Groovin' zumba class in Parque Juarez, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
It’s Saturday morning in San Miguel de Allende and time for Zumba! Dress in comfortable clothes, put on your sneakers and head to Parque Benito Juarez for the 8:30am class, where the music will draw you in, like the Pied Piper. Zumba is a Latin dance inspired fitness program created in the 1990s by Columbian dancer and choreographer Alberto “Beto” Perez. Zumba’s choreography incorporates hip-hop, soca, samba, salsa, merengue, mambo, martial arts, and some Bollywood and belly dance moves. It’s aerobic and lots of fun.
The story is that in 1986, Perez forgot his tape of aerobics music for a class he was teaching. He took the tapes available in his car—consisting of traditional Latin salsa and merengue music—and improvised a class using this non-traditional aerobics music.
Click on the start arrow for a taste of Zumba from Parque Juarez…
In 2001, Beto brought his new dance-fitness style to Miami, Florida, and met entrepreneurs Alberto Perlman and Alberto Aghion. All three hailed from Colombia and shared the vision to bring this dynamic dance-fitness class to the masses. The three Albertos formed an alliance and created a business, calling it Zumba Fitness. Their Zumba Fitness Total Body Transformation System DVD Set has a record 900 reviews on Amazon.com (over 600 are 5 star). Doing a live class is the great, but if that is not possible or you want to practice at home, the DVDs get rave reviews.
My hometown Zumba teachers, Alyson & Mary Jo, are the inspiration for this post. If you live on or visit Orcas Island they also have groovin’ Zumba classes twice a week at the Odd Fellows Hall (Monday morning at 10:30am and again on Wednesday morning at 9:30am).
To read our other posts from San Miguel de Allende, click below:
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