Zumba fitness crosses borders

As any of us who've ever taken an aerobics class or bored ourselves to tears on a treadmill know all too well, exercising can be excruciatingly dull and difficult to stick with. But over at Bally Total Fitness in Dearborn, three women have teamed up to bring Zumba to the fun-starved exercise masses. The class draws people from all over metro Detroit and from many cultural backgrounds, from the Middle East to Latin American.

Instead of repetitive movements to the same old pop dance music that seems to be the same week after week, their classes are brimming with a wide selection of hot Latin and World dance music that changes every week and makes their students feel like they're in a JLo music video.

It's all about the tunes. Zumba, which is Columbian slang for moving fast or buzzing like a bee, uses mostly Latin music -- salsa, merengue, cumbia -- but throws in world beat reggaeton and bhangra and a smattering of hip-hop. Anything is fair game "as long as it makes you want to move," says Stokely, 40, of Riverview, who is a mild-mannered electrical engineer by day.

By night -- well, two or three out of the week -- Stokely shakes, swivels, shimmies and stomps like no engineer I've ever seen until she's dripping in sweat. And when her two cohorts join in the energy escalates until the mirrors in the studio fog over and everyone in their packed classes is drenched as well.

Even though they'd taught traditional exercise classes for a combined 40-plus years, Susan Stokely, Christy Baas and Cindy DeBiasi were hooked once they tried Zumba fitness. The world music-based aerobic dance class aims to take the work out of working out. "Zumba is a party," says Baas, 30, of Canton. And to see the 30-year-old media relations exec shake it all over in class, you'd have to agree. "People say 'I don't even feel like I'm working out'."

Having combinations of two and three energized instructors doesn't hurt either. When Stokely, Baas and DeBiasi get going they feed off one another's enthusiasm and the dance club atmosphere ramps up. Heart rates rise, sweat flows and the calories -- as many as 700 per class -- start to melt.

"I've had people say 'my doctor thanks you, I thank you' ," says Baas. "I've lowered my cholesterol, I've lowered my blood pressure."

Zumba regular Jackie Rodriguez, 36, of Romulus, lost 170 lbs. over the last few years and thought she'd need surgery to get rid of the loose skin left behind. "But I started doing Zumba in November and now it's all gone," she says.

Zumba fitness was created by Columbian aerobics instructor Beto Perez who found himself without his class tapes one day and substituted the Latin music he'd been listening to in his car. The response was incredible and he knew he had something special -- and franchisable -- so in 1999 he moved to Miami and a dance movement was born. According to the Zumba Fitness Web site, Zumba is now taught in 75 countries.

"You leave with a party-like high," says Baas. "It's so good to just see all of your friends and have a good time and sweat it out."

Zumba classes at Bally's Fitness Dearborn are 7:00 Tuesday and Thursday, 6:00 Friday. The cost is $5.00 for Bally's members and $8.00 for non-members.