All Zumba'd out?

You know how you get certain songs stuck in your head and your brain plays them over and over again until you just about go bonkers? I get that way with Zumba songs. I have to listen to them over and over again anyway...before I ever actually use a song in class, I have to listen to many times to memorize it and memorize the choreography that goes along with it. Luckily, after just listening to it a few times, my brain has it memorized and I can "play" and "re-play" it in my head whenever I want. So I can practice Zumba in my head anytime I want: while driving, grocery shopping, sitting in the pickup line at school, etc. It comes in handy at times and I think it helps me be a better instructor, actually, because I am practicing (in my head) ALL the time.

I do it even in my sleep. Many times I have woken up with a Zumba song in my head and I'll realize that I'm like half-way through the song and was also doing the choreography in my head, in my sleep. Whatever. Practice makes perfect, right? Well, let me tell you, it can become exhausting! The other night, I think I was doing Zumba all night long in my sleep. I was so exhausted when I woke up the next morning. I said as much to Dave and he said, "You're so tired because you were teaching Zumba all night. You were talking in your sleep all night and it was all Zumba". Then I remembered that at one point during the night, I actually sat up in bed and barked out instructions...something like, "two steps right, ARMS UP!" At that point, Dave touched my arm and said, "Are you still teaching?" That shook me out of my dream and I realized that yes, I was still teaching. All night long. In my sleep. I gotta stop doing that!

The worst part of the whole affair is that as my brain is playing these songs over and over...well, let's remember they're almost ALL in Spanish. Or sometimes Portugese. Or even Arabic. Which I don't really speak. So my brain kind of just jumbles up the words as best as it can remember. I have no idea what the songs are actually saying or what the words are. And often, my brain will substitute English words when it doesn't know what else to do. That really gets interesting. But that's another story for another day...