Introducing Zabi Khan, spreading kindness through dance
What service are you offering in your community?
I am offering free online dance fitness classes (Zumba and BollyX) to help people stay active through these times of self-isolating and social distancing. What inspired you to offer this service? I had been watching the news the last week or so and it just seemed like the apocalypse is upon us, it was days and days of things getting worse. It’s good to be informed about Covid-19 developments but it was just consuming me! So I said forget it, let’s turn the TV off and think what can I do to help in this situation? Well, I am a dance fitness instructor so I thought, I could teach for free. But how can I teach if I cannot get a group of people together? I initially thought of maybe limiting it to 10 people and starting it, but quickly saw it’s not going to work because of the way things have been progressing, that soon limitations will drop to 8 people and 5 people. I realized I had to think of another way so I figured doing it online was the best option.
I did a “test” class with a few of my students from my living room to get a feel of the technical requirements and see what I need. That helped me figure out the online glitches, what cables I needed for good sound, what kind of lighting etc. Quickly, I realized that my living room was too crammed to teach a class and the lighting was bad. So I looked around and found a studio close to home that already had good lighting that I could rent by the hour. With the place secured, I invited all my students to join me for my first “online” class and everybody was so excited to dance with me online. The online Zumba class was a hit with 42 students joining me live from the comfort of their homes. That’s when I knew that I could offer this free class not just to my existing students but pretty much anyone. My goal is to help as many people as possible stay active and add some positivity in their days!
How do you believe this particular service can help people? What are the benefits?
During these crazy times where we need to practice self-isolating and social distancing, pretty much everyone’s cooped up at home. And there’s only so much news or Netflix that you can watch. People need to move, people need to smile, people need to do something positive. For me, dance is what makes me smile and I know that it makes my students happy. I love seeing my students smile in class because I’m not asking them to smile, dancing naturally evokes positive emotions.
All of us are in this situation together, it’s the same for everyone. Irrespective of whether you’re broke or whether you have money, whether you have a job or you lost your job or whatever the situation is, everyone is stuck at home! We need to move, and we need some kind of positivity in our days so that’s why I decided to offer these online Zumba classes to anyone.
While this online Zumba is nothing like the real thing, where you are dancing along with everybody else in a studio or gym, it’s the next best thing given the current situation. This still has some kind of social feel because you’re seeing a bunch of other people dancing along with you on your computer or phone screen. Some of them may be friends that you know or maybe people you don’t know. The main thing is knowing that you’re not alone and that everyone else is in the same situation as you and everybody can still feel socially connected and dance together even if just from our living room or kitchen.
What got you into this activity? Why are you passionate about it?
Twelve years ago I saw a salsa/samba dancing team performing here in Vancouver at one of the Latin events and I was blown away. First of all by how amazingly they were moving, but I could see that joy on their faces, they were just gleaming with positivity. They didn’t give a shit about anybody, they were just having a blast on stage. I thought wow, that must feel like such an amazing high, and I wished I could do that. But I’d never danced at all and I forgot about it.
A few years later I moved to the States. I was living in Florida and I actually used to be quite out of shape. I really needed to rethink my life and what I wanted to do. Thanks to some really helpful new friends, I found the much-needed inspiration to get back into shape. As my fitness improved I found myself just feeling happier from within when I worked out. And oddly I recall the urge to dance every time a fun music track played in the gym.
So I decided to explore my dance curiosity and joined a salsa dancing class. Turned out that right before Salsa class they had a Zumba class. I wondered what is this Zumba and decided to try it out. I hated it! Because I had 2 left feet and the instructor was looking at herself in the mirror and was dancing by herself like there was no one else in the room. She was doing all of these hip movements to slow music, and I thought I can’t do this, Zumba’s not for me, and then I left. But then a friend said, don’t give up on Zumba so easily and recommended I check out this particular place, the best Zumba studio in all of Orlando. That experience was totally different. It was a huge studio that looked like a nightclub, there were about 60-80 students and they had two Zumba instructors. It was mostly people in their twenties and thirties and the intensity was crazy, off the wall! The instructors were so high energy, interacting with students and just fun, I loved it! This was sooo different from that previous Zumba class I took and that’s what got me hooked to Zumba! After that, I was doing Zumba 2-3 times a week and loving it more and more every time. I quickly improved to the point that instructors were noticing me and recommending I get certified, so I did, and that’s how my Zumba Instructor journey began!
Why does kindness count?
Kindness is very important and I believe you should be kind all the time. Everybody likes to be treated kindly, it’s the right thing to do. And especially now, there’s just so much doom and gloom, people need something to pick them up through these days. So I believe we should be kind in whatever way we can, whether it’s helping your neighbour, little gestures, whatever you can do. That’s why I’m trying to do what I can to help out in my own little way.
Is kindness contagious?
I think so. If you’re kind to someone, even if that person is in a bad mood, they may question it, but you can possibly change their state just by being kind to them.
How can people get involved with what you’re doing?
They can email me at hello@danceclassesvancouver.ca, and I can then send them the Zoom invite for my free classes. I’m not sharing that Zoom link publicly because unfortunately there are some random people crashing Zoom meetings and disrupting them. Besides, with email I know who my participants are, and they can in turn follow up with me if they have any questions or they want to invite their friends or whatever the case may be. It’s about building a little community and helping each other after all.
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