Studio V-Fit offers Zumba with a little spice

ALBANY — Give Vicky Leister five minutes of your time, and she’ll try to convince you Zumba has an artistic greatness that’s on the level of, say, an operatic aria or is the physical equivalent of setting a marathon PR or offers the spiritual enlightenment of a couple of hours of meditation.

Give her 30 minutes, and you’ll believe her.

A 4-foot-11 bundle of energy and native of Mexico City, Leister is the owner and primary instructor of some 20-25 Zumba classes a week at the 2614 N. Jefferson St. Studio V-Fit. But as someone who once carried 260 pounds on her tiny frame, she is just as much a mother hen worrying over the health of strangers who are now where she once was.

“We’ll turn the lights down low in the studio when we do classes, let everyone get as comfortable as possible,” Leister said. “This is a drama-free, a judgment-free, place. We make it so that everyone, no matter what body type they have, doesn’t have to concern themselves with anyone else looking at them.”

Leister points to one of dozens of inspirational messages that are posted all around Studio V-Fit. It reads, “Dance like no one else is watching.”

“It hasn’t happened,” she says, “but if there was ever a situation where someone was laughing at or making fun of anyone else, I would ask them to leave.”

Leister knows all about the basics of fitness, how diet is vital and exercise only slightly less so. But she says Zumba is important to her on a very basic level that you won’t hear many people in her position admit.

“If I don’t do this, I’ll get fat, very fat,” she says. “I’ve weighed 250, 260 pounds before. See, I know all about the importance of a healthy, balanced diet in staying fit. But I love to eat.”

Zumba, though, proved to be Leister’s anchor when she took it up in Monterey, Mexico, in 2006.

“I didn’t like working out back then, and I still don’t like to work out in a gym,” she said. “But I fell in love with Zumba immediately. It’s not work, it’s a party.”

Leister met her husband, an American truck driver, in Mexico, and in 2007 they married and moved north. She gave retail a try but immediately started gaining weight. She found a local gym that offered Zumba classes and quickly re-immersed herself in the activity. After having an “I-can-do-this” moment during a class, she got certified and started searching for a place to teach.

She met kindred spirit Detrell Hawkins at Hawkins’ ICM Group Fitness Center, and the two quickly bonded.

“I started the center after my sister died of a hemorrhagic stroke at a young age,” Hawkins said. “I became all about empowerment of women and girls, and I found a great way for them to embrace that empowerment was through the feeling they’d get from a Zumba class.

“Not long after Vicky started teaching classes at ICM Group, I went back to work full-time as a family therapist. We had become like sisters — she shared the love for people and passion for Zumba that I had — so I thought there was no better person to carry on what I’d been doing. I sold her the business, secure that she would continue encouraging women to live the best lives they could, mind, body and soul.”

Along with the business, Leister also inherited regular participants like hairdresser Teresa Fletcher.

“I fell in love with Zumba right away,” Fletcher said. “I get an energy from the classes, but there is a spiritual element, too. Plus, Detrell and Vicky are both just sweet, sweet people. They have a way of saying something nice about everybody in every class, and you leave feeling better physically but also feeling better about yourself.

“I now do two 5:30 a.m. classes a week and three more 5:45 evening classes. I introduced my daughter to Zumba, and she loves it as much as I do. What we’ve found is that going to Zumba makes us feel like part of a special little family. As long as they have the doors open, I’m going to be there.”

Studio V-Fit’s doors are open six days a week, with 5:45 a.m. classes Mondays-Fridays. Classes include Mommy and Me, Boot Camp and Zumba Step.

Leister, who is AFAA and CPR certified, also teaches special classes at the ARC center — which named her Volunteer of the Year last year — and hosts Zumba theme parties at least once a month.

Leister said her classes are usually infused with the music of her homeland.

“Folks here seem to love a little Latin flavor,” she said. “I create routines to reggaeton, cha-cha, rumba, cumbia, salsa, belly-dancing, tango. I like to spice things up.”