About five or six years ago (it could have been more) my mom
called me one morning to ask if I was watching GMA. They were doing a segment on a new fitness
craze called Zumba. It was a high energy
cardio class that was mainly composed of Latin music and Latin dancing. I was immediately intrigued. I started in dance class when I was 3 years
old, and continued to dance through high school on the dance team. I was also a huge fan of Latin music and Latin
dancing, so Zumba seemed like a great fit for me. I did some research and found a Zumba class
in Chicago and tried it out one Saturday morning. I was completely hooked. It was such a great workout (you can burn up
to 700 calories in a class) and it was truly fun.
Through the years I visited many many many Zumba classes in
Chicago. When I say many, I mean in the
100s. I kept trying new instructors
until I found one that was a good fit, which meant I liked their music, energy,
and style. Even though there were free Zumba
classes offered at my gym I was still paying a hefty amount to take classes
from my favorite instructors. Somewhere
along the way I started thinking maybe I could be an instructor.
Last November I became official. I was a certified Zumba instructor! I spent the next few months coming up with
routines and practicing. I practiced a
lot in my living room, which was definitely not as fun as a class environment! I finally worked up the nerve to apply at a
gym in March. Within one week I had an audition, and later that day I was
offered a teaching job teaching two classes a week! I was going to start the following week! I was pumped!
And terrified!
It was so surreal to walk into the class as the instructor
and not the student. After that first
class I knew I had made the right decision, and all the hard work was totally
worth it. I loved it. If you’re interested you can find out more
about my classes at http://lindsayrodgers.zumba.com/.
After my mom took one of my classes in Chicago (see above) her wheels
started spinning on how to have me teach where she lives. So she organized a class for some of our
family friends on her dock. One morning
a few weeks ago we had 9 lovely ladies down on the dock at 8 AM for a Zumba
class! It was a blast. It was definitely the best view I have ever
had during a class! I think there were a
few boaters passing by that had a hard time not staring at this strange occurrence.
I am pretty sure everyone had a great time, and I have received
requests for another dock Zumba class later this summer. To thank everyone for coming, and to reward
them for the great workout, I made this Strawberry Rhubarb Coffee Cake.
I followed this recipe.
The only changes I made were to use the food processor to make the crumb
topping and the cake. It was so much
easier than cutting in the butter manually.
I would suggest using up the last of the season’s rhubarb with this
recipe. It was amazing. Seriously.
As long as we’re talking about rhubarb, you could also make
this super simple, super yummy, Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp. Why not
have the perfect combination strawberry and rhubarb for breakfast (coffee cake) and dessert (crisp)!?
