“This isn’t really doing much”

We were only half way through the first Zumba track. I was trying desperately to not look at Craig for fear of another weak-inducing burst of giggles, which made it difficult to “Move my body, shake shake shake,” as the song encouraged.

Craig and I are both keen on getting back into shape and improving our health. Instead of him going for a run in the rain, I encouraged him to come Zumba with me in the lounge room.

Kalyra had agreed to join us and was going to teach both of us how to do it as she is the “dance girl.”

I guaranteed him it would be fun and he’d get a workout, just like the days before children when we would run along the beach together, hike mountains, or I’d cream him up on the tennis court …. (stop snickering Craig!)

Craig’s an ex-football player, he’s not used to rolling his hips, shimming his boobies and shaking his arse.

“Just give it five more minutes, love, you’ll start to feel it. Jenny says Zumba is the best weight loss exercise”

I couldn’t help but sneak a peek at him and I erupted again, almost having to run my just-gave-birth pelvic floor to the bathroom.

His arms waved about like loose spaghetti at a toddler birthday party and his legs looked about ready to tie themselves in a bow. I thought of his comment the previous evening of how un-Latin like I looked with my Zumba moves and decided I’d bite my tongue this time.

“I don’t have any rhythm,” he puffed out, right about the time I was thinking I might sign him up for Latin dance classes to see if they could help him.

“Daaad,.. you’re not doing it right. You’ve got to shake your hips like me! Watch” Kalyra put her hands in the air and shook that booty.

She’d been spending far too much time with her Zumba-dance-instructor Aunty. If only she could see us all now, she’d be the one running to the dunny in fits of laughter.

We shaked and shimmied and twisted and hipped rolled into our groove.

“This is great because it’s low intensity. Doesn’t shock your knees.” Craig was really sliding into the Zumba rhythm now.

“Dancing is heaps hard hey? How do they move like that?”

“Yeah baby. Get your groove on.”

The running commentary from the back was now bringing me undone as I saw his flailing body through the reflection on the TV screen. For once I felt physically in front of Craig, which is pretty sad since my Zumba rhythm is not quite in connection with how I look in the dream world.

Before we knew it the last track was on and it felt like we really hadn’t even worked out. The sweat was sure there and the muscles were heavy and a little bit achy, but the laughter took the edge off.

“Now this I can do,” Craig confidently put one foot in front of the other for the slow Calypso cool down.

With the last arm stretch in the air he said.

“You know that was quite fun.”

Same time tomorrow night love?