My First Dance Marathon #WeWillDance - Singapore

I woke up this morning feeling 10 pounds lighter and that my quads grew an inch in circumference – the result of spending a Saturday evening at We Will Dance.

The 509 participants raised at least $33,386.01 for the National University of Singapore’s University Scholars Programme in what was described as the first ever dance-a-thon in Singapore of that magnitude.

Cheryl, my dance teammate, told me that the students who get accepted into the program need to stay on campus while studying. Some of these students come from economically challenging backgrounds and this event helped to raise money to assist them with the extra costs of having to live on campus.

The dance-a-thon yesterday brought back memories of the university days, where clubbing was a great way to keep fit. Indeed, I was quite tired after the energetic Zumba routine that followed the hip hop with an emphasis on core control. Despite being awake for 28 hours prior to dancing for six, I managed to pull myself through the Korean Pop segment before breaking for dinner.

There were three categories of participants at the dance-a-thon – Maniac, Survivour and Challenger.

The Maniac category danced for 10 hours, Survivour category for six, while the Challengers participated as much or as little as they chose. I was part of the Survivour category and tip my hat to the Maniacs for their stamina and determination.

The instructor from i.am studios that started off the Survivour segment was very entertaining. Her sense of humour and fun choreography made me forget the lactic acid buildup in my legs as we bounced, moved and felt like we could “fly like a G6”. It was also hilarious, in a good way, when she used words like “brotha” but in a Singlish accent. I enjoyed the hip hop session and it brought back lots of memories of being a part of my university hip hop club.

After my legs were burning from the hour of hip hop, the Zumba segment started.

This dance from Brazil was the new workout craze in Canada before I left. I covered quite a few Zumba promotion assignments for the paper that summer.

Highly energetic movements with intense booty shaking summarizes this fun dance as they transitioned between various Latin American dance beats. The instructors were equally entertaining, but this time through their actions and not words.

Can you really speak while doing Zumba?

The outrageous large arm movements while bouncing around and the on stage antics pretending to hump each other while shaking their booty to about 300 beats per minute kept the crowd laughing through the intense but fun workout.

The happy crowd helped me get my second wind as I was powering down about two-thirds through the session and I pulled through to the end.

The energy of the instructors who never stopped bouncing around amazed me. To make myself feel better, I like to believe they only did their segment without having to do hip hop before that. If they joined the hip hop class prior to going on stage, I don’t want to know about it.

Cheryl then tagged out for dinner while I continued on with the first KPop segment.

The instructor, who announced she just turned 19, was probably not used to teaching and definitely didn’t have the stage presence of the previous two sets. Despite the initial disorganization about how to break down the routine, she managed to work her way with the crowd and we all slowly managed to follow along to her routine. You have to admire her courage to step up and teach us her KPop routine.

When I tagged out for dinner, Cheryl tagged in to KPop fitness. That was pretty much aerobics to KPop music. Their energetic dance kept me entertained as I enjoyed my Boon Tong Kee chicken rice from the sidelines.

The final surprise segment of the event was Salsa! A Venezuelan from Canada and his Bulgarian dance partner displayed a dancing set then started to teach. At first as he moved along really fast, confusing most of the crowd. It was quite amusing how he managed to get the crowd going – when the crowd starts looking around confused, yell “Eyyyyy” and get everyone to clap along – and they will forget their confusion momentarily.

We still had lots of fun and in time, we’re twirling, dipping and shaking our hips to the Spanish rhythm.

Aside from supporting the University Scholar Programme, participants were able to choose their own charity and get their own pledges via giveasia.org. Cheryl chose to support the Cat Society.

Thanks to the organizers who made the event very enjoyable and run smoothly. I appreciated the perks of having Red Bull to power us through and even the premium chicken rice for dinner.

Were you at the dance-a-thon? What was your experience like?

Please share your answer in the comments below