ZumbAtomics!

Pic is from this past summer--a dancing moment I had with Fernando ;) The pug portrait on the wall behind me is a painting I did of my first beloved pug named Weldon (Weldy).

I had so much fun teaching ZumbAtomics this past Friday. I have 11 students--one boy. We danced for 45 minutes and then played 2 dance games. The kids have so much energy and are so open to using their imaginations. For example, one song we dance to has a calypso beat. I told the kids to imagine that we were in Brazil at a carnival dancing in the streets to the song. One little girl asked, "don't they speak another language in Brazil?" I said, "Yes, they speak Portuguese." She said, "Do you speak Portuguese?" I told her no, but to pretend that I was speaking it and that everyone could understand my Portuguese. They were all game to pretend to be Brazilians, speaking Portuguese for the song!
Their favourite song was the Chihuahua song. I felt happy about that because I invented all of the choreography for that song myself--sometimes we dance as though we are the owner of a wild little chihuahua and sometimes we dance as though we are the naughty little dog ourselves. I get them to do their best chihuahua howl at the end of the song.
 I realize one of the reasons I love teaching Zumba so much is that it feels just like the days when I was a high school cheerleader. I loved being a cheerleader--dancing, stomping, clapping and the odd woot-woot brings all the fun back to me :)