GAZA, July 12 (Xinhua) -- Al-Galaa Sport Club in Gaza city has opened a special section for the Zumba dance. For the first time, such dancesport programs target the little girls.
The sport program has chosen a specific group of girls aging from six to 12, who are usually trained in a variety of sports, such as yoga and lite version of aerobics, that aim to activate their minds and control their breathing and muscles.
At the beginning of summer holidays, Rital Al Zein, 11, was the first girl who joined to the Zumba class, trying to change her past holiday routine.
"Last year, I spent most of my time in playing the mobile games. I did not make any effort. I became addicted to the games and I lived in my own virtual world," Rital told Xinhua.
She added that "I was completely isolated from the real world, and I became more stubborn. I did not accept the people around me who might disturb my isolation with my games."
The situation has changed for Rital after she joined Zumba. She has several friends who share fun time with her, benefiting from the sport. Zumba combines sport and dance, she noted, and it gives the body more flexibility and provides her more thought in everything around her.
Tala Mohammed is dancing Zumba for the first time in her life for almost a month, who was also addicted in mobile games by playing for more than eight hours a day.
Tala told Xinhua that she was happy to spend useful time with dancing and playing, which is much better than the addiction to mobile games.
Zumba Dance is a fitness program based on Latin dancing, and helps to eliminate calories in the body as well as a positive role in reducing the feeling of depression.
So far, about 45 young girls have joined the special classes of the Zumba dance in Gaza. Their coach praised them, saying that they quickly mastered the movements of the dance in a short period of time.
Amal Al-Barawi, the coach at Al-Galaa club, said that the main objective of the opening of the "Zumba Dance" is for the complaints that she received from mothers about their children's addiction to mobile phones during the summer vacation.
"With global openness to technology, there will be negative effects and risks that mothers did not initially realize," she said, adding that "the new generation of the children prefer to withdraw from the real world, which has occurred in recent years."
She stressed that sport is very important to people, helping them to get rid of the inactivity that causes a lot of health and psychological diseases.
Al-Barawi is not limited to Zumba, she also opened the swimming section for children, as well as yoga and Dabkeh, a dance of Palestinian folklore.
Such activities will help the people in the Gaza Strip to reduce their pressures that have been caused by the political tensions and the Israeli blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip since 2007.
