Thursday, October 23, 2008

Do any of you know the history of Zumba?

Here you go!

History
Celebrity fitness trainer, "Beto" Perez, stumbled upon the concept of Latin inspired fitness in his native country of Colombia (South America) in the mid 1990's. One day, he walked into his class and realized that he had forgotten his aerobics music, and his only option was to grab whatever tapes he had in his car. Beto's tapes were comprised of the songs that he loved, the traditional Latin salsa and merengue music with which he had been raised. But it was a challenge to improvise a whole class on the spot using non-traditional aerobics music. Beto rose to the challenge and from this last-minute improvisation was born a revolutionary fitness program – Zumba®! The class soon became the most popular class at his fitness facility.
In 1999, after his success in Colombia, Beto brought the class to the United States, where he was approached by entrepreneurs Alberto Perlman and Alberto Aghion to create a global company based on the Zumba® fitness philosophy. The three young entrepreneurs then set a goal to offer Zumba® classes all over the world.
In 2002, Perlman and Aghion secured a deal with a large infomercial company to launch the concept nationwide resulting in the sale of hundreds of thousands of videos to the US market. The overwhelming res ponse created a demand for more Zumba® instructors, and Zumba® created an instructor training program. The program was an instant success. By September 2006, there were over 2000 Zumba® instructors worldwide.
In 2003, Zumba® teamed with Kellogg's to develop a fitness campaign for the Hispanic market. Kellogg's has since expanded the campaign to five additional countries and has consistently renewed the relationship with Zumba® every year. Zumba® has been featured in over millions of boxes of Special K cereal around the world.
The following year, in 2004, Zumba® launched a successful infomercial campaign in Spanish for the US Hispanic market and Latin America, increasing sales to millions of DVD's in over 30 countries.
In 2005, the demand for Zumba® instructors across the nation and abroad spurred the creation of the Zumba®'s Educational Division. To ensure integrity and quality above and beyond the industry standards, the Educational Division has over 50 years of combined industry experience in their Vice President, Petra Robinson and Educational Director, Koh Herlong. Our two industry leaders have aided in the development of fitness industry standards over the past 25 years and now bring to Zumba® their expertise and experience.

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