Zumba Fitness World Party

 Every year I create Amazon wishlists for my parents to give them an idea of what they can buy for Liam and I.  I always suck at finding anything outside of books to really get me, but this year I was perusing the Kinect workout games because as much as I love love love my Zumba Fitness Core, I was starting to wear out all of the workouts and all of the music, and was in desperate need of something to change it up.  I was finding myself going back to old standards like Hip Hop Abs, which as much as I love just doesn't quite give you the cardio that you get from Zumba.  Needless to say when I came across Zumba World Party I HAD to get it!  I was so excited I could barely wait until Christmas to try it out.  The first day it came I was prepared to start my workout and was pumped up and for some reason I couldn't get it to pull up on the XBox.  I was devastated.  I wasted almost 40 minutes trying to get it to work before I gave up and decided in disgruntlement to do a different workout.  It took some fidgeting in the daylight but finally it worked like nothing had been wrong the night before.

Since I finally have started the world party workouts I have to say that it is an increased tempo and much more intense in a good way.  The makers decided to pick shorter songs to give you more of a chance to try out more kinds of dance and target more body parts in a single workout.  I think it was genius.  I did a short 20 minute medium intensity workout tonight and it had me pretty worn out by the end of it.   It is kind of daunting when you are used to only 4 or 5 songs and instead you get 7 or 8, but they are shorter and staggered more with intensity.  I love the fact that dance is used from all over the world.  My only real complaint is that in all of the other Zumba Fitness workouts you had very clear visual clues and in this one they are harder to recognize against the background when you are in mid dance.  Also the screen set up on World is a little different from the previous Zumba workouts so it has just been taking a little bit of getting used to.  The instructors are much more realistic looking and have better hair movement like you would see in a unreal game engine for PC games (oops I may have just geeked some of you out sorry).  Also the Zumba streak indicator gives you the number of Zumba streaks in points reminiscent of how many hits you got in an action or first person shooter console game so it gives it added video game feel.

This is the only Zumba Workout game thus far that does give you the added option to World Travel mode and go through 7 destinations around the world and focus on the dance styles for those locations instead.  This is an amazing added dimension on top of the other great qualities of class picking by length and intensity as well as customizing your own class, doing a song at a time, learning the steps and even the zumba world edition found on all Zumba games that allow you to live connect with a current ongoing Zumba class that is being broadcast. 

Overall I give this workout 5 stars.  Someone on my IG (InstaGram) just recently wrote a testimonial about losing 70 pounds on this workout alone.  I use it predominantly for cardio and because I thoroughly enjoy it which makes me look forward to working out.  The music is the best yet and reaches many different cultures.  I love the diversity and learning dances from around the world!  It will be quite some time before I wear this one out.  I highly recommend it to anyone that enjoys or would like to look into working out at home! 
*This workout is also available for Wii

Here is the official website for Zumba Fitness: Zumba World Party

Here is my review for Zumba Fitness Core: Zumba Fitness Core


My song for today :)

Zumba Fitness Core Kinect Review

As I am very new to the whole XBox-Kinect thing and also very new to the whole Zumba thing (I know WAAAY behind the times on both). I know I know I am a PC gamer through and through and haven't played on a game console since the original Nintendo and then the original Sega.  Since then it has been strictly PC for me.  I was always interested in the workout games when Wii first came out for playstation and I remember hearing that Kinect had expounded upon Wii when it came out.  Overall it just looked like quite a bit of fun.  I also was always interested in Zumba class, but even after a one year membership at the gym I found that the classes that were offered did not fit into my single mommy, bedtime for Liam schedule and so I was never able to get into it.  Also I felt like Zumba was something that I really wanted to do WITH someone.  I thought it would be a great class to take with a friend.  Alas as with everything else in San Angelo, at the time I found it quit difficult to try to get anyone to do anything outside of going out or drinking so I stuck with myself again.

Back to the topic at hand, when my boyfriend told me that he had a Kinect with his XBOX I was SO excited to try some of the workout "games" that were available.  I immediately started my search for which ones were the best and what I could find used and for cheap and also in my facebook shopping
groups.  Within a few days I was able to find someone selling a couple of Zumba Kinect "games" so I negotiated a fair price and was able to gleefully take them home.  Immediately I tried it out having no idea what I was doing.

Let me just say that I SUCK at using the kinect controls.  I am getting better at it, but I think that the placement of certain things was not the greatest in ease of use.  If you have something in the bottom right corner that you need to get your hand on (using the Kinect sensor) and then hold for a few second, it should NOT be in the bottom right corner next to something else to the right that will swipe the screen to the right, it should have been placed at the very least at the bottom center or just the center as a whole.   That is my main complaint, other than that I am slowly getting more accustomed to the way it works and getting more familiar with it.

 Get pumped up for Zumba Core!

As far as the Zumba Core disc in and of itself, I have to say that I definitely recommend it to anyone who is interested in cardo, Core , Dance or Zumba workouts.  It is very fun and definitely effective.  You have many options to customize your workout to yourself.  I have tried the pre-set workouts and they are really great, I have tried going through by a song at a time to get a feel for what was available.  This evening I tried the playlist option where you get to create your own playlist and then workout to it.  I did 5 songs for tonight.  There is everything from bollywood, to hip hop to salsa to warm up types of songs, so that you can change it up or stick to one kind.  The sensors are pretty accurate in being able to distinguish your whole body and if you are doing the entire move correctly.  You get to track your progress and at the end of the workout it shows you how many calories you burned and the accuracy percentage for your technique.  You can track your progress and even have it suggest workouts based on your progress.  Definitely something worth a try that is both fun and effective :).

 For a great preview of what the Zumba actually looks like on the console

*As an added bonus and for the "game" part, as your progress is tracked you get to unlock different added bonuses to the game such as videos from the real life trainers, more songs, etc.