Latin dance craze sweeps into Milltown Resident says zumba classes feel more like a party than a workout BY JESSICA SMITH Staff Writer SCOTT PILLING staff Milltown resident Vasilia "Vasi" Penna teaches the zumba Saturday morning at Ron Capodanno's Muscle Mill on North Main Street. MILLTOWN - Sweaty bodies gyrate to fast, pumping rhythms. Flushed faces show smiles of ecstatic abandon. And you don't even have to be 21 to get in. This is not a nightclub. It's a workout. Zumba, to be exact. Zumba, a fitness program centering around Latin dance, swept the nation after it was brought here from Colombia by its creator, Beto Perez, in 1999. "It's starting to spread all over the world," said Vasilia "Vasi" Penna, who teaches zumba in Milltown. "In our area, it's a baby." Though zumba is huge in Miami and becoming big in northern New Jersey, Penna said, it could use a little more exposure in other parts of the state. Penna found her bliss in zumba, and is working on spreading it around. The Milltown-based fitness instructor has always found joy in dancing, but zumba brought it to the next level. "I always had the desire to teach some form of Latin aerobics," Penna said. "Somehow, I wanted to create that flavor and joy in exercise. I wanted to come up with something that was not just good for our bodies, but good for our minds and souls too." The phenomenon was born of a mistake, when Perez forgot to bring his usual aerobics music to a class he was teaching in Colombia, and had to use the Latin music cassettes he had in his car. From there, zumba zoomed on to success, now reaching at least 30 countries, and taught by over 5,000 instructors. Penna began teaching zumba in May, renting space at Ron Capodanno's Muscle Mill on North Main Street, Milltown, for her twice-weekly, hourlong classes. When she first became certified as a fitness instructor over a year ago, Penna said, she developed her own Latin aerobics program. After a friend showed her a zumba DVD, Penna attended a workshop and became a certified instructor of the dance-exercise craze. "It turned out to be one of the greatest things I've ever done," Penna said. "Here, you're dancing, you're sweating, you're smiling, you're having a blast. My other classes pale in comparison." There is no need to feel awkward, no matter how little dance experience one has, Penna said. Though sometimes the moves can get a bit complex, Penna said she breaks them down into simpler steps, repeating them so everyone catches on. For the most part, she said, the steps are easy to follow - but for those who cannot keep up, she tells them to just keep dancing. "I have people of all ages and all fitness levels," Penna said. "I have women in their 70s and girls who are around 19." Though Penna said there are no men in her classes yet, she hopes to see some attend. Between 12 and 20 students attend her Wednesday night classes at 8 p.m., and her new Saturday morning classes at 10:30 a.m. are just beginning to catch on, she said. "The response of the students is elation," Penna said. "They say it doesn't feel like working out, it feels like they're having fun." Penna is having fun too. Her love of dance stemmed from dancing with her mother, Celia, a Puerto Rican native. Penna went on to study dance as a teen and in her 20s, when she was with a jazz troupe. A Milltown resident for 12 years, Penna is a stay-at-home mom to her two sons, Niko, 7, and Alfonso, 4. Though her husband, Alberto, helps his wife's efforts by serving as the doorman at her classes, the only dancing he does is in the kitchen of their home, on occasion, if coaxed. "He leaves the Latin dancing to me," Penna said. Some of what makes Zumba different from other aerobics classes is the party-like atmosphere, the choreography, and of course, the music, Penna said. Not exclusively Latin, the music is decidedly international, bringing rhythms from around the world to keep things interesting and lively. "What sets it apart is really the mood, and the style of training," she said. Zumba uses interval training to increase the benefits of the workout, burning more calories by increasing, then decreasing the heart rate for short periods of time. The exercise aspect, however, is almost forgotten, according to Penna, which makes zumba an ideal way to work out. "Zumba really is an experience," Penna said. "To actually experience zumba and see people's faces as they're doing it is really something to behold. People break out of their shell. They feel good. They feel sexy." Zumba is offered at Ron Capodanno's Muscle Mill on a class-by-class basis for a fee of $8 per class. Penna said all ages and experience levels are welcome. "I figure if you could spend about $8 for cigarettes, then you can spend $8 to exercise," Penna said.