I was invited to teach at a Fitness Convention at Meadowbank Sports Centre over the summer. It was organised by Joanna and Les of Fitness Around the World, who are best known for their super-popular Zumba classes. Like most bellydance teachers, I've lost a few students to Zumba over the last year or so - it's marketed as a workout, a party, a get-fit fix, and when I've tried it, it's been great fun. It's not a dance class, it's not about technique or beautiful movement, but it's fun!
I took part in some of the other classes at the Convention, including Cuban Salsacise (fun but I could not keep up with the steps - although it improved when I took off my trainers!), Bodylicious (lots of squats and a zillion stomach crunches) and Zumba. In the Zumba, I was really disappointed that the music just did nothing for me. Accoustics in a sports hall are never good, so perhaps that was the problem. Or perhaps it was just too much of the pounding techno for my taste!
I have to say that some of the Zumba moves just don't respect the diversity of fitness levels or flexibility of the participants. The demostration crew were all young, slim and had spines like spaghetti, leaping into deep, fast pelvic thrusts and backbends with no warning or explanation. It's the opposite of how (in my experience) bellydance is taught, with emphasis on good warm-up, safe posture and modifications of moves and positions to suit the dancer.
There were about 50 people in my session. Because it was a fitness audience, I gave them a near-solid hour of upbeat, energetic bellydance, teaching one move at a time and then dancing/drilling it to a pop choon (Saad, Hakim, Tarkan, Nawal, Milk & Honey, Hisham Abbass). There was a good response.
For me, it hadn't felt right to teach a 'normal' dance class at a fitness convention, so I'd modified my usual classes. However, after my session was a Broadway Dance class (I was too hyper to take part!) which taught a choreography (in very high heels!), so the whole event had a real variety of class styles.
Joanna and Les are hoping to run another Fitness Convention in the spring - I'd recommend it, but watch out for those spaghetti-spine moves!
