Zumba is quite a phenomenon. Invented – legend has it accidentally – by Colombian trainer “Beto” Perez, it fuses four different kinds of Latin-American dance to create a work-out that feels more like a party.
Just over ten years ago, the business potential in Zumba was spotted by two American entrepreneurs, Alberto Perlman and Alberto Aghion, who joined forces with Perez to launch a global roll out of what was marketed as an entirely new fitness concept. Today, there is a Zumba Instructor Network and a number of variants including Aqua Zumba and Zumbatomic for kids. There are Zumba-branded clothes, CDs and DVDs. And Zumba is offered as a fitness alternative in 90,000 locations in 110 countries worldwide.
Zumba – the Colombian word for the sound a bee makes when it’s flying – is on offer at Virgin Active in North Row and the Virgin gym on Oxford Street as well as at Seymour Leisure Centre in Seymour Place north of Oxford Street. Now, for the first time, it is being introduced to clubland by professional trainer Gillian Trozado Depala.
Gillian knows a thing or two about dance. As a former member of the girl band Sylq and a member of the all-female dance group Ellements, she helped put on shows all over London and choreographed dance classes at the famous Pineapple Studios. A sports scientist and personal trainer, Gillian works full time at the gym at the Lansdowne Club just south of Berkeley Square.
“I teach a body tone class here, which is basically a fitness class for all-over body, core and the major muscle groups.” she says. “But there has been a lot of interest in a dance class, which I always wanted to put together and I just thought this whole Zumba, Latin music/fitness, would be a great way to introduce dance to the club.”
As a global brand, Zumba, insists that its instructors are trained and licensed. The training is tough. “You’ve got to get a licence, you’ve got to go on the course,” she says. “You dance for ten hours and learn four different styles: merengue, salsa, cumbia and reggaeton. You learn how to choreograph a class, you learn how to pick the right music and how to identify the beats in the music to put to the right choreographed piece. It’s good fun.”
Classes last 45 minutes to an hour and all of the major muscle groups get a workout: back chest, core, quads and glutes. “The good thing about Zumba is that incorporates interval training, aerobic capacity and muscular endurance. There’s a thing known as a bell curve in fitness. You start with your warm up and then you take it really intense – you push the heart rate to about 60-85 per cent of capacity – and they you slow down at the end and go for a nice cool down, which incorporates stretching. So it’s really an all-rounder for fitness,” says Gillian.
She adds: “It’s an incredible workout, you do come out sweating buckets.”
Zumba classes run at the Lansdowne Club at 6pm on Tuesday evenings. Contact sports reception on 020 7318 6177 for details.
We're also thinking about throwing a Zumba party if enough Mayfair PAs are interested, so e-mail
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if you're up for it.
