East meets west
By Daily Bruin Staff
Oct. 26, 2000 9:00 p.m.
 Illustration by Grace Huang
By Stella Chu
Daily Bruin Contributor
Last Tuesday evening, dancers followed the tempo of a fast drum
beat, feet stomping and arms extended toward the sky as in a
prayer.
Though this may evoke images from a distant land, they were
actually performing Masala Bhangra in a new fitness class offered
at the John Wooden Center. The class receives its inspiration from
a traditional Indian ritual dance.
“Masala means “˜spicy,'” said Sarina
Jain, instructor and founder of Masala Bhangra. “And
“˜Bhangra’ is an age-old folk dance from the villages of
Punjab, India.”
 PRIYA SHARMA Sheila Jain participates in
a Masala Bhangra class at the John Wooden Center Tuesday night. The
class incorporates a traditional Indian dance with an aerobic
workout. Bhangra is a dance performed during many Indian occasions
in every region of India.
“Everyone does it in the Indian culture,” Jain
said. “Especially at weddings, you should see it;
everybody gets into it.”
With salsa, belly dancing and other cultural dances already
instilled in the fitness arena, Jain said she felt Indian culture
should be represented as well.
“I’ve been teaching aerobics classes, including
salsa, for the past 10 years,” she said. “So why
can’t my culture be a part of it? Everyone knows salsa;
nobody knows Bhangra.”
Jain said that although some people say she is exploiting
culture for money, members of the Indian community have supported
her after seeing her work.
“I’m just here to teach a fitness workout,”
she said.
After reading about Masala Bhangra in a fitness magazine, Elisa
Terry, the Wooden Center’s sports and fitness manager,
decided to put the routine into the fitness schedule.
“I chose Masala Bhangra because I’m always
interested in finding new and unusual fitness workouts,” she
said. “We’re always trying to update our schedule with
contemporary fresh ideas.”
This quarter is the first time Masala Bhangra has been offered,
and Jain teaches the class every Tuesday.
The workout’s choreography includes the standard aerobic
moves like knee-ups and hip swiveling, yet also adds elements of
Bhangra, which includes foot-stomping and clapping.
Even though Masala Bhangra was designed for both men and women,
Jain’s students have been mostly female.
“I added some feminine touches to the workout, like the
hip-swiveling, but in fact it’s traditionally a male
dance,” she said. “In India, male farmers used to
Bhangra dance in the fields during the harvest.”
Music adds tremendously to the overall impact of the workout,
giving it more energy with the upbeat rhythm, Jain said.
The Indian percussion instrument called the Dhol, which
resembles salsa’s conga drum, produces the main beat.
Although the music itself resembles the traditional Bhangra
music, Jain has added a few modern touches.
“When people have their arms out in the air, it’s
like they’re calling out for the music and for
celebration,” she said in reference to one move called the
Bhangra Slide, which resembles a farmer calling out to the wheat
harvest.
But Masala Bhangra shouldn’t be interpreted as another
version of Bhangra because it is specifically formatted to be a
fitness workout.
“Some say that they already know Bhangra,” Jain
said. “But I’m here to get you into shape.
“When I first started this workout, some people were
surprised to see that it wasn’t just a dance,” she
added. “It had to be in accordance with fitness
standards.”
To some of Jain’s students, Masala Bhangra’s appeal
comes from its focus on aerobics intermixed in a display of culture
and fitness.
“I love how it combines culture and fitness,” said
Vicky Ojeda, fourth-year public health Ph.D student.
“That’s why it’s fun, plus it makes you
sweat.”
“This class has brought in students from a variety of
ethnic backgrounds,” Terry said.
Undeclared first-year student Cassidy Randall said she
discovered Masala Bhangra accidentally.
“I was actually working out here and through a window I
saw them dancing,” she said. “The instructor looked
like she was having a lot of fun. There’s not another class
like this.”
“It’s invigorating and the music creates
energy,” Ojeda said.
Other students heard about the fitness program in magazines.
“I had friends who did it, but I first heard about it in a
magazine article,” said Nicole McKimmie, a first-year
undeclared student. “So I decided to give it a
try.”
Although Masala Bhangra has been receiving much exposure, Jain
said that she specifically wants to slowly expand the workout.
“I saw what happened with Tae-Bo,” she said.
“Even though it’s a great workout, it was in every
magazine and every newspaper and people just got tired of
it.”
Jain first began promoting her workout in May of 1999, and since
then, she said, it has been the “hottest thing.”
“I’ve gotten such tremendous responses from both
coasts,” she said.
“The first time I taught it, the turn out was
unbelievable,” she continued. “Everybody loves it
because it’s new and they’re tired of just
kickboxing.”
Even though she has received positive responses, she has also
received some criticism from the Indian community.
“I think that there’s some cultural stigmas,”
Jain said. “Some Punjabi (those from the region in India
where Banghra originated) will come and criticize, but I’m
not here to teach you Bhangra, I’m here to teach a
workout.”
