Loving Masala Bhangra

Look who I met!

It’s Sarina Jain – founder and creator of the Masala Bhangra workout. Perhaps you’ve seen her on Fit TV?? 😉

I had the pleasure of not only doing her Masala Bhangra workout for the first time on Friday…I also got to hang out with her a bit before the class. She is a total doll – so sweet, genuine, and full of positive energy! Sarina has one of those personalities that just make you smile.

And what an inspiration she is, too!

Sarina created the Masala Bhangra workout after losing her dad at an early age of 47 to heart disease.

Masala means “spicy” in Hindi and Bhangra is a traditional dance from Punjab, India.

Firday was my first ever time trying the Masala Bhangra workout. I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect since I pretty much do 100% Zumba nowadays. The only thing I’d heard was that the MB class was different from Zumba in that in Zumba, we have particular routines choreographed for certain songs. In MB, you learn one routine over the course of the class.

The class started off with a personal introduction by Sarina. And next thing you know, we did some easy warm up steps and quickly moved into learning our routine for the evening. We learned one section, repeated it, then added on a new section, and repeated all sections…repeat until you have about 10 different sections of a routine and you’re doing one big routine.

The music was a lot different from Zumba, too. Obviously, there’s the style difference (Latin vs Bhangra), but the songs in MB were all non-vocal whereas Zumba ones are 99% vocal. Also, we play 15-16 songs in one playlist (for a 60 minute class). In MB, we started out with a couple songs that played for a long time at a slightly slower beat. Then, once we had most of the routine down, we moved on to new songs with a faster beat (that was still easy to follow).

The class was SO fun! I really loved it. I thought the music was great and really energy-pumping. The routine moves were interesting and easy to follow with little instruction (sort of like Zumba). I liked the concept of learning a routine over the course of the class. It makes you feel like you’ve accomplished something to be able to do an entire routine with the rest of the group. But one of the best parts was Sarina herself! So much life! So much energy! She made the class amazing and made sure everyone had a blast.

Balle balle! 🙂

Click here to learn more about Masala Bhangra and watch a video with snippets from a class to see what it’s like (and see what Sarina is like!).

To celebrate all the wonderful experience we just enjoyed, I went with several friends from class to get Indian food at Jaipur Indian Restaurant.

(PS My camera battery died during class, so the rest of these photos are from my iPhone)

They had a buffet, which I love for my newbie friends. If you’ve never had Indian before, buffet is the way to go because you can try samples of several different dishes and figure out what you like. (Not to mention, you can have multiple desserts that!)