S3E5 - The Dancers (Zumba, pt1)

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Kayla: Hey, Chris.

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Chris: Hi, Kayla.

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Kayla: I have a question for you.

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Chris: I have a question for you. This better be the most important thing, that you're making me set up the podcast room twice in one day.

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Kayla: Oh, yeah.

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Chris: I can't believe I have to do this. The soundproofing thing is heavy.

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Kayla: It's because my topic today requires you and I to take a little field trip.

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Chris: Oh, God, now I have to leave the house.

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Kayla: You don't have to leave the house.

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Chris: Oh, thank God.

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Kayla: Internal field trip. But we need to intro the topic, take a little field trip, and then finish up the episode. So we're just. We're starting strong.

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Chris: A field trip of the mind.

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Kayla: Field trip of the mind.

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Chris: I'm very intrigued.

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Kayla: And body.

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Chris: Oh, God, no, I don't have to do things.

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Kayla: Question for you.

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Chris: Yeah, please.

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Kayla: Do you like to exercise?

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Chris: What are you doing?

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Kayla: What do you like about it or not?

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Chris: I don't know what you're doing. I like activity, okay. I don't know if I would like. So if the question of the exercise is like, run on a treadmill. No, I fucking hate running on a treadmill.

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Kayla: Okay.

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Chris: Do I like playing basketball? Do I like hiking? Do I like lifting heavy things? Yes, I like those things.

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Kayla: But why do you like it?

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Chris: Those things?

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Kayla: What do you like about those things?

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Chris: I think I get different stuff out of each of those, actually. Like, hiking is like being outdoors and like, I mean, they all have the component of just, like, activity and getting your blood flowing.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: Which is, you know, endorphins, blippity blah, whatever. Medical stuff. But aside from that, you know, like, again, hiking is outdoors. Basketball is competitive in game playing.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: Lifting heavy things is, you know, achievement and mastery.

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Kayla: Oh, I like that. I hadn't thought about that. That's not really a thing for me.

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Chris: That's because I'm a game designer.

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Kayla: I know you're a game designer. I know you're a game designer. I also like physical activity. You already know this. I've probably said it a million times on the show, but I'm gonna say it again. I was a dancer growing up. A lot of my free time was the spent exercising. As an adult, I also find myself drawn to various forms of physical activity, some of which you mentioned. Like, I like yoga, I like pilates, kickboxing, hiking, walking, weightlifting. I know for me, moving my body helps me feel at home in it, helps me feel connected to it. Improves my mood, improves my just like, overall well being.

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Chris: Yoga, slippery slope to QAnon.

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Kayla: Yoga, slippery slope to cue anon. I had to stop myself. Cause I was about to just do another shout out to, you're wrong about podcasts. So cut.

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Chris: Please don't shout that out every five minutes on our.

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Kayla: I want to. Sorry. I like working out. I like exercising because I always feel better afterwards. The psychological break of just, like, sitting in my anxiety, it's just a very welcome reprieve. And something else I like about it. And it's kind of what you touched on, the concept of working out or physical activity, exercise. Like, that's a very varied idea.

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Chris: Oh, yeah.

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Kayla: You mentioned hiking and swimming and basketball and weightlifting. Like, the things that I mentioned, there's a lot of different things. And I think that, like, a major. A major pillar of well being is varied physical activity because, yeah, you get the. The outdoors, you get the social aspect. You get an individualized aspect of it, too. Like, kind of, you mentioned with the mastery. Like, that's very, you know, self focused, but it can also be social focused.

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Chris: I didn't say social for basketball, but that's a big part of it.

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Kayla: Right. And, like, I think hiking, too. Like, I know there's people who really enjoy hiking alone, and then there's people who really enjoy hiking in groups. Like, hiking is a form of social activity. Or now, if you're in Los Angeles, inevitably, if you date in Los Angeles, you are going to go on a hiking date. Sorry.

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Chris: In Runyon Canyon.

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Kayla: In Runyon Canyon, specifically, yeah.

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Chris: By the way, if you want to check out eight kinds of fun, there's this. I think it's Rafe coaster. I forget the guy.

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Kayla: There's eight kinds of fun there.

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Chris: It's one of my favorite game design. I don't know what the word for it would be. It's rubric, game design, pieces of philosophy. I don't know. But this is basically categorizing different ways people. Different reasons people play games. And, like, that's, I think, part of why I have the language to say things like, oh, mastery and social is because those are all items on that list.

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Kayla: Gotcha.

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Chris: So I think it probably applies as much to games as it does to exercise and activity.

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Kayla: Well, it seems like one of the keys there is that there's a lot of different ways and reasons to have fun. There's a lot of different ways and reasons to exercise. I know that. I find when I stick to one thing, I get bored. I'm less motivated to do it. Like when I was doing insanity. And yes, there's some variety in the insanity program where it's like one day you're doing high knees and the other day, you're doing low knees, whatever, shout.

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Chris: Out to beachbody episode.

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Kayla: It's so you're doing the same thing over and over, and it gets hard to get up the motivation because it's like, it's boring. It's boring. But if I'm like, yoga today, pilates today, kickboxing today, I'm more likely to do any one thing.

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Chris: Yeah, same. Same for me. Absolutely. And I mean, I. Part of why I said, like, treadmill, that's boring. But as a variety of things, then it becomes, yeah.

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Kayla: I also find that if I try to stick to a workout regimen. I hate that word, but whatever. If I try to stick to a program designed by someone else, I'm. Again, I'm less likely to incorporate it into my daily life. Like, I've definitely in the past been like, ooh, here's this guy's, like, lifting regimen. I'm gonna just copy that. And I fall off. Inevitably, if I design, quote unquote, a regimen for myself because it's individualized and tailored to me, I'm more likely to make the time for it, to welcome it into my life, to enjoy it.

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Chris: I think that's true for me, too. The one exception I can think off top of my head is the five by five program.

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Kayla: You really dig that.

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Chris: Which I think part of why that is so sticky is that it's just the simplicity. It's just so dead simple.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: That it's like, really. It's simple and it has progression. It's just like, it's a very good design.

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Kayla: Five by five is a weightlifting program where you slowly progress. You incrementally increase the amount of weight that you lift.

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Chris: You five reps of five sets of five reps. And there's only. I think it's actually five different exercises that you do, and it alternates. One day you do three, and the other day you do a different three. And that's literally it. The only other element is, as Kayla mentioned, you slowly increase the weight as you go until you can't anymore. It's that simple.

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Kayla: Didn't work for me.

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Chris: Interesting.

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Kayla: I just. It just didn't work for me because it was.

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Chris: Somebody else designed it.

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Kayla: I just. I think. I think that progression and mastery are less important aspects of working out for me. I think because exercising is so much of, like a. It is a bit of a checking out process, and it is a bit of a mental break process, that if I kind of, like, add math and tracking to it. It stops serving the purpose that I use it for.

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Chris: That's really interesting because I, when you say that, it makes me kind of feel like when I do five by five when I lift heavy weights that way it's less about the activity even than it is about just the pure progression, like in achievement of it. And like, you feel good when you do a pr or if you've progressed multiple weeks in a row or whatever. It's much more about that than it is even about getting the blood flow. It does get the blood flowing, but it's like I'm not going to get the blood flowing. I'm going to increase the number by five pounds.

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Kayla: See, for me, I enjoy feeling like I've improved at something, but I don't like tracking it. Like, I don't get the same. If I'm like, I went up five pounds and I can track exactly why. Like, I don't get the same endorphin rush than if, like, oh, I'm doing kettlebell swings and I can tell that I can do more reps this time, or, oh, I'm trying out a new move in pole dancing and I can actually do it this time. Oh, I have stronger grip on the pole than I did when I first started. Those kind of discoveries are more important for me than tracking it.

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Chris: That makes sense. That's interesting. So you don't like progress quest? Is that what you're saying?

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Kayla: I don't even know what that means.

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Chris: You've never played progress quest?

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Kayla: No. It sounds horrible. I don't want to talk about it. I hate it.

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Chris: It's bars moving to the right. You don't actually do anything. You just watch bars go to the right.

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Kayla: No, hate it. Get it away.

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Chris: It's an rpg distilled out of any decision making from the player. And you just watch bars go to the right. It's amazing. As like a deconstructive piece of art. It's actually quite good.

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Kayla: Right. Kind of getting back to my script here.

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Chris: Oh, sorry.

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Kayla: I find another way to motivate myself to get physical activity in, as we already talked about, throw in a social component, meet a friend for a hike, go on a walk with you. I can take a walk around the block, but it's so much better when I can take a walk around the block with you and we can talk about stupid stuff or like talk when.

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Chris: You walk around the block, talk when.

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Kayla: You walk the talk. Or like take a class with other people. You know, like pre pandemic, obviously. It's less of a thing now. Something else I love about physical activity. It can be as low cost as you need it to be. Like, it can be free. Taking walk around the block. Free. Free video on YouTube. Free.

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Chris: Like, so you're saying a free.

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Kayla: A free video on YouTube?

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Chris: YouTube video is free?

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Kayla: Yes.

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Chris: Are you sure it's free? Because they spam me with the. Like, do you want to buy YouTube?

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Kayla: I already have YouTube premium, so it's not free. But, I mean, obviously, it can also be as expensive as you want it to be. But it doesn't have to be. Like, it doesn't have to be anything. The way you work out can be whatever you need it to be. It's like a gas. It fills the space that you provided.

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Chris: Yeah.

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Kayla: You could not tell where I was going with that. And then now you're making a fart joke, and I am leaving.

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Chris: I still can't tell where you're going with it, but it's important to make the fart joke, though, Kayla.

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Kayla: Okay. Because of all of this, sometimes I get a little confused by or concerned by types of physical activity or workout regimens that get a little more dogmatic.

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Chris: Oh. New criteria. Ding, ding, ding.

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Kayla: So keep that in mind. An easy example of this is Crossfit we've mentioned on the show. I know we need to do a Crossfit episode.

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Chris: Okay, so that was not a Crossfit episode. In my brain, I was like, crossfit.

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Kayla: We're not yet doing crossfit. Also, in my script, I typed crawfit.

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Chris: Crawfit.

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Kayla: Different thing.

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Chris: It's like crawfish doing Crossfit.

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Kayla: Yes. This is not the crossfit episode, but it's a good example. I think a lot of people know what CrossFit is. It's. It's just like, really intense circuit training kind of thing. Right. Lifting weights.

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Chris: Plus. Plus cult. Yes, plus cult.

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Kayla: A lot of people who do CrossFit only do Crossfit and, like, evangelize CrossFit as the perfect style of exercise. Like, the only thing you need to do. You should do it every day. When I was in recovery for an eating disorder, there was a young man in the program with me who. His family ran a crossfit gym, and his family running a Crossfit gym was, like, a huge. It wasn't the only factor, but it was a huge contributing factor to his eating disorder, because his entire family, even knowing that he was struggling with disordered eating and, you know, a not healthy relationship with exercise, it was still, like, you should be doing CrossFit, and CrossFit only Crossfit is the perfect form of exercise. We only do Crossfit. Go to the Crossfit gym. But, like, even in the face of somebody's illness, they were evangelized.

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Chris: So he had a part of the pathology of his eating disorder was, like, over exercising.

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Kayla: Yeah. His relationship.

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Chris: Unhealthy relationship with exercise. Okay. Because that can be part. I don't know if all of our listeners know that you can also have an unhealthy relationship with exercise where you do it too much, whatever it is that's damaging you rather than helping you.

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Kayla: Especially when you get dogmatic about it. And with something that is inherently dogmatic, like CrossFit, it can be a perfect storm.

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Chris: I hope he's okay now.

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Kayla: I do, too. It can be very costly to join a CrossFit gym, like, or to purchase CrossFit friendly equipment at home. So, like, it costs a lot of money.

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Chris: What's a crossfit friendly equipment?

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Kayla: Is that, like, what Marjorie Taylor Greene has at home?

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Chris: Well, you don't need to have. Well, I guess, actually, it's pretty expensive to have a pull up bar the.

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Kayla: Way that she had it, even to just buy a set of barbell.

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Chris: But doing fish flopping pull ups is free, Kayla.

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Kayla: That's not what it's called, first of all.

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Chris: Second, I'm pretty sure that's the technical term.

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Kayla: Are you serious?

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Chris: No.

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Kayla: Okay. Okay. I couldn't tell if you're serious. It's not fish flopping. I don't wanna talk about Marjorie Taylor Greene.

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Chris: I'm just saying we cannot get through an episode.

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Kayla: I don't wanna talk about her. I think that also with something like CrossFit, there is a lack of personalization. Like we talked about, there's a lack of variety. The required spending isn't attractive to me. So you can see kind of, like, in everything that we talked about, the old criteria, dogma rears its head in something like this.

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Chris: The new criteria.

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Kayla: The new criteria.

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Chris: I have a question.

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Kayla: Yes.

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Chris: You said this episode is not about Crossfit.

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Kayla: Correct. And we are 15 minutes in and.

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Chris: Talking about Crossfit for 15 minutes. Not. Okay. Just checking. That's very kayla of you.

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Kayla: I also know people who out there who, like, only do certain pilates classes, or only do hot yoga, or only do Barry's boot camp. Or, like, only. Only.

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Chris: I have some friends that do berries. They speak very highly of it.

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Kayla: I want to go to Berry's, but I'm scared. Berries is, like. It's a very Hollywood thing, and it's a boot camp, and it's both, like running on a treadmill and doing push ups and lifting weights, and it scares the hell out of me. And hot girls do it. Terrified.

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Chris: Hot girls are very scary.

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Kayla: Hot girls are terrifying also. I want to be them. It's just. It's. But that's not my cup of tea. Like, if you find one style of exercise that you love to do, and it's the only thing that you want to do, I'm happy for you. More power to you. But thinking I found the one, when it comes to exercise, that's just not a thing for me. And I do think that even if that's your steez, even if that's your. Even if that's your bag, I know.

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Chris: What steez means now.

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Kayla: Even if that's your style, you kind of have to admit that there can be some borderline cultishness going on in there.

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Chris: Okay.

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Kayla: But I do have to admit to one thing.

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Chris: Why are you folding your hands and sticking them under your chin and making a cute face?

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Kayla: Because there is a style of exercise that I have gotten involved in over the last couple of years that I have slowly begun to realize absolutely has an aroma of cultishness.

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Chris: Wait, what?

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Kayla: As a dancer, I became involved in this style of exercise as a way to decompress.

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Chris: This is why you said, we're doing this today.

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Kayla: Stop.

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Chris: Sneaky little.

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Kayla: Hold that thought. Cause I wanna talk to you about this off air. As a dancer, I became involved in this style of exercise as a way to decompress after a long week, spend time with friends in a low cost way. This style of exercise, obviously is a form of dance. Really spoke to me. It generally comes in a class setting, and it was something I continued doing on and off during the pandemic. My ability to execute this style of exercise whenever I needed to absolutely helped me get through this last year and a half. It's an easy way to move my body, to connect with my dancing roots, to have fun, and to release endorphins. And it absolutely drew me into a point where I knew I needed to take a step back.

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Chris: Why do you do this?

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Kayla: And of course, it is the topic of today's episode. This style of exercise, my friends, is called zumba.

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Chris: This is why you said yesterday, do you want to do a Zumba class with me tomorrow, isn't it?

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Kayla: It's actually not because I was going to do a Zumba class today anyway, but I wanted to. But I want to hang out with you. And so I was like, maybe you'll do zumba class with me. And then as I was saying it, I went, huh. My next topic is zumba. Obviously, I should force Chris to do a zumba class with me.

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Chris: All right, I'll do your zumba class.

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Kayla: Okay.

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Chris: I mean, it looks fun.

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Kayla: What is zumba, Chris?

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Chris: What do I think zumba is? So you turn on a YouTube video, okay? And then there's a guy, okay, and then he goes, all right, we're gonna dance and do these moves. And then he dances to some. I don't know, probably latin sort of music.

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Kayla: Okay.

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Chris: And then he does some moves, and you mimic the moves, and then the video ends and you're tired.

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Kayla: Sure. Yes, yes. You mostly got it. Yes.

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Chris: I'm a genius.

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Kayla: To get a little more technical with it. Zumba is an exercise program that was created in 1998 by Alberto Beto Perez that consists of hour long follow along dance classes set to latin dance music. The word zumba is a neologism created specifically as a brand name for the fitness program. It was originally called Roomba Size, like as a nod to jazzercise the style of dance aerobics.

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Chris: Oh, no shit.

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Kayla: The eighties. Yes.

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Chris: Did they stop that because of the roomba?

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Kayla: No.

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Chris: Well, I don't know. Well, then why?

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Kayla: It's like roomba size, not roomba size.

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Chris: Oh.

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Kayla: R u m b a. Rumba. The dance style. Roomba.

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Chris: Oh, rumba to rumba. Okay, I would probably pronounce that roomba.

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Kayla: When you say room weird.

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Chris: Rum.

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Kayla: A zumba class will cycle through four basic salsa, reggaeton, merengue, and kumbia.

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Chris: I did not know that. And I also don't know what kumbia is.

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Kayla: It's a style of dance.

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Chris: Okay.

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Kayla: And there are four core steps that go along with each rhythm.

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Chris: I did not know that either.

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Kayla: All of zumba, there are 16 core steps. So it's like, sometimes you'll go to a zumba class, and it'll seem like everybody already knows what the fuck they're doing, but it's because you can kind of. If you know zumba, if you've done it, you pick up on the steps like you know what's coming.

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Chris: It's kind of like knowing about, like, pilates breathing.

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Kayla: Right, right.

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Chris: Okay. Zumba. Normally, like, pre pandemic zumba, you usually go in person to do a class. Is that.

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Kayla: I mean, like, people definitely have, you know. I will get to that. I guess the short answer is yes. Zumba classes are typically in person. Obviously, the pandemic has pushed the Zumba company to.

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Chris: Oh, there's a company.

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Kayla: Oh, we'll get to that.

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Chris: We'll get to that, too. Okay.

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Kayla: To support virtual classes, right?

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Chris: Yeah. Like everything else. Okay.

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Kayla: So, you know, I figure, why tell you about Zumba when I can just make you do zumba?

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Chris: Yeah. Okay, here it comes.

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Kayla: You ready?

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Chris: Yeah, let's do it. The taping. Is it going to tap thing? So I'm able to talk, which I'm surprised by.

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Kayla: We really just did zumba, y'all.

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Chris: Yeah. This isn't even. We're not even faking it. We actually just did it, apparently. A beginner's class.

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Kayla: That was a beginner. 20 minutes class. Usually the classes are like, if you go to a class, you go somewhere, it's like an hour. It's usually an hour. But we'll also.

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Chris: No way. Not doing that for an hour. No.

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Kayla: But did you have fun?

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Chris: Yeah. So, okay, where to begin? Say this in between breaths. Excuse me. I get the beginner bit in terms of, like, the moves themselves. Looked pretty idiot proof, right? They weren't me proof, but they were idiot proof. I just was not coordinated enough to do the things, but all they were was just like, step left, step right. Put your foot.

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Kayla: Grapevine, step toe.

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Chris: It's, you know, like, do the hokey pokey kind of stuff.

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Kayla: Right. But it moves quick.

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Chris: It moves very rapid. No break. And I don't say the hokey pokey to disparage. In fact, almost the other way. Like, as a beginner, I found it very welcoming, I guess, or easy to process. Even though I was fumbling and stepping over myself.

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Kayla: You could see a future where you'd be able to do it.

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Chris: Sure. Yeah. The dude, I'm not sure which youtuber that was.

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Kayla: Zumba sulu.

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Chris: Zumba sulu. Okay, so he was the helmsman on the enterprise, and now he does Zumba.

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Kayla: Yeah.

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Chris: He looks very different, by the way.

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Kayla: Yeah.

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Chris: He seems to have gotten younger.

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Kayla: Young guy.

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Chris: Yeah. Like, very charismatic. I'll say that.

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Kayla: Didn't speak one time.

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Chris: Oh, yeah, that's right.

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Kayla: Did not speak one time.

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Chris: Didn't speak any spoken language. No, he was communicating. He was communicating the language of Zumba. Oh, he was so. He was. Yeah. So he was very good looking, charismatic. He was smiling the whole time. I told you during it, I was like, he's tricking me into thinking I'm happy right now. Yeah. And by the way, his tattoo on his arm was just awesome.

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Kayla: Right?

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Chris: Very ornate. Detailed, but precise. Love the tattoo. Just gotta say that.

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Kayla: What kind of shirt was he wearing?

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Chris: He's wearing a yellow tank top.

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Kayla: What is.

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Chris: I was able to see his tattoo on it. Did it say zumba?

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Kayla: Oh, it was Zumba branded.

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Chris: It was zumba branded.

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Kayla: Oh, it was a zoom. I did not pick up Zumba shirt.

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Chris: I just. I groked that as just, like, random nineties looking.

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Kayla: No tank top. He had a zumba shirt on.

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Chris: But, yeah, he was very engaging in terms of just, like, how he somehow communicated with me despite not talking, like, by looking into my eyes and making gestures, which I learned throughout the course of the session. You said were some of them were cues or signals as to what to do. I didn't get that at first. So when he was, like, putting his two fingers up, at first I would just put my two fingers up, too.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: Sorry. Still have to catch my breath. But then I figured out that meant that we're about to do two of something.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: And then there are some other things that you said. I kind of went off and on in terms of, like, whether I mimicked it or recognize it as a cue.

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Kayla: Well, yeah, it was interesting to see what registered to you as a cue and what you didn't pick up on as a queue, because, yes, zumba, I think, is very. And, you know, this is just a reaction. We'll get more to the specifics of it after this. I think it can be very welcoming to beginners, but it also. There is a barrier to entry because.

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Chris: Right.

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Kayla: If you go into a zumba class where people have been going for ten weeks and they all, like, know the moves and what's a cue and what's not a cue, that can be intimidating.

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Chris: Yeah. If I didn't have you there to tell me that, I probably would have been pretty confused, actually.

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Kayla: Right. Being able to take it at home, I think, will lessen that barrier of entry for some because you can kind of be a doofus in your own apartment.

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Chris: Oh, yeah, that's true, too. I think that would be way more intimidating if I was having to do it in front of a bunch of experts.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: Who knew things that I didn't.

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Kayla: Right. Right.

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Chris: Oh, God, I'm sweating. I'm sweating all over the equipment. Oh, God.

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Kayla: Again, 20 minutes. Usually classes are an hour then. That was a beginner class. There weren't any jumps. There weren't any comp jumps. Oh, there's jumps. Oh, it goes horde some. I'm not kidding. Some of the best workouts of my life have been Zumba classes.

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Chris: It's an incredible workout. As sweaty in and out of breath as I got a. I was expecting it to be more cardio but actually, for me, it veered more. And actually, I probably would have been more cardio if I wasn't just, like, barely moving because I didn't know what the fuck I was doing.

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Kayla: Oh, it wasn't enough cardio for you? We can go do an intermediate class.

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Chris: No, no. Please, no. The point I'm trying to make is that I felt it more in my hips than in my heart muscle.

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Kayla: Okay.

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Chris: My hips were very. And I just. It just is muscles that I guess I just don't ever. I've never used. I don't know.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: Like, those muscles have been sore before, like, squats, but I've never, like, done something to work those muscles. I didn't even know it was possible in that. In that manner. So props to that. That it, like, really got, like, around my hips and glutes area to feel sore.

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Kayla: Right, right.

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Chris: And now I'm spitting cotton balls. I should probably get some water before we continue.

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Kayla: Okay, so now we've gotten our water after our Zumba class, after we've worked it out, left it all on the dance floor, rehydrated ourselves, now that we've actually experienced Zumba.

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Chris: Mm. I love actually experiencing this stuff. Those are my favorite episodes.

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Kayla: Yeah.

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Chris: Like, when went to get that crazy food from the crazy place.

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Kayla: Oh, yeah.

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Chris: What was that called?

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Kayla: Loving hut.

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Chris: Oh, yeah, that was cool. This one was cool, too.

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Kayla: I want to go back to loving hut. That place was delicious. I know it's a cult, but, man, it was good.

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Chris: That cult can cook some vegan food.

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Kayla: Yes, they can. Interesting. We'll get to it a little bit later, but there's a little bit of a parallel in some of the loving hut business practices in the Zumba Fitness LLC. Business practices?

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Chris: What? Wait, so is it, like, if you are a cult, then, like, whatever product you're making is just, like, fucking awesome? Is that, like.

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Kayla: Except for, like, a lot of MLM products.

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Chris: Oh, except for every single MLM.

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Kayla: Not every single one. We talked about how Mary Kay had good products.

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Chris: That's true. That's true.

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Kayla: But we're not talking about Mary Kay. We're not talking about letting. Hut. Let's dive back into the Zumba of it all. I haven't cited my sources yet, so I'll do that. Research obviously comes from Wikipedia. And that's it. No, Wikipedia? The Zumba website? Yeah. I mean, I got told in high school that you weren't allowed to use Wikipedia as a source, and now I say to that, fuck you, Wikipedia. The Zumba website itself, inc.com. Comma, Reddit, qz.com, comma, glassdoor, the independent hub.

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Chris: Ooh. That's how you know it's gonna be good is when it's glassdoor as a source.

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Kayla: You gotta have glassdoor.

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Chris: That's when, you know, people just dishing tea on glassdoor.

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Kayla: I love Glassdoor. It's just, it's just gossip. But also, I do love Glassdoor because, like, we live in a society where we've conditioned ourselves to be like, oh, you can't talk about money. Can't talk about money. Can't talk about money. Can't talk about money. But then you got Glassdoor. You talk about money, honeydeh.

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Chris: Is that what people do? Because most of the time I've seen on Glassdoor just people being like, this company is.

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Kayla: I guess I mostly, oh, it's not just work. I mean, it's fantastic that there's a hub for working conditions, but there's also specifically, people will put their salaries on there.

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Chris: That's good.

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Kayla: Yes. Ask your coworkers about their salaries. You're allowed to talk about it. I thought for the longest time that you weren't allowed to talk about it, that it was like, not, no, it's.

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Chris: Just a societal, polite society thing.

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Kayla: Yeah, talk about money, guys.

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Chris: Anyway, that's a whole other topic.

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Kayla: Money is a cult hub. Pages insure fitness and of course, my own life. The biggest source, as I mentioned earlier, Zimba was created in 1998 by Alberto Bedo Perez. We will refer to him generally as Beido. He was working as an aerobic structure in Colombia. The story goes that one day Beido forgot to bring his regular aerobics music to class, but he happened to have salsa and merengue music that he had taped off the radio with him. And so he put that music on.

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Chris: So he just was. Hold on. He randomly taped some music off the radio.

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Kayla: Okay, do you not remember taping music off the radio when that was a thing? Did you never do that?

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Chris: No, I never did that.

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Kayla: You never had the experience?

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Chris: I burned cds.

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Kayla: Oh, my God. I was sitting by the radio with a blank cassette tape in waiting for.

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Chris: Is that a thing?

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Kayla: Yes. You would wait for your song to come on and you would have to like, yes, you never did that. And you pressed record and you recorded yourself. No, girl.

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Chris: Wow. I just learned about this.

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Kayla: Yes, that was a thing.

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Chris: Cool.

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Kayla: Yeah.

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Chris: I had no idea. I literally had no idea that was a thing.

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Kayla: Practice lost to time.

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Chris: I also want to give props to Mister Beidou here. Necessity is the mother of invention.

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Kayla: Oh, yeah.

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Chris: You know, good job.

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Kayla: He forgot. And then he had some tapes and he was like, well, I guess we'll put this on.

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Chris: You know what else is funny, is like, I don't know. I just associate salsa style music now with. With, like, jazz workout, blah, blah. Yeah. I think Zumba has just creeped into my brain because when you said, oh, he didn't have his regular jazzer size tape, I was just like, wait, what is that even. Is that like, Beethoven? Like, I don't even understand what that means.

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Kayla: I think that, like, jazzercise in, like, the eighties was more. Actually, I don't know what kind of music. Jazzercise to use. Jazz.

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Chris: There's no way he's jazz impossible.

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Kayla: Soft jazz, like, franchise.

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Chris: Yeah. Like elevator music.

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Kayla: Not getting.

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Chris: I'm feeling it after that. Yeah.

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Kayla: I mean, I want to say, like, I'm assuming that the music was kind of like Olivia Newton John. Like, let's get physical. Physical. Was it that.

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Chris: That's what the music video was for? That.

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Kayla: I mean. But there had to be a reason why, right?

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Chris: No, that's fair. Yeah, it was probably that.

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Kayla: Anyway, we're not talking about Japsercise, which might be its own cult. We're talking about Zumba. And it was born in 1998 at this moment. But first it was called rhumba size.

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Chris: Okay.

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Kayla: Rumba size in 2001. So just a few years later, Beido partnered with two businessmen and sold a series of Zumba videos via infomercial. Two investment groups invested in 2012, and the company pivoted away from videos to in person class instruction.

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Chris: Mmm. Okay. Okay.

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Kayla: Along the way, I don't want to. The dates are still, like, kind of fuzzy as we talk about ourselves.

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Chris: That's an interesting pivot. I feel like. I feel like you'd go the other way. Like, you go from in person small time to selling videos to the masses. I feel like that's the normal progression. That's interesting.

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Kayla: I don't want to say that's not what they did, but it's also not what they did.

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Chris: Okay, we'll get to that. Okay. Okay.

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Kayla: As I mentioned, zumba classes are usually hour long, and they focus on high cardio dance with no breaks. Like, one of the big selling points of Zumba is the amount of calories they claim you can burn in one class.

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Chris: I can't believe we do it for an hour with no breaks.

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Kayla: Oh, my God. Honestly, you travel to a different place in your brain. It's fantastic.

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Chris: That's just that's wow.

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Kayla: Because you'll be, like, halfway through, especially if you're, like, taking a class and you're like, oh, God, I'm gonna die. And then you look over at the clock and you're like, halfway through and you're like. The zoom instructor's still like, whoa. And you're like, oh, God, I gotta keep going. Okay. And then you like, honestly, I've never understood people who are like, Kayla's flailing.

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Chris: Her arms right now, by the way, as she's saying all this.

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Kayla: I never understood people who were like, oh, you get our runners high. I still don't believe in that. I do believe in a Zumba high.

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Chris: Okay.

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Kayla: I have experienced the zumba.

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Chris: It's probably the same process.

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Kayla: I know, but running sounds so boring. Sorry. To all of our runners out there.

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Chris: We have some, like, superfans that are runners, too. You better be careful.

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Kayla: Yeah, stop running and go to Zumba. I mean, with Zumba, I've heard, like, 900 calories in 1 hour. Sorry, like, trigger warning. I'm gonna talk about calories. 900 calories in 1 hour. 600 calories. A thousand calories. Like, calories. Calories. Calories. You're gonna just. And it's. I honestly think it's less about the, like, actual number and more just trying to communicate. Like, you're gonna fucking work your ass off and it's gonna be. You're gonna have so much fun working your ass off. And I think that's one of.

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Chris: It was fun.

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Kayla: We'll talk more about it later. But I do think that's one of the big draws of Zumba, is that it's so fun, you forget you're working out. And so much of our workout society, I don't wanna get too into it. We're gonna talk about it later. But so much of our workout culture is, like, doing stuff that's hard and running on the treadmill for 45 minutes and stuff that's hard and not necessarily fun. So Zumba is kind of like that breath of fresh air of, like, you're gonna have so much fun and you're gonna break a sweat.

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Chris: It's kind of like we talked earlier on the episode, like, I don't even think of doing my. I don't even think of doing my heavy weightlifting as, like, an exercise. I think of it as like a. Like a challenge, right. It's like, it's kind of like a game, right. It's about mastery and pushing to the next and leveling up.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: And the exercise is really almost kind of secondary to that. So I feel. And then same thing with, like, basketball, my other sort of favorite thing to do, which is activity wise. Right, right. Like, it's more about having fun playing basketball, and then. Oh, cool. Like, now I'm also tired.

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Kayla: Right. That's more like Zumba.

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Chris: Right.

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Kayla: Which is interesting. Yeah, interesting. Either way, those claims are insane.

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Chris: 1000 calories. That I want to go on the record as saying. I don't know if I believe 1000 calories in an hour, but.

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Kayla: Well, it's also insane to be, like, you're gonna do this because the amount of calories a person's burn, a person burns during any given activity is very individualized and, like, based on that one person. So it's like, maybe someone will. Maybe someone could burn a thousand calories, but, like, it's probably not going to be the norm. Just saying.

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Chris: Right?

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Kayla: Just saying. These hour long classes are taught by instructors who are licensed by the parent company, Zumba Fitness, LLC. And there are actually different types of zumba classes. In addition to, like, the standard zumba that you and I took, there's, like, different types. There is zumba gold, which is for older people or for beginners. I like zumba gold.

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Chris: Oh, that's cool. I thought it was gonna be, like, a top tier. I thought it was gonna be.

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Kayla: It is top tier for our top tier population.

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Chris: Okay, fair.

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Kayla: Yeah, that's what I said. There's zumba step, which is zumba plus step aerobics. So it's zumba. Remember step aerobics, where it was like that step. Did you ever have a step in your home?

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Chris: No, but there was a really funny joke that Brian Regan made about the step.

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Kayla: What was it? It was just an impersonation.

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Chris: Oh, my steps here. Then I run down the steps.

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Kayla: Okay. But to be fair, as somebody who did step aerobics as a child, I get it, because we had a step in the hallway.

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Chris: Not everybody has a tv with the aerobic thing right next to where a step might be. That's fair.

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Kayla: Also, the way the step is, it does not. You cannot do the step movements on stairs.

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Chris: Couldn't you just go somewhere and, like, snag yourself, like, a concrete block from, like, some. Okay.

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Kayla: I don't know what the step was for you.

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Chris: Boy, you paid $70 for a step.

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Kayla: I don't know. We had a step in our home. I definitely used it sometimes anyway. Zumba. Zumba step. Zumba plus step aerobics. There's zumba toning, which focuses on building muscle throughout the body by doing zumba with toning sticks. So, like, shake weights.

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Chris: Weights. Oh, shake weights.

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Kayla: They're not shake weights, but it's like these zumba sticks.

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Chris: Weighted sticks.

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Kayla: Yeah, weighted sticks. Okay, there's zumba.

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Chris: Got a weighted stick for you right here.

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Kayla: Cutting that there is zumba gold toning. So same thing.

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Chris: Okay, so that's toning sticks, but with our gold tier population.

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Kayla: Correct. Okay, there's aqua zumba. Zumba in the pool, which I want to take.

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Chris: Yeah, that sounds cool as hell.

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Kayla: Sounds really hard.

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Chris: So we get to see that. That zumba dude with his shirt off, which is pretty good.

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Kayla: Probably with his shirt off.

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Chris: It's a tank top.

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Kayla: Like one of those, like, super tank tiles where it's, like, showing nip. There is zumba in the circuit. So 30 minutes classes that incorporate circuit training into regular dance.

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Chris: Oh, that sounds interesting.

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Kayla: Zumba kids. Zumba for kids ages seven to eleven.

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Chris: So you're not using the kids as weights there. It's. No. What?

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Kayla: Just hold on.

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Chris: No, I pulled that completely out of my ass.

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Kayla: That can't just hold on. It's not. It's not. Just hold on.

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Chris: Okay.

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Kayla: Okay. There's a zumba for kids, like seven to eleven. There's zuma centau, which is like zumba choreography, but it's also like a chair workout. But I.

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Chris: What is it? Wait, what?

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Kayla: Centau.

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Chris: Centau?

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Kayla: Yeah.

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Chris: What does centau mean?

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Kayla: Sit.

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Chris: Oh, man, my spanish is rusty.

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Kayla: Isn't centaur to sit?

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Chris: Oh, yeah. Centaur means sit in Spanish.

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Kayla: So centaur. So it's like zumba in. I sit zumba chair.

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Chris: Right. Also, centaur is a half horse half man.

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Kayla: It's not centaur. It's centaur.

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Chris: Centaur. Yeah. They're pretty good at archery.

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Kayla: Centaur is the half man, half horse. Centaur is to sit in esmenue.

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Chris: Oh, it's a tonal thing.

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Kayla: Yes.

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Chris: Okay.

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Kayla: There is strong nation, which is zumba, but with high intensity interval training is part of it. And then there is zoombini, which is zumba for babies aged zero to three.

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Chris: So they're just popping right out of the birth canal and then just starting with the salsa.

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Kayla: So it's zumba for the babies and their carers. It's more of a parent and me class, where it's like you're doing zumba with your baby. So that's what I was saying. Zumba the baby is the way. No, it's not really that. But you are doing zumba with flailing your baby around, flinging the babies through the air, like, tossing them. I don't know about that, zoombini. I just. I know it's. It probably makes sense, but just zumba for babies aged zero to three is my favorite thing in the world.

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Chris: That's too young.

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Kayla: I don't think you should be taking your zero year old to Zumba.

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Chris: I just gave birth yesterday, but I gotta do my zumba.

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Kayla: I don't know how you would do that.

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Chris: Okay, so that is cult right there. There you go.

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Kayla: Cult for me, I have done standard Zumba as well as strong nation. Like, I'm more on the standard, and I like strong nation, but again, I'm going to Zumba because I just. I want an hour of fun. I don't necessarily want to be, like, doing hit, and I, like, hit, but it's hard. Like, I just. I just want to be insanely in my body for an hour. To dance.

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Chris: Yeah. Be present and be dancing.

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Kayla: Yeah.

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Chris: Yeah. I get that from. From having done it just a few. Whatever.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: 30 minutes ago, it's.

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Kayla: I think I mentioned this before, but before the pandemic, I was going to zumba classes fairly regularly. Like, a couple of my friends and I found a great dance workout studio near us. They had all manner of classes. We found we really enjoyed their Sunday zumba classes with the instructor known as Los Angeles's Zumba king.

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Chris: Zumba king.

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Kayla: Zumba king. They just call him Zumba king.

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Chris: That's usually a moniker you only apply to rulers or mattress salesmen.

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Kayla: Zumba king. He was the king of Zumba. So similar to the YouTube instructor, Zumba Sulu, that you and I were taking on YouTube. Zumba kingdom is insanely energetic, incredibly charismatic in his classes.

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Chris: Yeah, I mean, the guy on YouTube.

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Kayla: Was both of those no breaks, just very loud, like, almost hurting your ears. Pumping music. The second the class would start with songs one after another, and you just get insanely tired and sweaty following along and, like, you're lost in this crowd. I'm in the cult. I'm sorry.

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Chris: I would. I mean, now that we are vaccinated, like, I would totally give that a shot.

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Kayla: I want to go back to Zumba.

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Chris: Although I am terrified, because, as you noticed, I was very unco. Surprisingly uncoordinated. That was almost the hardest part, was how uncoordinated I was.

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Kayla: Well, because you've never done it before.

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Chris: I've never done it. And, like, trying to do the hokey pokey and, like, you know, mimic what the instructor was doing was just, like, too much for my tiny brain to handle.

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Kayla: I mean, also the thing I like about Zuma is that you don't have to get the steps exactly right to get the benefit of zumba.

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Chris: Yeah, it was still fun. It was still fun. But there was definitely part of me that was like, what am I doing?

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Kayla: I'm so lost. I. In. In Zumba King's classes, I found. And, like, honestly, even when I'm taking the YouTube classes, like, I find myself desperate to keep my energy level up to, like, that same level.

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Chris: Interesting.

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Kayla: Like, I want to try and give everything I have in this class because it's like, if the instructor is giving everything they have, it's like, I want to do the same thing. I want to give back to you.

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Chris: That's interest. Really interesting.

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Kayla: Zumba King's classes were always packed. And, like, this is a small studio to the point where the studio changed its reservation policy for his classes.

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Chris: Holy shit.

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Kayla: So, like, the way you would, like, the way you could take classes at this place was you would, like, reserve a spot online beforehand and, like, you get, you know, you have. You're in the class. For Zumba King's classes, they became first come, first serve.

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Chris: Oh, God.

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Kayla: Because they were so popular.

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Chris: Good for him.

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Kayla: He taught at multiple. I say taught because just, you know, the pandemic ruined everything. So I don't really know his schedule anymore. He could still be teaching. I have no idea. He taught at multiple studios around Los Angeles, and there was a group of women that followed him to all of his classes.

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Chris: Just, like, all around the city.

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Kayla: Yes. Like, they would always be up front. Every single time I went to his club, they would always be right up front. And they knew every single step of his choreography by heart. Like, zumba King would turn us. Like, he would run over to the stereo and, like, change to the next song. And before he even started doing the choreography, these girls would go, woo. Like, start doing the dance because they are, like, they knew what it was gonna be based on the song, and they started doing the dance.

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Chris: So they just. Okay, okay.

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Kayla: Like this, man.

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Chris: Could they have, like, taught the class? Basically, yes.

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Kayla: But they were following Zumba king. This one Zumba instructor literally has a small cult following in Los Angeles. Just this one zumba instructor.

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Chris: Yeah. So is the cult zumba or is the cult Zumba king?

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Kayla: I think maybe there's a bunch of mini cults. I don't know. I mean, also. Okay, Zumba king's husband also teaches zumba. Like, they're a zumba couple.

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Chris: Wait, are they competing? Are they, like, at odds? Like, like frenemy zumbas?

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Kayla: Or is it the same company teach at this. I mean, they taught at various studios, but just for this one studio, they taught at different times and, like.

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Chris: Okay, so they were on the same side of business.

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Kayla: Yes. Yes.

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Chris: Okay. I'm sorry that it wasn't, like, the enemies that are also lovers thing that you love so much.

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Kayla: I guess I could think of that. I don't know. I mean. So I took zumba king's classes, Irl. And then when the pandemic happened, I found myself. My schedule lined up more with his husband. So I was taking a lot of his husband's classes online, and, like, again, a lot of that same energy, that charisma. And without even saying a single word, he would inspire me to dance my heart out, dance my ass off every single time. Even just in my stupid.

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Chris: So those guys, they don't. They don't talk either?

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Kayla: No, they're no talking. Even in the IRL class, you just fucking.

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Chris: I thought that was just the guy that we watched.

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Kayla: That's it.

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Chris: The guy that we watched was. It was. It was interesting. It was all, like, him dancing, him giving, like, visual cues, facial expressions, a ton of nonverbal communication. Yeah, but no verbal communication, so. Okay. I didn't know that was, like, a commonality.

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Kayla: That is. It's. It's all entirely. At least in all of the classes that I've taken, it is entirely follow along.

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Chris: I think they never even say, all right, let's go, everyone.

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Kayla: Like, in Zumba King's class, he might say stuff like that. And, like, there definitely was vocal. Like, in some of the choreography, there would be vocalizations where he'd be like, want you to scream woo at some point or, like, shout in some way.

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Chris: That's fine. I mean, that doesn't count as verbal communication.

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Kayla: Yeah, it's not a verbal class. It's like, you just go and you follow the guy, and he has cues and whatnot. So I didn't really have any alarm bells going off until I started seeking out other Zumba classes. Like, up until this point, I'd only been taught by the Zumba kings, and I figured, like, okay, well, zumba king, this is how he teaches zumba. Oh, and his husband teaches similarly to him. Well, that. That makes sense. Like, they have a similar style.

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Chris: Right?

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Kayla: So then the pandemic happened, and I did take zumba strong nation, the hit class, or, like, I found the free YouTube zumba classes. And up until this point, I kind of just thought of zumba as any other style of, like, dance for exercise or, like, yoga or potties. Where it's like, it's a name of something, but then, like, you can just, you know.

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Chris: Right. It's like. It's like a genre.

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Kayla: Yeah, a genre.

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Chris: Yeah.

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Kayla: Like. Like, you can take a ballet class. You can take a salsa class. You can take a zumba class.

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Chris: Yeah, that's how I understood it until you just said that.

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Kayla: Okay. Well, yeah, I started taking more classes, and then, like, my spidey sense definitely began going off. So first I realized just how very branded everything was.

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Chris: Okay.

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Kayla: Every instructor I came across wore, like, zumba branded shirts or accessories or have, like, zumba quotes on their shoes.

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Chris: Oh, yeah, you pointed that out with the guy we just walked. Okay.

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Kayla: Or, like, the zumba logo. And the zumba logo is a yellow circle with, like, a stylized dancing stick figure in the middle.

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Chris: Didn't know they had a logo.

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Kayla: Oh, yeah. Oh, it was in some of the videos that we saw. Oh, the logo is everywhere. And that's, like, something about zumba that.

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Chris: I feel, like, hidden. It's like hidden mickeys.

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Kayla: It's kind of like in mickey. No, it's like it's in your face, but you don't. I don't know. It's like they're an in your face cult that you don't really realize. And I'm not saying they're called and.

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Chris: Just using that word, hiding in plain sight.

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Kayla: The word zumba has a trademark symbol on it.

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Chris: Oh, yeah. It feels like I knew that.

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Kayla: Second, I noticed how similar every class was. Like, the music was the same, but it was the same in an interesting way. It seemed like every teacher adopted new music at the same time. Like, one month, there'd be a dance version of despacito in each class.

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Chris: The next month, you gotta have despacito.

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Kayla: You gotta have despacito. The next month, there'd be a dance version of senorita in each class.

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Chris: Got to have senorita.

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Kayla: And it wasn't just the music. Like, the choreography was extremely similar. I became aware of the fact, without anyone explicitly stating it, that there were certain core Zumba steps, that Zumba wasn't just a name of a style of a dance workout. It was a highly regimented, regulated thing. Maybe more akin to a workout style, like Crossfit, than something more open to personalization, like a ballet class. And then, honestly, my biggest red flag was when, completely unprompted by any external source, I began having certain thoughts while I was taking Zumba classes.

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00:45:34,074 --> 00:45:35,030
Chris: Wait, what?

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00:45:35,370 --> 00:45:46,370
Kayla: I found myself thinking, maybe I should teach Zumba. Maybe I should do this you just.

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00:45:46,410 --> 00:45:48,578
Chris: Started thinking that randomly about the workout you were doing.

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00:45:48,594 --> 00:46:01,806
Kayla: Yes, 1000%. Again, these classes, no one is talking, so no one is saying in my ear, like, hey, you should teach zumba. You can make a lot of money teaching zumba. I love teaching zumba.

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00:46:01,938 --> 00:46:05,998
Chris: It was literally just subliminal messaging and.

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Kayla: Like, I can't say obviously. Obviously, I follow Zumba king and his husband on Instagram. Obviously.

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00:46:12,558 --> 00:46:12,958
Chris: Yeah, you have.

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00:46:12,974 --> 00:46:15,270
Kayla: Because their love part of the work inspires me.

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Chris: Yeah.

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Kayla: So, like, maybe there was some stuff in the Instagram about, like, there was maybe some ancillary stuff of, like, seeing how great their lifestyle is. Like, they travel around and they, like, teach zumba classes everywhere, and they love it. So maybe there was, like, some subliminal stuff there, too. But nowhere in any of my experience was there ever any sort of pushing of, like, you should teach zumba. You should. It just totally came into my brain. Maybe I should teach zumba.

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Chris: I'm trying to think back to my analogies of, like, weightlifting and basketball. I guess I've probably had the thought cross my mind, like, I could teach this or I could teach basketball, but I don't know if I've ever. It's ever crossed my mind to be, like, I could make money teaching this.

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Kayla: Right?

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00:46:52,010 --> 00:46:57,868
Chris: That's never crossed my mind. I'm not that good at basketball. I'm pretty good, but not that good.

493
00:46:57,924 --> 00:47:33,014
Kayla: I'm very good at Zumba. I mean, look at the time. It wasn't a crazy leap to make in my mind. Like, every class I'd taken had an incredibly energetic teacher who truly seemed to love Zumba more than anything. And, like, many of them kind of had this, like, okay, so in looking at Zumba king and his husband's instagrams, like, there was definitely. And some other ancillary instagrams. There was definitely this online Persona of, like, Zumba changed my life. Like, Zumba has been such a great force in my life. And, like, obviously it's a great way to get your body moving, your endorphins.

494
00:47:33,062 --> 00:47:35,930
Chris: Pumping, little bit of life consumption going on there.

495
00:47:36,990 --> 00:47:57,580
Kayla: I'd only seen classes that were full to the max, and so, like. And also, it was the pandemic, and we're all depressed and life was terrible. So, like, my brain was probably looking for something nice to think about. So naturally, it made the leap, maybe I can stay in shape and make money at the same time. And that's when I knew, okay, we have a topic here.

496
00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:04,384
Chris: So is it team beachbody secretly? Is it just an MLM? Is that?

497
00:48:04,512 --> 00:48:05,180
Kayla: No.

498
00:48:05,640 --> 00:48:14,500
Chris: Well, I guess you said you weren't sold to. You just correct. Felt inspired to carry the torch, I guess.

499
00:48:15,050 --> 00:48:22,866
Kayla: I don't want to spoil too much about where we're going. I will say, from what I understand, Zumba is not an MLM.

500
00:48:23,058 --> 00:48:23,698
Chris: Okay.

501
00:48:23,794 --> 00:48:31,338
Kayla: But that doesn't mean it makes its money from students taking classes. We will get to that.

502
00:48:31,514 --> 00:48:32,394
Chris: Okay.

503
00:48:32,522 --> 00:48:54,934
Kayla: We will get to that. So having that kind of organic yet MLM style of thinking kind of, like, pop up out of nowhere motivated me to do a deep dive into what exactly Zumba is, and it's a much bigger thing than I had ever realized. Like, the company itself is a much bigger thing than I realized.

504
00:48:55,022 --> 00:48:56,902
Chris: Okay. Do you have revenue numbers?

505
00:48:57,086 --> 00:49:16,850
Kayla: Kind of. I learned that Zumba fitness, LLC alleges there are 15 million people taking Zumba classes each week around the world. Around the world. And when I say around the world, I mean around the world. Zumba has a presence in 186 countries.

506
00:49:17,030 --> 00:49:17,790
Chris: Wow.

507
00:49:18,210 --> 00:49:25,602
Kayla: Including, like, Iran, where there's some legal controversy around it, even, like, people have been arrested for teaching Zumba.

508
00:49:25,666 --> 00:49:27,562
Chris: Ooh, wow. Revolutionary Zumba.

509
00:49:27,626 --> 00:49:33,498
Kayla: Yeah. There are around 100,000 instructors worldwide.

510
00:49:33,674 --> 00:49:34,170
Chris: Wow.

511
00:49:34,250 --> 00:49:42,218
Kayla: A number that has not been disclosed by Zumba but has come from other journalists, because I don't think they want that number out there.

512
00:49:42,354 --> 00:49:43,230
Chris: Why not?

513
00:49:44,130 --> 00:49:53,310
Kayla: Why do you think? We'll get more into it later on, but I want to know why you think this might be. I don't have a correct answer for you, but I have speculation.

514
00:49:53,610 --> 00:50:05,842
Chris: Do they thrive or otherwise benefit from the fact that we're all sort of ignorant that it's a global brand and we think that it's just sort of a genre thing.

515
00:50:05,906 --> 00:50:08,642
Kayla: Oh, I don't know. Maybe that could be it.

516
00:50:08,706 --> 00:50:09,602
Chris: That was my guess.

517
00:50:09,706 --> 00:50:17,076
Kayla: My guess is that they don't want to dissuade people from becoming instructors and thinking that the market is saturated.

518
00:50:17,188 --> 00:50:20,532
Chris: Oh, yeah. That's a little more Occam's razor than mine.

519
00:50:20,596 --> 00:50:27,076
Kayla: There's too many instructors. So why would I become an instructor? Well, if you think that you might not become an instructor because, spoiler alert.

520
00:50:27,148 --> 00:50:28,560
Chris: That'S a whiff of MLM.

521
00:50:28,940 --> 00:50:54,002
Kayla: You do pay money to become an instructor, but that's not necessarily weird, because my sister's a Pilates instructor, and she paid money to become a Pilates instructor, you have to take training. Like, that's not insane. You go to college, and you spend money on that. Spending money on credentialing is not out of the question. Yes, but that's 100,000 instructors worldwide. That's a big number.

522
00:50:54,066 --> 00:50:55,122
Chris: Yeah, it's a lot.

523
00:50:55,306 --> 00:51:13,172
Kayla: There are 70,000 locations that offer Zumba in the US alone, including 95% of major gym chains. And while Zumba plays it close to the vest when it comes to disclosing things like revenue, as you asked about, its 2012 valuation was reported to be $500 million.

524
00:51:13,276 --> 00:51:14,212
Chris: Jesus.

525
00:51:14,396 --> 00:51:24,340
Kayla: And its CEO once cryptically stated its yearly revenue was nine figures. So that can be anywhere from $100 million to $999 million.

526
00:51:24,500 --> 00:51:28,952
Chris: So that is very cryptic. That is. Yeah, not specific.

527
00:51:29,116 --> 00:51:41,860
Kayla: More than 10 million Zumba DVD's have been sold. In 2007, Zumba launched its own apparel line, Zumbaware. Starting in 2010, Zumba has released a series of seven video games.

528
00:51:43,440 --> 00:51:46,736
Chris: No, no, they have not. What are you talking about?

529
00:51:46,808 --> 00:51:51,440
Kayla: I'm assuming it's like, you know, like Wii workout games or like, Xbox fitness games.

530
00:51:51,520 --> 00:51:53,920
Chris: Okay, okay. That makes way more sense.

531
00:51:54,040 --> 00:51:58,118
Kayla: Not like an rpg, you know, like.

532
00:51:58,214 --> 00:52:01,318
Chris: Zumba King, like jumping from platform to platform and smushing mushrooms.

533
00:52:01,334 --> 00:52:02,438
Kayla: I would play that, though.

534
00:52:02,614 --> 00:52:03,414
Chris: Hell, yeah.

535
00:52:03,502 --> 00:52:20,150
Kayla: In 2012, it released its first compilation album, Zumba Fitness Dance Party, which became a series of compilation albums. And these ventures. The mention of these ventures is just the tip of the iceberg. So when I say that it's a much bigger thing than I realized, I really do mean big.

536
00:52:20,230 --> 00:52:22,070
Chris: Wait, it's bigger than all the stuff you just said?

537
00:52:22,190 --> 00:52:22,804
Kayla: Yes.

538
00:52:22,942 --> 00:52:28,660
Chris: Bigger than video games and dance party albums, compilations, and branded merchandise.

539
00:52:29,360 --> 00:52:39,168
Kayla: Correct. So why don't we go back to the beginning so we can start to see just how deep the rabbit hole goes?

540
00:52:39,264 --> 00:52:43,168
Chris: Wait, how far back to the beginning? Because I don't want to take another Zimba class. That was. I'm tired.

541
00:52:43,264 --> 00:52:48,140
Kayla: We're not going to take another Zimba class. But we will start in 1970.

542
00:52:49,330 --> 00:52:50,194
Chris: I thought you said it was 1990.

543
00:52:50,490 --> 00:52:53,202
Kayla: 98 is when Zumba first started.

544
00:52:53,386 --> 00:52:55,122
Chris: Okay, but now we're going to 1970.

545
00:52:55,186 --> 00:53:26,540
Kayla: We are going back to when Alberto Beito Perez was born in 1970, and he was raised by a single mother in Cali, Colombia. By 14, he was working three jobs to help support his family, but could not afford to take dance classes to support his passion. His life changed when he eventually won a national lombata contest, and he was accepted into a top columbian dance academy. Instead of paying tuition, he taught step aerobics on behalf of the academy when he was 29. Just.

546
00:53:26,620 --> 00:53:29,012
Chris: They just let him pay for his tuition by teaching step aerobics.

547
00:53:29,036 --> 00:53:34,440
Kayla: I guess some of the early details are a little murky here.

548
00:53:35,260 --> 00:53:40,060
Chris: Some of his stories, it's, like, told in mythological language.

549
00:53:40,140 --> 00:54:17,200
Kayla: Yeah, kind of like the. I just forgot my music, but I happen to have these tapes. Yeah, some of the stories, they just. They're good stories, right? They're very good stories. When he was 29, just after he came up with the earliest iteration of Zumba, he moved to Miami, quote, in search of the american dream. But he had only little success in marketing his Zumba services to various fitness centers and was still struggling by 2001. But that would all change when he met with another Alberto Perlman, the eventual CEO of Zumba Fitness, LLC. Okay, pause. We're gonna go back in time again.

550
00:54:18,340 --> 00:54:18,900
Chris: Wait, what?

551
00:54:18,940 --> 00:54:30,844
Kayla: Going back in time again this time so we can learn a little bit more about Alberto Perlman and how these two albertos coming together brought about one of the biggest fitness movements the world has ever seen.

552
00:54:30,932 --> 00:54:32,760
Chris: Why didn't they just call it Alberto?

553
00:54:34,030 --> 00:54:38,942
Kayla: Ask me that question a little bit later, because it gets crazier. Hold on.

554
00:54:38,966 --> 00:54:39,806
Chris: Okay.

555
00:54:39,998 --> 00:54:43,374
Kayla: Alberto Perelman was born in Columbia in 1977.

556
00:54:43,542 --> 00:54:46,730
Chris: They were both born in Columbia, and then they both met in Miami.

557
00:54:48,270 --> 00:54:49,450
Kayla: We'll get to that.

558
00:54:49,870 --> 00:54:50,850
Chris: Okay.

559
00:54:51,150 --> 00:55:43,490
Kayla: His father was a factory owner and made leather goods. And this is totally me speculating, but I feel like having kind of a business owner like, entrepreneurial father instilled some business entrepreneurial roots in Alberto. In Perlman. He went to college in the States, and he graduated from Babson University in 1998 with a BA in finance and information systems. He immediately went into consulting, working for a bank by analyzing the effectiveness of his television ads. In 1999, just a year after he graduated from college, which, like, God, we live in such a different world. This is a quote from Wikipedia. Quote, he organized a business conference in Miami sponsored by IBM, Telefonica, and others to bring together latin american entrepreneurs with venture capitalists. So, like, this guy's got that venture capitalist eye, that frame of mind. He's looking for ways to create businesses.

560
00:55:43,570 --> 00:56:06,912
Kayla: He's got, like, an eye on the latin american community. So he organized this conference, and then after this, he was finally inspired to go ahead and create his own venture capital firm called Spiderlabs. And that's spelled S p y d r e. Spider Labs, Washington. Kind of like an incubator for latin american Internet entrepreneur kind of thing, like.

561
00:56:06,936 --> 00:56:10,008
Chris: Y combinator, but for latin american businesses.

562
00:56:10,144 --> 00:56:12,056
Kayla: Sure. I don't know what that.

563
00:56:12,168 --> 00:56:13,272
Chris: Never mind that.

564
00:56:13,456 --> 00:56:14,264
Kayla: Sorry.

565
00:56:14,432 --> 00:56:15,744
Chris: An incubator. I got it.

566
00:56:15,792 --> 00:56:31,400
Kayla: Okay. Well, this is Spiderlabs, and one of the things they focused on was. One of the things they focused specifically on funding was, quote, spanish language clones of us.com businesses, which they then. Which they then sold to the cloned us company.

567
00:56:33,420 --> 00:56:34,428
Chris: That's awesome.

568
00:56:34,564 --> 00:56:44,164
Kayla: Like, you know, a little cool, a little sneaky. Either way, it was. It was pretty successful. Alberto raised several million dollars, and then. Oh, no.com.

569
00:56:44,212 --> 00:56:45,964
Chris: Boom. Bust. Sorry. Bust.

570
00:56:46,012 --> 00:56:49,260
Kayla: 2001 hit. And the.com bubble burst.

571
00:56:49,380 --> 00:56:49,780
Chris: Right?

572
00:56:49,860 --> 00:56:50,640
Kayla: Boo.

573
00:56:50,980 --> 00:56:53,624
Chris: Yeah. That business model is not great for a.com bust.

574
00:56:53,732 --> 00:56:57,140
Kayla: So, 2001. Do you remember what else was happening in 2001?

575
00:56:57,600 --> 00:56:59,944
Chris: There was a terrorist attack also that.

576
00:56:59,992 --> 00:57:06,368
Kayla: We'll get to that. But also, Beito Perez was struggling to launch his new fitness program, Zumba.

577
00:57:06,544 --> 00:57:08,824
Chris: Oh, so I didn't remember. That was 2001.

578
00:57:08,872 --> 00:57:13,688
Kayla: I wonder what happens next. Hey, Chris.

579
00:57:13,864 --> 00:57:14,640
Chris: Hey, Kayla.

580
00:57:14,720 --> 00:57:25,540
Kayla: And other business minded millennials that might be listening. You know that thing where your mom or another creative relative comes up to you and says, hey, I have this idea for a business. You should do it.

581
00:57:25,620 --> 00:57:27,532
Chris: Mm. That happens frequently.

582
00:57:27,596 --> 00:57:33,120
Kayla: Well, it turns out Alberto Perelman actually listened to his mother on this one and struck gold.

583
00:57:33,500 --> 00:57:34,716
Chris: Hold up. His mother?

584
00:57:34,828 --> 00:57:35,636
Kayla: Yes.

585
00:57:35,828 --> 00:57:37,972
Chris: I thought it was this other Alberto that.

586
00:57:38,076 --> 00:58:04,610
Kayla: Hold on. Alberto Perlman, now unemployed after spider Labs folded. His mom comes to him and is basically like, hey, I took aerobics classes with this guy back in Colombia a while back, and, like, I think that you should meet with this talented, energetic young man, beto Perez. Like, he's recently immigrated to Miami. I think you guys should get together and, like, start a business marketing his fitness routine or something.

587
00:58:05,470 --> 00:58:06,070
Chris: What?

588
00:58:06,190 --> 00:58:06,870
Kayla: Yeah.

589
00:58:07,030 --> 00:58:45,124
Chris: No, wait, because I'm sorry, if I. If somebody. If I was a.com entrepreneur, that was, like, making money off of, like, tech stuff. Sneaky, but tech stuff, right? And somebody came to. Came up to me and was like, hey, you can make money on a. On a workout class, on, like, this dancing I did back in my home country, right? I would be like, oh, that's nice. And keep going. Like, that is very surprising that he. That heard the, hey, people dancing in a room pitch, right. And struck gold on that.

590
00:58:45,172 --> 00:58:50,240
Kayla: She was like, you should start a business marketing his classes. Not like, still, yeah.

591
00:58:52,220 --> 00:59:00,052
Chris: This isn't like, oh, I've invented the algorithm that's gonna change the world. Like, this is very, like, that's interesting. It's interesting.

592
00:59:00,116 --> 00:59:24,550
Kayla: Well, like a good boy, Bertol Perlman listened to his mother. He met with Beido and then observed one of his classes at a local gym. And from a 2012 Inc.com article, Alberto Perlman is quoted as saying, there are 120 people packed in like sardines. They are screaming and smiling. No one looks tired. No one is showing any pain. I thought we've got to do something with this.

593
00:59:24,970 --> 00:59:32,034
Chris: Okay, that makes more sense now. Okay. I suspect then that maybe he wasn't gung ho initially.

594
00:59:32,122 --> 00:59:32,930
Kayla: That's what it sounds like.

595
00:59:32,970 --> 00:59:35,138
Chris: But agreed to go observe.

596
00:59:35,194 --> 00:59:35,674
Kayla: Right.

597
00:59:35,802 --> 00:59:40,866
Chris: And then when he observed it, he was like, oh, there's some special sauce here.

598
00:59:40,978 --> 00:59:42,066
Kayla: But the mom knew it.

599
00:59:42,138 --> 00:59:44,738
Chris: Yeah, mom knew. Yeah, apparently. Wow.

600
00:59:44,874 --> 00:59:54,106
Kayla: So we have Alberto Beto Perez. We have Alberto Perelman. The two of them then partnered with a third. Alberto.

601
00:59:54,178 --> 00:59:55,002
Chris: Wait, no.

602
00:59:55,106 --> 00:59:56,906
Kayla: Yes. Alberto agion.

603
00:59:57,018 --> 00:59:59,850
Chris: No. Why are there so many albertos in this?

604
00:59:59,930 --> 01:00:07,846
Kayla: This is Alberto Perelman's childhood friend who I think worked with him at Spider Labs, and the three of them founded Zumba fitness.

605
01:00:07,918 --> 01:00:12,550
Chris: Lloyd, three people named Alberto started a business together.

606
01:00:12,670 --> 01:00:13,086
Kayla: Yeah.

607
01:00:13,158 --> 01:00:14,190
Chris: Bullshit.

608
01:00:14,270 --> 01:00:16,170
Kayla: The three albertos. Yes.

609
01:00:17,590 --> 01:00:18,150
Chris: Okay.

610
01:00:18,230 --> 01:00:19,810
Kayla: And the rest was history, right?

611
01:00:20,390 --> 01:00:22,598
Chris: Maybe. No, clearly. Obviously not.

612
01:00:22,654 --> 01:00:31,562
Kayla: No. Actually, they were pretty unsuccessful at first. Like, oh, gyms and fitness centers were really interested in trying something new, especially when, like, aerobics and step aerobics were doing just fine for them.

613
01:00:31,666 --> 01:00:32,818
Chris: They didn't see the vision.

614
01:00:32,914 --> 01:00:54,186
Kayla: This is just me speculating, but also just thinking about the social and political climate in the early two thousands post 911, they probably were dealing with some hesitance based on racism or xenophobia or prejudice. Again, that's totally just me speculating. But looking back on the time when this was trying to break through, I can't imagine that there wouldn't be.

615
01:00:54,218 --> 01:00:58,138
Chris: There's a lot of islamophobia at the time. Was there as much latinophobia, though, and.

616
01:00:58,154 --> 01:01:26,412
Kayla: Democracy at the time? We were an incredibly nationalistic country. And, yes, I mean, maybe it's just from where I grew up, with the proximity to mexican immigrants and latin american immigrants, there was definitely an uptick. And there wasn't just an uptick in that kind of racism, but there was an uptick in things that were perceived as un americana.

617
01:01:26,466 --> 01:01:27,528
Chris: Mmm. Okay.

618
01:01:27,584 --> 01:01:37,552
Kayla: Like, it was very much like american culture. Things that were perceived as, like, with the Dixie chicks being like, we don't like George Bush. Part of the issue with that was that they said it in Europe.

619
01:01:37,696 --> 01:01:38,000
Chris: Right.

620
01:01:38,040 --> 01:01:42,560
Kayla: It was like, you're gonna go to Europe and say this, like, come to America and say to our faces kind of thing. Like.

621
01:01:42,680 --> 01:01:43,264
Chris: Right, right.

622
01:01:43,312 --> 01:01:44,220
Kayla: It was very.

623
01:01:45,520 --> 01:01:50,816
Chris: I get that. Yeah. It's like, keep our dirty laundry at home. Why you over there? Yeah, I get.

624
01:01:50,848 --> 01:02:20,110
Kayla: Also, that was like a fake lie, but whatever. So, like, zumba. Honestly, I could see Zumba having issues in certain places even now. Like, it is unapologetically and celebratorily latin american or lat. Or just latin. Like, it is unapologetically that. Like, it's front and center. So I don't know, maybe that counted against them at the time. Like, either way, after years of struggle, in 2005, they took their last 14 grand and pivoted their strategy to direct marketing.

625
01:02:20,450 --> 01:02:22,050
Chris: Oh, there it is.

626
01:02:22,170 --> 01:02:26,026
Kayla: Well, I don't mean direct sales. Oh, I mean direct marketing.

627
01:02:26,178 --> 01:02:27,434
Chris: Oh, wait, so what does that mean?

628
01:02:27,482 --> 01:02:49,930
Kayla: They created those initial Zumba training dvd's and sold them via infomercials, specifically targeting fitness instructors themselves, not fitness chains. So instead of, like, going around to gyms and being like, hey, let us teach our classes here. Let us teach people to teach your classes here. They made these, like, training videos and sold them to, like, sold them via infomercial to people that would teach them.

629
01:02:50,090 --> 01:02:58,794
Chris: They said, let's stop having our customer be the dancer, the client. Let's have our customer be the instructor that will instruct the client.

630
01:02:58,842 --> 01:02:59,430
Kayla: Right.

631
01:02:59,730 --> 01:03:01,474
Chris: Interesting. And that's what did it for them.

632
01:03:01,522 --> 01:03:29,102
Kayla: This. The direct. This direct marketing pivot is what put them over the edge. So, like, as they are selling these dvd's, they also begin hosting trainings for potential Zumba instructors. So for their first training, they expected, like, a couple dozen people to show up. Like, maybe 30 people were going to show up to this. To this training in Miami. Do you want to guess how many Zumba instructor hopefuls showed up? 150 people showed up to this thing? Yes.

633
01:03:29,246 --> 01:03:35,022
Chris: Wait, why? When they were not giving it, I guess for some reason they were able to attract. Yeah. Why were they able to attract so many people?

634
01:03:35,086 --> 01:03:43,086
Kayla: Because people started seeing the infomercials and being like, I want to do that. I want to teach that. I want to teach that. That looks like people are going to. People are going to want to do this.

635
01:03:43,158 --> 01:03:43,890
Chris: Okay.

636
01:03:44,230 --> 01:04:10,240
Kayla: And, like, again, it's. It wasn't just people from Miami. It wasn't just people from Florida. Like, they had people coming in from Kansas, from California, from, like, really? All across the country? Yes. Like, some of these people were already fitness instructors who wanted to up their game. Some of them were kind of, like, newer to this whole thing. But either way, they all based on Zumba Fitness LLC's business practices, they all needed to become licensed by Zumba to teach Zumba classes, and they were here to be taught.

637
01:04:10,400 --> 01:04:13,448
Chris: Okay, sounds like that's starting to work then. Okay.

638
01:04:13,544 --> 01:04:18,260
Kayla: But this actually presented a little bit of a problem for Zumba Fitness LLC.

639
01:04:18,560 --> 01:04:19,528
Chris: What's the problem?

640
01:04:19,664 --> 01:04:37,320
Kayla: Turns out Zumba is hard. Like, even after multiple training sessions, some hopeful instructors just weren't getting it or, like, just weren't that good at dancing. Like, you know, the zumba class we took. That guy's a fantastic dancer. Like, he could go be a backup dancer for some.

641
01:04:37,360 --> 01:04:43,740
Chris: Oh, yeah. He was, like, moving all around with the music, naturally, while he was also looking at me and telling me what to do.

642
01:04:43,820 --> 01:04:48,692
Kayla: And he's queuing. He would queue you two counts before it was time to do it.

643
01:04:48,836 --> 01:04:51,332
Chris: These people are maximizing ahead of time. Yeah.

644
01:04:51,516 --> 01:05:06,306
Kayla: So what are the founders supposed to do? Require some sort of test or judgment structure in order for a person to become licensed? No, I mean, as far as I know, most licensing does require some sort of test. Like, again, when my sister is studying.

645
01:05:06,468 --> 01:05:08,750
Chris: Legit licensing, not, I want to make money.

646
01:05:08,910 --> 01:05:12,558
Kayla: I don't want to say it's not legit. It's zumba.

647
01:05:12,654 --> 01:05:24,798
Chris: Like, okay, but when you're talking about, like, doing, like, a series seven or something, there's, like, a whole organization whose reputation is all around, like, whether the people that they certify are good or not.

648
01:05:24,854 --> 01:05:25,190
Kayla: Right.

649
01:05:25,270 --> 01:05:36,264
Chris: This is not about, like, reputation management for other. For, you know, third party. This is about, we want to start cranking out instructors because we get more money that way.

650
01:05:36,312 --> 01:05:53,260
Kayla: I mean, again, it takes me back to when my sister was getting licensed in Pilates. There was a rigorous testing period that included I was her fake client, and she did a fake lesson with me in front of a judging body. Maybe Zumba needed to do something like that.

651
01:05:54,760 --> 01:05:56,328
Chris: Nope, that's not what I think.

652
01:05:56,424 --> 01:06:17,890
Kayla: No. The founders decided that they didn't want to prevent people from becoming licensed Zumba instructors. That's what I thought, just because they weren't very good dancers. So their solution was to provide licensing to everyone who came and paid for and participated in the training, figuring that, like, the invisible hand of the market would kind of sort it all out. Yeah.

653
01:06:17,970 --> 01:06:28,000
Chris: So that's weird, though, because the Zumba king that you follow is a good dancer, and the guy we watched on YouTube. So maybe the invisible hand did.

654
01:06:28,540 --> 01:06:45,228
Kayla: Yeah, but then it's. Then it makes me think about, yeah, what are these people being promised if they come to these instructions? Like, are they getting that kind of MLM style? And again, we're gonna get. We'll get to that. But it makes me think, like, are you being told, come to this training, and you'll be wealthy beyond your wildest dreams?

655
01:06:45,364 --> 01:06:48,676
Chris: Right. Are they selling a dream, or are they selling actual instruction?

656
01:06:48,748 --> 01:06:50,316
Kayla: Are they selling the reality?

657
01:06:50,388 --> 01:06:50,860
Chris: Right.

658
01:06:50,980 --> 01:07:27,812
Kayla: Either way, Alberto Aguillon, the president and COO. So we've got Beidou, the face, the dance instructor. We've got Alberto Perelman, the CEO, and now we have Alberto Aguion, the president and Coo. He said in that ink article, we thought, quote, we thought if we test them, they will fail, or we will have to lower the bar so much that it becomes kind of a joke. So they just. They don't. If you go and you pay and you take the training course, you become a licensed Zimba instructor. And they figure if you're bad at it, then people won't take your classes. And if you're good at it, you'll thrive.

659
01:07:27,996 --> 01:07:35,068
Chris: As we know from the pandemic, if you stop test, if you don't test as much, then you won't have as many cases.

660
01:07:35,204 --> 01:07:35,868
Kayla: Yeah.

661
01:07:36,004 --> 01:07:40,428
Chris: So all you have to do is just don't test. And then too soon.

662
01:07:40,604 --> 01:07:53,270
Kayla: So after this first training period, they continue to have more sign ups. 450 people signed up as Zumba fitness instructors. And that's like a $300 initial fee with a $30 monthly fee thereafter.

663
01:07:54,050 --> 01:07:55,898
Chris: And that's not cheap.

664
01:07:55,954 --> 01:08:08,226
Kayla: No, it's not. As we know, Zumba then skyrocketed, like, gained investors, grew wildly across the globe, expanded into music, into clothing, into video games, into et cetera, et cetera.

665
01:08:08,258 --> 01:08:10,026
Chris: It blew up from there. That's when our hockey sticked.

666
01:08:10,098 --> 01:08:15,570
Kayla: Fun fact, about 50% of Zumba Fitness LLC's revenue comes from the ancillary products.

667
01:08:16,270 --> 01:08:21,229
Chris: Okay, so that's like shirts and hats and. What were you saying before? Video games?

668
01:08:21,270 --> 01:08:23,069
Kayla: Video games, all that stuff.

669
01:08:23,149 --> 01:08:24,054
Chris: Wow. Okay.

670
01:08:24,182 --> 01:08:51,760
Kayla: They're cds. Okay. But back to the trainings. As 2005 came to a close, about 700 Zumba instructors had, in total, had been licensed all across the country. But the founders realized that many instructors continued returning to Miami for training classes with Beito. They started treating him kind of like a celebrity, like, wanting to talk to him, wanting to take pictures with him, wanting to get new moves from him, and like this.

671
01:08:51,800 --> 01:08:56,015
Chris: The instructors that have already paid and been there are like, I want to go back and meet this dude.

672
01:08:56,087 --> 01:09:29,502
Kayla: Yeah. Okay, so there's a couple reasons for this. So, like, Beito is a celebrity in the Zumba world. Like, he. The journalist who wrote the Ink article that I've been quoting is named Leigh Buchanan. She went to a, like a Zumba conference that we will discuss more later. And she talks about this time where Beido has difficulty just walking across the hotel because he's, like, constantly being stopped, really, and, like, flooded and flocked to by people just wanted to talk to him, want to get his autograph. Want to take pictures with him?

673
01:09:29,606 --> 01:09:30,221
Chris: Wow.

674
01:09:30,366 --> 01:09:44,136
Kayla: And he, of course, like, he stops with every single fanatic. Like, he stopped, takes a picture. And is like, the guy is super charismatic. Like everyone we've seen so far. Like, he's super muscly and worked out and wears tank tops. And he's like, super hot and chiseled.

675
01:09:44,207 --> 01:09:46,247
Chris: Smiling and high energy. Yes.

676
01:09:46,424 --> 01:10:10,050
Kayla: He tells fantastic stories about his early days as a 13 year old. Like, learning Michael Jackson's moves and dancing on the street with his friends. He's energetic. Teaching classes for hours at a time. Teaching trainings for hours at a time. He's, like, free spirited. He's exciting. Like, he's charismatic. So kind of like the zumba instructor we saw on YouTube. But dial that up to eleven and a half.

677
01:10:10,160 --> 01:10:12,798
Chris: Wow. Really? Because that guy was hella charismatic already.

678
01:10:12,934 --> 01:10:19,030
Kayla: In fact, there is a word for this kind of zumba energy. That the instructors and that Beidou projects.

679
01:10:19,110 --> 01:10:20,214
Chris: They have their own word for it.

680
01:10:20,262 --> 01:10:31,380
Kayla: A word that is incredibly important to the company. To its ethos, to the kind of projects it decides to. It wants to undertake. What's the word to the feeling they want their instructors to carry? That word is fej.

681
01:10:34,040 --> 01:10:35,456
Chris: Is that a joke that you just made?

682
01:10:35,488 --> 01:10:37,704
Kayla: No, no, it's Fej.

683
01:10:37,752 --> 01:10:40,568
Chris: Are you sure it's not like Feh or something?

684
01:10:40,704 --> 01:10:45,584
Kayla: It's f e J. Fetch. It's dance.

685
01:10:45,632 --> 01:10:46,720
Chris: Is that how you pronounce that?

686
01:10:46,760 --> 01:10:48,176
Kayla: It's not. Yes.

687
01:10:48,288 --> 01:10:58,692
Chris: Fej. That is not what I would have guessed, Fej. I would have guessed like. Like je ne sais quoi. Like, I don't know, some sort.

688
01:10:58,756 --> 01:10:59,820
Kayla: Why would it be french?

689
01:10:59,940 --> 01:11:05,228
Chris: I don't know. That's the thing that came to my aunt. I don't know any brazilian Portuguese. Wait, they're from Colombia.

690
01:11:05,244 --> 01:11:05,960
Kayla: Colombia.

691
01:11:06,260 --> 01:11:07,980
Chris: I don't know any languages at all.

692
01:11:08,020 --> 01:11:18,796
Kayla: No, you don't. Fetch. It stands for something. It stands for freeing, electrifying joy. Fetch. F e j. It comes.

693
01:11:18,868 --> 01:11:19,540
Chris: It's growing on me.

694
01:11:19,580 --> 01:11:24,072
Kayla: I like fetch. I like it. Especially. Cause you could probably. I bet people say, like, oh, that's totally fegy.

695
01:11:24,236 --> 01:11:25,376
Chris: Mmm. Yeah.

696
01:11:25,448 --> 01:11:39,904
Kayla: So fudgy. He's so fedgy. That shirt's so fudgy. You got a fedge hat on right now. Oh, God, I hate it. The word comes up over and over in the community. And it's the perfect word to describe what it's like to take a Zumba class. Or be immersed in the Zumba world. Like, what's the f?

697
01:11:39,952 --> 01:11:40,528
Chris: So it's something.

698
01:11:40,584 --> 01:11:44,640
Kayla: Energy, freeing, electrifying. Joy. Freeing, comma electrifying.

699
01:11:44,720 --> 01:11:46,400
Chris: Joy. Joy. Okay.

700
01:11:46,480 --> 01:12:00,632
Kayla: And, like, that's the feeling that got me when I was in the thick of the zumba. That feeling of, like. Like, wow, these instructors are having so much fun. It must feel amazing to make money while dancing with joy. Like, maybe I wanna do that. Like, that, my friends. That feeling is fed.

701
01:12:00,776 --> 01:12:01,240
Chris: Okay.

702
01:12:01,280 --> 01:12:02,000
Kayla: That's hella fed.

703
01:12:02,040 --> 01:12:03,096
Chris: So you got fedrified.

704
01:12:03,168 --> 01:12:04,760
Kayla: I got fedged.

705
01:12:04,880 --> 01:12:06,608
Chris: Would you say you were fed up?

706
01:12:06,704 --> 01:12:40,262
Kayla: I was fully fed up. Fedge is also, I think. I like to think, and it's not just me. I'm not breaking new ground here, but I think it's the thing that really separates zumba from other kinds of workout classes, even other kinds of dance workouts classes. It's like we talked about earlier, where so much of working out, especially when we're talking about working out at, like, a fitness center or a gym, is focused on weight loss. Like, weight loss is the only goal promoted in these places. If you're taking a fitness class, it must because you want to lose weight and beyond everything else, right?

707
01:12:40,286 --> 01:12:43,438
Chris: So get on this miserable treadmill and just be miserable until it happens.

708
01:12:43,454 --> 01:12:48,982
Kayla: Or take this step aerobics class, where it's like, we're not having fun. We're just like, we got to get these moves. We got to feel that burnt.

709
01:12:49,036 --> 01:12:50,538
Chris: That is fedulous.

710
01:12:50,674 --> 01:13:09,850
Kayla: Get out of here. And like, look, we've talked a lot about weight loss on this podcast and the pursuit of weight loss. And wherever you stand on whether or not it's a noble pursuit, it's generally not something that's considered a fun pursuit. Like, we don't think about, like, oh, my God, I'm so excited to lose weight. Like, it's not.

711
01:13:09,970 --> 01:13:29,682
Chris: I think it's a. At least to me, the way I feel about it and the way I think I. It permeates society is that it's just associated with un fun. It's associated with, like, well, if I have to lose weight, I guess that means I need to start eating hardtack and no more fun food.

712
01:13:29,786 --> 01:13:30,586
Kayla: I need to go on the treadmill.

713
01:13:30,618 --> 01:13:44,666
Chris: I need to go on the treadmill for 6 hours a day, and it's gonna be shitty, but at least I'll lose weight, but it's gonna. It's like there's like, this sort of, like, puritanism, sort of like, I must. I must purify myself via boredom.

714
01:13:44,858 --> 01:13:55,578
Kayla: And, like, that's what we talked about at the top of the episode. If that's your approach to working out, like, that's just not gonna stick like the shitty. If you don't enjoy it, you're not gonna stick to it.

715
01:13:55,634 --> 01:14:05,890
Chris: Any listeners that like to run on a treadmill, by the way, sorry, you are totally fine by us. Yes, we personally don't care for the treadmill. If that's something you like, good for you.

716
01:14:05,970 --> 01:14:54,990
Kayla: But I will stand by the statement. Like, if you're just doing something to lose weight and it's nothing fun, you're probably not going to stick to it. And if, even if you do stick to it, you're not enjoying it's not a enjoyable part of your life. And our founders, the Albertos, also realized this. And after teaching multiple trainings, after seeing the incredible ways instructors and students were responding to Zumba, after noting how fans flocked to Beido like the goddamn messiah, the founders discovered that the fanaticism around Zumba really had nothing to do with the pursuit of weight loss. It was about having fun. It was about experiencing joy. It was about having an emotional release. And Zumba really stepped into its own when it donned a new tagline, ditch the workout, join the party.

717
01:14:55,450 --> 01:14:56,682
Chris: Oh, that's good.

718
01:14:56,746 --> 01:14:57,626
Kayla: I know.

719
01:14:57,698 --> 01:15:00,754
Chris: That's some good ass marketing. You always tell me about good marketing stuff.

720
01:15:00,802 --> 01:15:06,132
Kayla: Ditch the workout, join the party. Yes, please. I am on fucking board. Are you kidding?

721
01:15:06,236 --> 01:15:13,052
Chris: Oh man. Last episode you did, you were telling about the genius marketing stuff they did with the wedge. What was it called? Nugget.

722
01:15:13,116 --> 01:15:15,260
Kayla: Oh, the nugget. I forgot. I forgot about that. Yeah.

723
01:15:15,300 --> 01:15:17,720
Chris: Maybe some genius marketing pivots there too.

724
01:15:18,380 --> 01:15:29,556
Kayla: If you have a genius marketing pivot, you're a cult. That's new criteria. Genius marketing pivot. Honestly, that was best friends. They had that. Oh my God, they did genius marketing pivot.

725
01:15:29,668 --> 01:15:38,440
Chris: Well, they did a genius pivot. Was it for. Yeah, maybe it was. I don't know. Because now these days they're like, we've rebranded. Never say our old name.

726
01:15:41,140 --> 01:15:43,708
Kayla: I'm like trying to think of the other ones. I'm sure there are.

727
01:15:43,764 --> 01:15:45,260
Chris: We can't keep adding, no, we're not.

728
01:15:45,340 --> 01:15:46,804
Kayla: Genius marketing pivot.

729
01:15:46,852 --> 01:15:48,012
Chris: That's a real good one, though.

730
01:15:48,036 --> 01:15:48,908
Kayla: It's not one of them.

731
01:15:48,964 --> 01:15:49,668
Chris: Are you sure?

732
01:15:49,724 --> 01:15:50,444
Kayla: Yes. Yes.

733
01:15:50,492 --> 01:15:51,240
Chris: All right.

734
01:15:51,740 --> 01:16:34,118
Kayla: And honestly, for Zumba, the party still wasn't enough, really. As more and more instructors continued returning to Miami over and over for more trainings, it soon became apparent that there was another reason why. It wasn't just the fanaticism. It wasn't just the fed. It wasn't just the beto really, at the trainings, were they drugged. It was drugs. They all were drinking Kool Aid. No, also, it was flavor aid, not Kool Aid. Be sure at the next time you're at a cocktail party, especially now that the pandemic is. Especially now that we're getting vaccinated. When you're at a cocktail party and somebody makes a joke about drinking the Kool Aid, be sure to straighten your tie and go, well. Well, actually, they drank flavor aid.

735
01:16:34,254 --> 01:16:38,646
Chris: So now you think I'm cool because I said that to you.

736
01:16:38,718 --> 01:16:40,830
Kayla: There's actually a counter to that.

737
01:16:40,870 --> 01:16:42,814
Chris: Oh, no, there's a well, actually, to the well.

738
01:16:42,862 --> 01:16:43,870
Kayla: Actually, there's a little bit of a.

739
01:16:43,910 --> 01:16:44,846
Chris: Well, actually is all the way down.

740
01:16:44,878 --> 01:16:57,158
Kayla: So most people, when they're saying drank the Kool Aid, they're referencing Jonestown in the. That reference is wrong because they are doing flavor aid. But where I think the mix up came from is in the sixties, nobody.

741
01:16:57,174 --> 01:16:59,278
Chris: Knows the flavor aid is. And Kool Aid is awesome.

742
01:16:59,334 --> 01:17:02,606
Kayla: That it's like flavor aid is the hydrox of cookies.

743
01:17:02,678 --> 01:17:03,878
Chris: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

744
01:17:03,934 --> 01:17:23,750
Kayla: And Kool Aid is the Oreo. They're eating Oreos. Okay. But in the sixties and seventies, noted author Ken Kesey conducted an experiment of what he called electricity Kool Aid acid tests, where he had these giant party gatherings and people would drink Kool aid that was lacking.

745
01:17:24,250 --> 01:17:27,242
Chris: So the thought is that maybe that's where the phrase came from.

746
01:17:27,306 --> 01:17:32,218
Kayla: I think that maybe people just got confused by which giant group of weirdos was drinking.

747
01:17:32,314 --> 01:17:34,802
Chris: Drinking which flavored beverage, which, like.

748
01:17:34,906 --> 01:17:36,282
Kayla: But that's just my speculation.

749
01:17:36,386 --> 01:17:38,338
Chris: Which corn syrup flavored water.

750
01:17:38,394 --> 01:17:46,754
Kayla: Yeah, that's my speculation. But at the end of the day, drink the Kool aid, not the flavor aid. One is mind altering drugs, and one will kill you.

751
01:17:46,882 --> 01:17:51,590
Chris: Right. Okay, done. In fact, I would say, oh, yeah.

752
01:17:52,170 --> 01:18:05,218
Kayla: Get the fuck out of here. Back to Zumba. Basically, what our founders were learning was that at the trainings, instructors were taught, like, one or two class worths of Zumba choreography.

753
01:18:05,354 --> 01:18:06,098
Chris: Okay?

754
01:18:06,234 --> 01:18:27,090
Kayla: So the students that these instructors would then go off and teach, students that were taking classes every week or, like, multiple times a week because they were super fudgy, they were getting bored because it was like same thing over and over. So everyone was eager for new choreography, or everyone was eager for new music, eager for the next thing that Zumba could give them.

755
01:18:27,210 --> 01:18:27,682
Chris: Okay?

756
01:18:27,746 --> 01:18:42,590
Kayla: So instructors needed a more ongoing education than what a single licensing instruction class could give them. And so, to quote Alberto Perlman, the CEO, quote, we decided to turn these instructors into entrepreneurs.

757
01:18:43,410 --> 01:18:45,242
Chris: Are you sure this isn't an MLM?

758
01:18:45,346 --> 01:18:54,630
Kayla: Mostly. Thus, Zumba Fitness LLC launched its true moneymaker product, the Zumba instructor network.

759
01:18:55,250 --> 01:18:58,338
Chris: Oh, my God. It's an MLM, dude. Just admit it.

760
01:18:58,434 --> 01:19:16,416
Kayla: The next phase of Zumba, the phase that would take Zumba Fitness LLC to the financial stratosphere, would build itself not off students taking Zumba classes, but from the instructors in their network themselves. Are you ready to learn about the Zumba instructor network or Zin, Zin.

761
01:19:16,528 --> 01:19:19,560
Chris: Yeah. I'm still not understanding how this became a huge moneymaker.

762
01:19:19,680 --> 01:19:23,020
Kayla: Well, you will have to wait until next time.

763
01:19:23,720 --> 01:19:24,712
Chris: You're gonna do me like that.

764
01:19:24,736 --> 01:19:29,856
Kayla: I'm gonna do you like that because it's wild, and it is too wild to fit into a single episode.

765
01:19:29,888 --> 01:19:30,808
Chris: No, I don't want to wait.

766
01:19:30,864 --> 01:19:37,620
Kayla: You have to wait, because next time, we're going to get into what Xin actually is, the hierarchies of Zumba instructors.

767
01:19:37,960 --> 01:19:42,672
Chris: Okay. Hierarchy. Like, are we talking, like, upline, downline?

768
01:19:42,776 --> 01:19:47,400
Kayla: We're not talking upline, downline. But there are different levels of instructors.

769
01:19:47,440 --> 01:19:50,784
Chris: If you drew it on a whiteboard, what shape would it make? Kayla?

770
01:19:50,872 --> 01:19:52,402
Kayla: It would not make a pyramid, my.

771
01:19:52,426 --> 01:19:57,950
Chris: Friend, would make, like a. Like a giant squid smushed.

772
01:19:58,730 --> 01:20:02,002
Kayla: This is. I want everyone to tune into our.

773
01:20:02,026 --> 01:20:04,610
Chris: Next episode, but God damn it, I don't want to wait.

774
01:20:04,690 --> 01:20:07,830
Kayla: This is not an MLM, but it is something.

775
01:20:08,690 --> 01:20:13,258
Chris: It is something I don't like. I don't like waiting. God damn it.

776
01:20:13,314 --> 01:20:25,194
Kayla: In the next episode, we're going to talk about all the various ways Zumba instructors can sink money into their own businesses. And, of course, we will dive deeper into some of the crazier sides of the ancillary products, like Zumba's music label.

777
01:20:25,282 --> 01:20:25,978
Chris: Huh.

778
01:20:26,074 --> 01:20:27,310
Kayla: Zumba's conferences.

779
01:20:27,730 --> 01:20:28,434
Chris: Okay.

780
01:20:28,522 --> 01:20:31,070
Kayla: And, of course, Zumba's cruises.

781
01:20:31,690 --> 01:20:33,146
Chris: Zumba has cruises.

782
01:20:33,298 --> 01:20:36,410
Kayla: But that's for next time. I'm Kayla.

783
01:20:36,490 --> 01:20:40,710
Chris: And I'm Chris. And this has been cult or just weird?