Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Pizza with a Side of Zumba

Intel tells me Labor Day's End of Summer BBQ was a major success. The room was packed, the patio area packed, residents brought side dishes to where there was so much food that seniors had to take plates home.
Funny how it is that when a few seniors come up with an event on their own, it’s usually a major success. However, when the paid Activity Director comes up with an event, it’s chaos, not always a success and sometimes doesn’t happen at all.
At any rate, after taking a two-week hiatus from the folks, feeling fully recharged (even though I’ve been without A/C for nine days), I headed down to the Community Room this morning to watch Pizza Tuesday and wait for the Zumba instructor.
It was a good day to be in the Community Room because, in a food coma from yesterday’s BBQ, few residents were in the Community Room. Rather than loud, raucous, multiple conversations simultaneously going on, it was quite peaceful.
Probably most had forgotten today was more food for them.
Since there were so few folks, Activity Director didn’t have to do her calm the wild beasts thing. She just put product on the table and told folks to take as much as they wanted.
Some commented that, with yesterday and today, they wouldn’t have to go grocery shopping for a week.
Of course, Old Guy eventually showed up, but minded his Ps and Qs because he’d been told directly by the new President of the Residents Volunteer Activity Committee, “Look, you can’t be putting your hands all over everyone’s food”.
Old Guy likes to act like he only speaks and understands his country’s language, which I don’t remember what that is, but he got the message. He did still open containers, but didn’t stick his had inside. Especially since the new President was standing over his shoulder with a mean you-better-behave look on her face.
ROFLMAO!
And, yes, there's a new President on the RVA Committee. There was no voting, Older Sister just stepped up and said she wanted to take Next Door Neighbor's former position.
With the success of the BBQ, looks like so far so good.
Even though I was a Zumba Fitness Fanatic for four years, five years ago, today’s Zumba session was tough. I began wearing down at the 30-minute mark and cried out, “How long is this class?”
“One hour”, said the instructor.
“That’s too long”, I whined.
The instructor was fantastic and brought it down to a level us seniors could safely handle, without throwing out our knees and hips, but I felt a little bad for the others trying to follow the steps because, if you had no prior experience, the steps were difficult to follow.


There was only four of us actually working out, while ten/twelve, wanting to see what it was all about, sat around watching.
Actually, five of us, when you count the 90-something resident, in the background, who had a ball doing what she could do from her chair -- kicking her legs, raising her arms.


Which tells me it's something the wheelchair bound residents can also do.
By the end of the session, the observers were talking about getting involved next time. Which I hope they do because, if we don’t get enough residents to sign up, Zumba will not continue.

2 comments:

  1. In my opinion you can't judge a Zumba class after the first session; it takes a few times to really learn the routines and start to have fun. I hope the class gets a ton of participants.

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    Replies
    1. You are entirely correct. I was a bit surprised she didn't start off by demonstrating the initial steps. Maybe I'll mention that if she's back next month.

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