​This week, another eight-week session of the fitness classes I’ve been taking for two years started up. I’ve already skipped the first class using a mild case of spring sniffles as my excuse. Military spouses get used to constant change, so I often get bored with my exercise routine and need to spice things up.

​Back when we were stationed in Florida and I was tired of power walking on the beach (ridiculous, I know), a friend convinced me to try a Zumba class at the base gym. A veteran of the step aerobics craze, I figured, “How hard could it be?”

​I’d seen advertisements: Spandexed people writhing to Latin, Caribbean and tribal beats, promising you could “party yourself into shape.” It made exercise look like a wild night out in Tijuana, so I was intrigued.

​Expecting the Zumba class to be packed with hard bodies that would send me into a tailspin of self-loathing, I was relieved to find a comforting mix of people with their share of jiggly bits. Our instructor, who resembled a middle-aged mom like me, gave a short introduction. I didn’t bother listening. It’s just dancing … how difficult could it be?

​Then I remembered that my Navy husband and I have been botching the Electric Slide at every military ball, holiday party and wedding reception since our own in 1993. Same goes for the Cha Cha Slide, the Macarena and the Cupid Shuffle. Call us choreographically challenged, we couldn’t Whip, Nae Nae or Stanky Leg if our lives depended on it.

​The instructor played catchy Latin music, and despite my dancing deficits, I kick-ball-changed, single-single-doubled and body rolled like I’d been doing it all my life. But after 15 minutes, she announced that our “warm-up” was finished. The real Zumba instructor was on her way.

​What?

​In walked a sinewy woman garbed in Cher’s skin-tight black spandex with Tina Turner’s spiky hair, Beyonce’s muscular thighs, Pamela Anderson’s generous bust and Charro’s rolling Rrrrrr’s. Suddenly, driving African beats blared. Using only facial expressions and pantomime, the Zumba instructor ordered us to rhythmically flail our arms while in a semi-squat position.

​A few minutes later we were commanded to rotate our hips in complete circles while pumping our hands out in front of us. I discovered that I could rotate my hips counter clockwise, but when asked to go in the opposite direction, I could only jerk from side to side. I wondered, is this due to the magnetism of the Earth’s poles? Perhaps, like toilet bowl water, I swirl one way in the Northern Hemisphere and would have to travel south of the equator to rotate my hips in the other direction?

​Halfway through the class, we moved on to salsa, something I’d at least heard of and enjoyed with chips and guacamole. I tried to mimic our limber instructor as she swiveled across the room, but all I could muster were awkward hops, misplaced kick-ball-changes and inappropriate pelvic thrusts.

​We moved on to merengue, which for me was a lesson in how to sprain one’s ankle. I prayed it would all be over soon.

​Somewhere between Brazilian samba and Colombian cumbia, our instructor started jumping three feet into the air. Like lemmings, we followed. Happy to have a dance move I could finally understand, I leapt like a gazelle. But then I remembered — I’m almost 50 and have given birth to three large babies. My innards might drop out onto the floor at any moment.

​Thankfully, the jumping ended before my uterus broke loose, and we began our final dance — a Bollywood belly dance. I thought our leader was putting us through a cruel endurance test when she demanded that we get into a deep plie squat while holding our arms out at 90-degree angles like King Tut. Just as my quads were about to snap, she began to twist her torso back and forth, rising like a cobra from a basket.

​I left the gym feeling exhausted and somewhat humiliated. Obviously, my northern European genes had rendered me unable to perform the sexy writhing Zumba moves correctly. But at least I could be proud that, somehow, my belly kept perfect time to the beat.

Read more at themeatandpotatoesoflife.com and in Lisa’s book, “The Meat and Potatoes of Life: My True Lit Com.” Email: meatandpotatoesoflife@gmail.com