Rosa's Story
This month, we want to recognize Rosa, our Zumba instructor. Her passion and positivity are contagious, and she brings joy and energy wherever she goes. The Lord’s Gym wouldn’t be the same without her!
Rosa was born and raised in Mexico City. She came to the United States when she was 19 years old. She studied Spanish and minored in Russian and music at Brigham Young University in Utah. She then served in St Petersburg, Russia for 18 months, and she really loved it. In fact, she is still fluent in Russian!
Rosa was elected Miss Mexico USA and Latina in 2004. After having her first daughter in 2008, she joined the gym to lose weight, and that’s when she fell in love with Zumba. She has always loved dancing, so she found Zumba to be a lot of fun rather than a workout. She became a Zumba instructor in 2011. Rosa loves teaching Zumba because she knows that she is making a difference in people’s lives. Rosa has been overweight herself before, so she wants to help others by giving them love and encouragement on their journey of fitness.
Rosa moved to Oroville, California with her family in 2013. After moving here, she wanted to keep teaching Zumba. She found the Lord’s Gym in 2014, and she has been teaching at the Lord’s Gym since March 2014. She said the manager of the Lord’s Gym, Derek, supported her right from the start, “He didn’t even care that I was pregnant at the time, haha! I always felt valued, heard and understood. I feel like I found a family and I can be myself here! I love what the Gym does; I love knowing that I’m part of a good cause.”
Rosa teaches Zumba at the Lord’s Gym four times a week, and each class is 60 minutes long. The class incorporates full-body weight training, cardio and dancing. Rosa has a different routine for every song she plays each time, and she changes her routines every week. For example, the focus of one week is legs, and the next week is mainly arm exercises.
The Zumba class is really beneficial for those seeking to improve their health, tone their bodies, work on their core area, and enhance their flexibility and strength. Rosa said some of her students have stopped taking cholesterol pills or high blood pressure pills, and some of them were borderline diabetics. She also has students who lost 20lbs in just a few months of being consistent at doing Zumba and eating healthy.
As a busy mother of 3 children, working out and teaching Zumba is Rosa’s happy hour. She finds Zumba helpful with relieving her stress and making her happy, “It’s the one thing I do for myself that doesn’t involve my kids. It’s important that we find our way to love and to take care of ourselves, so that we can better love and care for our families.”
