Music is at the heart of Zumba, in fact its those infectious Latin beats that keep people going back for class after class.
Zumba was first discovered by accident after a fitness instructor forgot the original tracks to his aerobics class. In order to not disappoint his students, he ran to his car to grab any CD’s he could find which just so happened to be a mixture of Latin, salsa and merengue. The take on the original aerobics class was a huge success and thus, Zumba was born.
The aim behind Zumba is simply to get fit and to have fun, there are no over complicated moves and the best part, is that the rhythm of the music makes you forget that you are even exercising. A standard class uses a mixture of fast and slow rhythms that are based on simplified versions of Salsa, Merengue, Cumbia and Reggaeton. If you don’t know much about these styles, don’t worry – one of the best benefits of Zumba is that it’ll introduce you to all sorts of Latin music!
Zumba instructors design the structure of their own classes based around music that they like and movements that fit well to certain beats. Every instructor will run a class slightly differently and play a different playlist of songs. Many will use the official Zumba songs with a more traditional feel, whilst others will incorporate hip-hop and popular chart songs to get people singing along. It is worth trying out a few different classes to find find one that suits you and instantly gets you grooving.
You can get hold of Zumba songs on Spotify where people have created specific Zumba playlists. Zumba CD’s are also available on iTunes and many individuals have created YouTube videos that consist of short snippets of well known songs accompanied by the song name and artist so that people who have taken a Zumba class can find their favourite tracks.
Songs from Pitbull, Shakira, JLo, Nelly Furtado, Akon, Sean Kingston and Sean Paul make a regular appearance in many Zumba classes.
Zumba instructor Rachy Downes says “For my classes personally, I try and stick with up beat music, stuff that people know or can relate to, but I get it from all over the world.”
“I try my very hardest to use different styles so I can incorporate different styles of dance in to the exercises and routines. I worry that too many slower songs can create a boring and awkward atmosphere, but that’s the joys of Zumba, you create your own class to suit your clients! ”
Here at Mpora we created our own Zumba Spotify Playlist to help get you in the shimmying mood…
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