It’s Zumba night: How one student created community through exercise
January 01, 2020
Every Tuesday night is ladies’ night out for Emily Weeden and dozens of women on campus as they gather in Ouachita’s Tiger Den for a fun-filled hour of dancing and exercise. It’s Zumba night!
Emily Weeden, a senior worship arts major from Rogers, Ark., started leading the weekly gathering as more than just a fitness effort but also as a ministry to Ouachita women. She said she wanted to target girls specifically to give them a safe space to build their confidence.
“As girls, we just want to feel confident and we want to feel good about ourselves. I think it’s so easy for that not to happen at school. It’s so easy to compare all the time, every day,” she said. “I just feel like when all the girls come in here they’re just like, ‘I don’t care what I look like.’
“Getting to watch them have fun and be confident in something that they normally wouldn’t and not worry about what anyone thinks of them, that’s definitely my favorite part,” Emily added. “We can all come in here and feel free to have a good time, workout and not feel worried about what other people think about us.”
The class has also been a great way to build community among the women of Ouachita.
“The first week there were about a hundred girls,” Emily said, “and it was so crazy that there’s so many girls that would never talk to each other that came and they were all dancing together. I love that, community and Ouachita.”
Emily said she has gained personal lessons from this experience, as well. Even as an outgoing person who loves to talk to people, she said it’s easy to be intimidated by that fact that she is just one person and that this is outside of her specific field of calling.
“It’s easier to reach a lot of people than you think it is, whether it’s a message or a cause or just something that you’re trying to instill in a group of people,” she said. “It’s intimidating at first, but I think the main thing is going back to that thing I love so much about all the girls in here. … You just have to go out on a limb. I can reach out to a bunch of girls every week just by doing this simple thing.”
By Stephanie Bell, a junior mass communications major from Stuttgart, Ark.
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