Oklahoma Bar Journal
The Back Page | The Joy of Zumba
By Tom Hird
Let me tell you about Zumba with LaRhonda at the YMCA in Moore.
About Zumba: It’s a popular and fun Latin-based cardio/dance class. No partner, equipment, skill or fancy Zumba™ workout clothes are needed. Zumba gets a person out of the house and moving.
About LaRhonda: Creative and full of life, LaRhonda is the best Zumba instructor in the world. She’ll do a call-and-response during a song and can yell louder than the rest of the class combined. LaRhonda can be hilarious, inspirational and intimidating – all at the same time. LaRhonda is big fun.
About the YMCA: The Y is what’s good about America. You won’t find a more egalitarian place. People of all stripes and shapes and sizes and abilities, young and old, every category of identity you can think of, are all present and accounted for. There’s a sense of community there. The Y, like America, has perhaps seen better days. But the Y is what is good about America, and the Y looks like America. It’s a cliché, but it’s also true.
About Moore: It’s a working-class town and the home of Toby Keith – says so on the water tower. The kaleidoscope of smiling, happy faces at Zumba in Moore gives me hope in these divisive times. “Sonder” is a cool new word that describes the epiphany/reminder you get at times that everyone around you cannot be pigeonholed; they are going through their own individual lives that are just as textured and complicated as yours. You can get that sonder feeling at times from the good people of Moore at the Y at Zumba.
Toby Keith was a complicated guy who can’t be pigeonholed. He wrote a song called “Don’t Let the Old Man In,” which one can think about when they find themselves in old-man-yells-at-cloud mode (which can be too often these days). The joy of Zumba is a preventative of that.
What does all this have to do with the law? I don’t know. But the great American lawyer Bryan Stevenson once said, “Hopelessness is the enemy of justice.” So there’s that. So maybe find your Zumba and become a better lawyer? Maybe that’s the message.
Mr. Hird practices in Oklahoma City.
Originally published in the Oklahoma Bar Journal – OBJ 96 No. 1 (January 2025)
Statements or opinions expressed in the Oklahoma Bar Journal are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Oklahoma Bar Association, its officers, Board of Governors, Board of Editors or staff.