I imagine that each and every one of us is very literally “in a different place” about COVID, about the strategies to prevent it and how it affects our lives. My heart is full from the love and support of folks who continue to wear masks indoors, sometimes 3-4 masks per class, to keep aerosols contained. My mind is so logically pleased by the small handful who continue to log into the virtual reality we share for an hour every Thursday night, mask free and aerosol free, from our living rooms on Zoom.

And then there are friends of mine who continue to ask how long these masks and the virtual world will last. It’s so clear to them how the need is no longer there to stay covered or scared, and they wish so desperately to feel the same as it did two years ago. It’s so deeply resolved inside us to want to truly party, to feel the wind across our faces and through our hair and to move 200% more than if we stayed home. With a mask on, registering for class in advance, staying within 2 meters of each other and not having the same dance battles and booty bumps we used to, we don’t feel the same joy that used to make us jump. Class has energy and fierce gratitude flowing through the room, but also has a missing layer of ease that comes from natural and blissfully ignorant freedom.

Yes, for decades, fitness has been blissfully ignorant. There’s no doubt that our cha cha’s have charged a room with aerosols and therefore touched fitness fans and their families. Flu season and a dash of flamenco have surely kept kids home from school and we just never connected the dots. Maybe this is an opportunity throughout the world to look at the bigger picture of how we push ourselves to show up or be face to face, even when “under the weather” when the gift of staying home is a greater gift to ourselves, and to others.

Today is what is lovingly called my ZINversary, the anniversary of not only the day I decided to become trained as a Zumba Fitness instructor but also the day I joined the ZIN Community. The Zumba Instructor Network is the professional community of instructors who not only take the training but commit to membership each month, who receive the CD’s (back in the day) and the DVD’s, who join Jam sessions, partner with others to lead fundraisers and connect with other instructors as they navigate the teaching world.

Not all of us get trained, and then lead without a license. If you know me, whether you know me well or not, would know how I feel about untrained, unlicensed instructors.

Not all of us join ZIN, and become a part of the network and a part of the bigger community. This is a personal choice, and the notion of refraining from ZIN was not for me. I am a “joiner”, and I lean into the aspects of community that make my teaching stronger. I like to see what others are learning, have access to what we are all learning to stay current, and make the web of what we all know a bit thicker than what my brain might create and understand.

I am grateful to be a part of this community. Zumba Instructors have gifted me moves and memories, music and choreography, money for causes and clothes for my body. Instructors have welcomed me to events and Convention, training and Jam choreography sessions. The energy that immediately connects us is the same reason we wear neon -- we want to be seen, but we also see, feel, know each other immediately and that energy is what connects us and keeps us teaching and loving our what we do. And what we do is for our students. We are beacons of light and energy and we are pillars of welcoming kindness.

I am grateful for my Zumba family, and each and every hour we share together. Any class I have barely been able to tiptoe into ended up being my best class, because I have been hit across the face with how good it feels to be together. An hour with friends makes any load lighter! There is something extremely magnetic about the active, sweaty gratitude of being together and feeding off of each other. Dancing through grief, stress, medical concerns, familial and work frustrations has made the grief, stress, concerns and frustrations all manageable.

Thank you, friends, my Zumba family, for 12 years of fitness and fun, of laughter and crying through the cool down together. I thank you for keeping me on that dance floor and for helping me through more than you will ever know. You challenge me to be the best instructor I can be and then some. I hope I challenge you to see yourself as a capable, and see the hard working, loving, supportive tribe surrounding you -- the one I see when I look out at you. My message of gratitude on my 12th ZINversary today is this stretch from class this week: