It's been almost one week since my zumba instructor training, and I keep forgetting to blog it. That's because the obsession has become even greater since the training, and I'm spending much of my waking time engrossed in all things zumba: listening to music, looking for music, reading the instructor forums on the zumba website, planning a class playlist, practicing routines, etc etc etc.
The training itself was amazing. We started the day with an hour long master class led by the Zumba Educational Specialist (ZES) who was providing the training. She was awesome, a total inspiration, I would attend her classes without hesitation. My plan going into the master class was not to exert myself in the same way as I do in the classes I attend at home (didn't want to overdo it at the start of a long day), but once the music started, I couldn't help myself! Following the master class, the day consisted of lectures interspersed with time learning steps. The Basic Level 1 training is to learn the four basic steps: merengue, salsa, cumbia, and reggaeton. We also spent some time learning about the Zumba Instructor Network (ZIN), a professional development type thing which provides access to great resources including monthly malings of CDs and DVDs as well great online resources. I knew before attending the training that I would want to join ZIN. We also learned about cueing moves for a class. Zumba is supposed to be cued non verbally, although I think most instructors use some verbal cues as well. The instructional part of the day ended with the ZES leading a mini class utilizing each of the four steps (and variations of each) that we had spent the day learning. At the end of the day, it was really interesting to see how she put the steps together as well as utilized the cueing to lead us through each song.
Before leaving, we were each presented with our certificate:
And posed for a group picture:
I love this picture because we all look so happy, albeit tired, at the end of an amazing day. The group itself was a diverse group of mainly friendly people who all love zumba. There were at least two other bellydancers there as well, one of whom had also participated in the Shimmy Mob that I blogged about a couple posts ago. I'm towards the back right of center, wearing a brown jacket with a turquoise tank top poking out.
Well that's probably more about my day than you really wanted to know, but there you have it, recorded for posterity!
Peace, Love, Zumba!
Congrats on the training success! That's wonderful.
Posted by: Christina | Tuesday, May 24, 2011 at 08:39 AM