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Zumba creator brings the party to Pittsburgh
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
By Jack Kelly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Pam Panchak/Post-Gazette
Alberto "Beto" Perez, founder of the dance-based
exercise program, leads a recent class for Zumba
teachers at the RMU Island Sports Center on Neville
Island. The way to get people to exercise is to make
them think they're not, thinks Alberto "Beto" Perez.
Mr. Perez, 37, is the creator of Zumba, an aerobic
exercise routine based on Latin dances, which has
become what may be the greatest fitness phenomenon
ever.
"People hate exercise," Mr. Perez
told the Post-Gazette. "But people love to party.
Zumba is a party."
Mr. Perez was in Pittsburgh recently
to conduct workshops to sharpen the skills of
existing Zumba instructors, and to certify more.
More than 360 people from throughout the eastern
United States attended the three-day event at Robert
Morris University's Island Sports Center on Neville
Island, the largest Zumba workshop ever conducted.
Two years ago, Zumba was virtually unknown in
Pittsburgh. Today, thousands of people in the area
take classes.
"I teach Latin dancing at a corporate
center for Westinghouse," said Aubrey Worek,
28, of Monroeville. "Zumba is our most popular
class. It's a fitness phenomenon. In the fitness
industry you have to keep constant with trends."
"You say you're teaching Zumba, your
classes are full," said Mary Walters, 58, of
Murrysville, a psychiatric nurse practitioner who
teaches fitness classes at area senior centers.
Joanie Aljancic, 61, teaches physical
education at elementary schools in Louisville, Ohio.
She's incorporated Zumba into her phys ed classes.
"I love it," Ms. Aljancic said. "I
don't even know I'm exercising until the hour is
over."
"It doesn't feel like you're working
out," agreed Nick Walker, 25, of Fairfax, Va. "It
feels like you went to a club or a party."
Mark Gomez, 20, a student at Missouri
Western State University in St. Joseph, teaches
Zumba part time.
"Before I hated exercise," Mr. Gomez
said. "It wasn't fun."
More than 90 percent of the people
who attended the workshop were female. Mr. Gomez
says he uses that ratio to recruit guys for his
Zumba classes.
"I tell the guys there are going to
be lots of girls there," he said.
Mr. Perez was a choreographer in his
native Colombia who taught exercise classes part
time. One day he discovered he'd forgotten his
aerobics tapes. So he went to his car and retrieved
the salsa and merengue tapes he loved to listen to,
and Zumba (a Colombian slang word meaning to move
fast and have fun) was born.
Zumba was a big hit in Mr. Perez's
home town of Cali, and later in Bogota. But it took
persistence for him to make it big in the United
States.
He has lived in Miami since 1999. At
first the living wasn't easy.
"I was famous in Colombia," he said.
"When I came to America I had to start again from
nothing. I didn't have papers. I didn't speak
English. When I came here I slept for two nights in
the park."
But Mr. Perez sensed opportunity. He
said he was surprised to find how little emphasis
there was on Latin dance in Miami. There were
classes in Latin dance, but they were all 10, 20
years out of date, "like Lawrence Welk," he said.
Zumba became a big hit in Miami, and
then throughout the United States. Last year Mr.
Perez introduced Zumba to Japan, China, Britain,
Italy and Spain. As of February, there were more
than 12,000 certified Zumba instructors in 35
countries, with an estimated 2 million people
worldwide taking Zumba classes.
The Pittsburgh workshop was a prelude
to and a test for what will be the first
international Zumba convention, to be held in
Orlando in October, Mr. Perez said.
Music is 70 percent of Zumba, he
said, and he works constantly to make certain Zumba
music is topical. Though Latin music is the core,
Mr. Perez said he also works classic rock 'n' roll,
and even polka, into his routines.
"Some people think Zumba is a fad,"
he said. "Music is always changing. What gets old is
the instructors."
Mr. Perez and his two partners are
also working to modify Zumba routines to appeal to
other audiences. A Zumba Gold routine is being
developed for seniors, another for children. Also in
the works is a Zumba toning routine that uses a
toning stick that sounds like a maraca (a percussion
instrument native to Puerto Rico used in Latin
music).
"I try to be in revolution all the
time," Mr. Perez said. |
