ZUMBAAAARRGGH!

I have often argued that Jews are not meant to exercise because there is no word for ‘exercise’ in Yiddish. And don’t give me ‘gymnastika’ or such, I mean exercise such as when your doctor tells you that you have to go and get some. Our ancestors back in Der Heim didn’t have a word for it because there was no such thing. Exercise was invented by rich people with too much time on their hands and not enough to do to fill it. How else can you explain sports such as golf? (‘A pleasant walk, spoiled’ according to George Bernard Shaw.)

OK, so I know that exercise is important for health maintenance, but when my doctor told me I had to get some and lose some weight, I went to the bakery for a second opinion.

No, I didn’t, only kidding. There wasn’t a free parking spot in front of the bakery, so I didn’t go in.

No, really, enough kidding around. I have been exercising since before Jane Fonda conned us all into Spandex leotards and told us to ‘feel the burn’, while she was busy being bulimic, but let’s not go there. I have done so much stuff in my quest for physical improvement, and I have jumped- or crawled- on to so many bandwagons, I could write a blog!

Jazz ballet, aerobics, power yoga, Pilates, personal gym training, water aerobics, belly dancing, Israeli dancing, swimming, running, power walking, crunches, munches, you name it. I’ve been injured by the best of them! But the latest and greatest is Zumba.

Zumba is great but don’t believe the infomercials. ‘It’s a dance party! It’s fun! You won’t know you’re exercising’! Oh, is that a fact. Let me tell you, you know you’re exercising all right, when your heart is hammering and the sweat is pouring off you while you salsa. And, you know, it is fun, at least compared to doing 50 squats while holding 5kg dumbbells. That is definitely NOT fun.

But, oy! The next day! My knees and muscles are on fire and I feel like I have been beaten with a stick. It’s already not good that I can’t get out of a chair without making noises, being over 50 and all, but now I can hardly twitch without triggering some sort of pain. Look, I am exaggerating a bit, but only a bit. And it is getting better, apart from my right knee, but that’s an old story.

The other day, when I was going to my remedial massage therapist, (I call her Hands of Steel) I saw a line of grim-faced women in the gym where she works, carrying dumbbells and doing walking lunges, barked at by a trainer who could have been cast as Eva Braun, and it was all I could do not to whisper to them, ‘Go to Zumba! You’ll still be in pain but it’s fun!’

And the music is loud, to cover my krechtzing.