"Me estoy volviendo loco..."

(If the title of my blog is wrong, blame Google Translate.  Just saying.)

Why am I "going crazy"?  You might ask after having googled the title to this blog and wondering when I learned to speak Spanish.  I haven't learned Spanish, though I may very well after a few years of teaching Zumba® fitness classes!  (Like how I did the little copyright logo thingy?  Yeah, I get to do that now.  I'm special. That or after reading the licensing agreement, I'm just trying to cover my ass.)  So why am I going crazy?  Ever since my amazing instructor training, I've been listening to latin music non-stop.  Between working on my routines and just trying to memorize my music, it's in my ears (and my dreams) constantly.  I can't seem to shut it off!

Growing up, I never listened to this kind of music.  It was never really my thing.  I mean, I couldn't understand it...and I still can't.  But the more I have listened to it over the past year, the more I have become addicted.  I literally cannot stop myself from dancing when I turn it on.  I'll come home from a workout at the gym and turn on my playlist to work on memorizing my songs and their breakdowns...and promise myself I'm not going to dance the routines because I'm tired and need rest.  But I always end up doing it anyway!!!

I will lie down at night to go to sleep and will have one song or the other stuck in my head and my hips will start doing a subtle roll without me even realizing it.  When I finally shut it up long enough to doze off, I dream about it!  It really is making me crazy haha.  But hopefully it is also going to make me a better instructor.  One of my biggest fears is getting up there and freezing in the middle of a song because I can't remember the moves or what part of the song comes next.  So all I can do is just keep on listening!

I had my wonderful brother-in-law, Randy, translate a few of the songs for me just to see what I was dancing to.  He warned me I might laugh when reading them in English, and he was right.  These songs are so much more beautiful and FUN in their own language..that's really all I can say.  One of my favorite cumbia songs is about a man who is in love with a beautiful, black woman. And he sings that over and over...about how he loves this little black woman and is sad when she's gone.  Who knew? I can't imagine an English version of that song sounding quite as amazing or being as fun or sexy to dance to.  It really is an incredible genre of music and I am in love with it.

Now I just have to keep working on getting my hips to be as latin-inspired as the music!