Despite the global warming trend, it still gets cold in the winter in NJ — too cold to run outside. Thus, the past two years, I have taken Step Jam classes at the Princeton gym. They’ve been a great workout, and lots of fun, mostly due to the instructor who was very welcoming. Basically, you work out in a group to music, listening to the instructor for the choreography; in each class we would learn a long routine, which would be repeated until we were exhausted. You constructed your own variable-height step to hop on at the beginning of the class so that the workout was personalized.
This year, however, the gym replaced Step Jam with the new fad of Zumba, and I decided to sign up (the descriptions sounded similar enough). As with Step Jam, I was the only male in the class, but unlike Step Jam, the class was much less welcoming. First, despite Tuesday being the first class of the term, there was very little introduction for us beginners. The instructor gave few verbal cues: you were supposed to follow along by looking for subtle hand signals and mimicing the instructors movements. Since we did a different routine for each 5-minute song that played, the moves kept changing and I found it difficult to keep up. Second, the lack of a physical step (you’re just moving within a small, 10-ft circle) meant that I didn’t get enough of a workout. And third, so much of the choreography required either hip movement, butt wiggling, or chest jiggling — clearly all designed for women. I felt excluded as I don’t have the hips, butt, or chest to move, wiggle, or jiggle.
The only thing keeping me in the class at the moment is that I know three other people who were there Tuesday, and I wouldn’t normally see these people around campus. I think I’ll give Zumba one more shot before passing final judgment. But the odds aren’t looking good on my (Rory Gilmore-patented) Pro-Con list.