitness routine is an experience anyone can find in a zumba class no matter what the age.