A humbling experience...

First, let me say thank you to everyone who has reached out to me since my last post with words of caring, compassion and offers of ears and shoulders if they are needed. Every single well wish and offer has reminded me that no matter how alone I feel ... I am loved and I am part of something special. Two something's, actually - the Zumba community and the FitBloggin community.

Much love to you all. <3

So today I was part of a wonderful event that brought me home to the basics of fitness and left me feeling full of joy and contentment.

A while back a student from the YMCA gave my name to a contact with the North Carolina Deaf Blind Association. They wanted to do a Zumba fundraiser for their summer camp this year - I figured we'd do a normal Zumbathon and it'd be awesome. What it became was truly amazing,

Today we did an all day Funky Fun Fitness day. Multiple, concurrent, fitness classes for all ages and levels of fitness. The schedule went like this:

Block 1 - Teleasha did Zumba and I did Zumbatomic.
Block 2 - Val did Zumba while Sue did a chair Zumba Gold class.
Block 3 - Sarah did Zumba while I did Zumbatomic.
Block 4 - Supposed to be a karate demo and class. I wound up teaching Zumba.
Block 5 - I did TurboKick with Brianna taught Yoga.

We started at 9:30 and I finished up at 3:30. Owwwwwwwwwww!

It was amazing. All of the classes were fun and energetic. It was just - incredible. It was also fully, totally and amazingly exhausting. I've been barely functional since getting home.

Tonight I've been trying to chill out, veg out, and turn off. But my head and heart are just out of control. There was just so much love and community in that room today. I even picked up some new sign language! It was just a joy to participate in this event.

I am so honored to have been there, teaching and learning from the Deaf/Blind community. It's rekindled my desire to keep learning how to be a better instructor, to be a better community member, and to learn ASL and Spanish.

When I was younger I picked up a bit from my sister when she was taking classes to be an interpreter and I was getting close to fluent in Spanish in college. Now to dust off one skills and learn more!!!