Zumba: Aerobics with a fun twist

A new exercise routine has caught on in India and thrown Pilates off balance, writes Ruchira Hoon.

The music reverberates from across the room. Dianne Cobb -Pennsis’s students watch her movements carefully as she does something that looks like it’s a cross between the tango, belly dancing and a sprinkling of hip-hop with sudden bursts of aerobics. The energy around them is high. Dianne is teaching them the Zumba, a fitness routine that’s even throwing America’s favourite Pilates off balance.

It’s a workout that’s more dance oriented and incorporates interval training sessions with fast and slow rhythms and resistance training, which are intended to tone and sculpt the body while burning fat. “But it’s the music that is wonderful. Strong Latin influences really gets people going,” says Dianne, who is Delhi’s only certified Zumba trainer. “It’s not exercise, it’s a lot of fun.”

Zumba was invented in the early nineties when Brazilian dancer Alberto Perez forgot his traditional aerobics music to class. Instead he made everyone workout to classic Latino beats of the salsa and merengue, and it became his most popular class.

While you can buy Zumba DVDs from teleshopping networks in India, over 50,000 fitness centres across 75 countries are teaching the Zumba. “And why not? It doesn’t feel like aerobics, it’s unrestrictive and exciting,” says Bollywood choreographer Sandip Soparrkar, who was the first Zumba student in Mumbai. “It’s like dancing like the wind.”