Zumba Mania

So today I decided to try something new.  Instead of the glorious elliptical, I decided to embrace my significant other's love for all things technological and video-gamey.  We have an XBox 360 with Kinect, and for Christmas, he bought me a Zumba game.

The basic premise is you stand in front of the little video camera and move your body in an attempt to match the moves performed by the digitally rendered "coach" on the game.  This is a good concept, but it missed just a little in execution.  I was ready to just get in there and try it, which was fine, but sometimes it was difficult to follow what the model was doing.  She is monochromatic red, yellow or green (depending on how well you match her moves) on a psychadelic background.  So sometimes moves get lost.  Also, as we have discussed, I am not exactly the "perfect shape" and being rounder than the model, I might do the moves perfectly, and they do not get picked up accurately.

On the other hand, sometimes I just stood there and got it right, and it really is not too punitive.  I have had other rhythm-based games yell at me and make me feel like a left-footed idiot when I cannot contort myself to meet their expectations.  Zumba just keeps encouraging you, and gives you excellent praise when you do manage to get it right.  There is a little meter at the bottom that fills up when you are close to right, and I felt good when I filled all of them and got to the "bonus round." 

Supposedly there is a tutorial function, which can teach you the dance moves, but since I have no idea what they were supposed to be called, I didn't know which ones to learn.  Maybe one day when I have an excess of energy and a lack of other games to play, I might get to that. 

The game had a handy pause function, so when I had to take a short break for water I walked away from the camera and it paused until I came back into range.  Pretty nifty. 

All together, this was not a bad workout.  Sure I am sweaty (more than on the elliptical, I think I can just go on cruise control there for now), and I am positive I looked like a flaming, uncoordinated geek, but it was fun, and the music was different.

I think I will add this to my rotation, so I can keep up the exercise without getting bored.  So on a scale of hideous to 10, I give this an 8.