Zen and the Art Of Being Really Bad at Zumba

At what point does a one-hour Zumba class count as resilience training?

Whenever I experience writer’s block, I take it as a sign that I need to work on my “inputs”—things like reading, taking classes, going to events, spending time outside, all of which encourage a little whimsy, a little playfulness, some fresh experiences to stimulate some new thoughts.

This mindset is how I ended up having the most humbling experience of my life at a Zumba class that I had no intention of attending until about one minute before it started. I was in the workout room at the gym I go to, finishing up a core workout when the ladies began filtering in in their capri-length yoga tights and loose patterned tank tops—so prevalent amongst the growing group of women that I wondered if it was a uniform of sorts. I quickly finished up my workout and approached a woman who had a particularly inviting aura about her to ask what class they were prepping for. She said it was a Zumba class, which started in a few minutes.

“Do you want to join us?” she said. “It’s really hard your first time but super fun. You just have to accept that you’re not going to look cute while doing it.”

I hesitantly agreed, in part because this felt a bit like a challenge, and because I’d never tried Zumba before, and because I had nothing else to do for the next hour.

“I’ve been doing this for eight weeks and I still don’t quite get all the moves, so don’t worry if it feels awkward at first,” she continued, laughing. I didn’t interpret this for the perceptive foreshadowing that it was.

A few seconds later the music started, a sort of salsa-reggaeton Latin blend that everyone—mostly 60+ year old women—started overhead clapping to, in perfect unison. I immediately realized that this was not a casual enterprise, that everyone seemed to know not only the moves but each other. These ladies were regulars.

Within two minutes, I had my first thought of just sneaking out the back door and leaving, because holy shit was this hard. Not, like, sweaty hard. Like “I cannot translate what I’m seeing the instructor do with her feet into any sort of graceful, cohesive motion,” hard. There were times I just stopped and sort of gyrated or bobbled in place because I just could not keep up, but also felt like I might be scorned if I stopped moving. By who? I have no idea—maybe myself, but certainly not the elderly women around me.

As the class and music crescendoed, I realized that while I had become hyper-focused on trying to merely stay on beat, the ladies around me were working not on their footwork or arm movements but on their pizazz. They were laughing and smiling and doing these little Shakira moves with each other, even shouting, on beat and in unison, at times. It felt like they’d all read the Zumba manual, even though I don’t think that exists. They moved their hips in ways that I have accepted are beyond my realm of possibility in this lifetime. Their movements were fluid, confident—indicative of a lifelong relationship with rhythm. And here I was, fighting for my life in the back row. I spun when I should have swayed, swayed when I should have tapped, tapped when I should have been moving my arms around. I once again considered a French exit, vowing to never again show my face in this workout room at 5:30 pm on Tuesdays. During the next break, I looked to the woman who had invited me to stay for the class, expressing my exasperation at what was happening, feeling like I was on a derailing roller coaster I couldn’t get off of. She just smiled and waved it off.

“I’ve been coming every Tuesday since December and I still can’t keep up!”

The music started up again, and I caught an unfortunate glimpse of myself in the mirror—something that my new Zumba friend had explicitly warned against. My reflection exhibited an almost mitochondrial stiffness, confirming my mounting suspicion that I might be the whitest woman alive, and almost certainly in this room.

“Bend your knees, for God’s sake,” I wanted to tell my reflection, as if it were acting independent of me, 2-4 beats behind everyone else.

Thoughts of leaving intensified.

“No one would even notice, really,” I told myself during a particularly hard routine that everyone seemed to both know and be having a lot of fun with, except me. “What if you just pretended to go get a drink of water and didn’t come back?”

An older gentleman came in and blocked my escape route at one point, so I resolved to keep floundering. I often tell myself some version of “I can do anything for ____ hours/days/months” when doing hard things, a sort of resilience mindset thing I’ve developed over the years. In fire, it was “I can do anything for two weeks,” while on hard assignments. On hard bike rides it’s “I can do anything for three hours.” Here in this Zumba class surrounded by women 30+ years my senior doing things with their hips that I will never dream of doing, I pushed through on the thought that I can do anything for one singular hour. I resolved to not give up, decided that I wasn’t going to leave early. I put my game face on, channeled the part of me that likes a good challenge, and tried my damnedest to stay on beat.

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Suffice it to say that I did not expect to be mentally tested at a Zumba class. I’m used to doing humbling, resilience-building things in the mountains—biking/skiing/running/hiking uphill for hours or hyping myself up to go off the tiniest jump known to man while mountain biking or even doing difficult workout classes that never seem to end. These are all resilience activities I am familiar with and have tools for, should things get hard.

Ten minutes into that Zumba class, it occurred to me that I hadn’t flexed this particular resilience muscle in a very long time—the muscle of trying something new and being very very bad at it, but sticking with it regardless. I had to make about 14 choices to stay in that class, because I knew I looked dumb and everyone in the room could see that I not only had no body awareness but also not one ounce of anything approaching “natural rhythm,” which Zumba websites will tell you is a useful attribute to have as a beginner. I was proud that despite presenting the choice to myself no less than a dozen times, I actually did stick it out. I even stayed on beat a few times.

At the end of class, about eight different women came up to me and told me I did a great job. These weren’t feigned niceties, either—they seemed genuinely stoked that I had showed up and tried for the entirety of the class. I made sure to laugh and tell them how awful I was at dancing, to indicate that I was self aware if nothing else. Everyone I spoke to made sure to tell me it gets easier, and as if trying to swindle me into coming back, repeated just how fun it was.

The wierd thing? Once I got over myself and stopped looking in the mirror and stopped thinking about how all the gym bros on the other side of the glass behind me were surely judging me, I realized it actually was pretty fun. It was fun because it was new, and because I had to laugh at myself through the entirety of it to keep myself from having a temper tantrum and leaving early. It was fun to be surrounded by women who were having a total blast together; it felt like a moment of community that I don’t get to experience very often, surrounded by a diverse blend of people who were having a really good time. Finally, it was strangely gratifying to practice sticking with something—despite looking dumb, despite seeing no discernible improvement, despite having the option to bail and choosing over and over (and over) again not to.