At 6 p.m. on a Tuesday, the floorboards of the old hardware store at 412 East Main Street rattle with bass and footsteps. Inside, forty Okemah residents—nurses, teachers, retirees, and teenagers—are mid-samba, following the lead of Maria Santos, the certified instructor who brought Zumba to this building in 2019. This January, Santos and two fellow instructors are launching three new class formats, expanding from five weekly sessions to nine. The waiting list for the Tuesday evening slot already runs 23 names deep.
Here is what has changed, who is teaching, and what to expect if you show up.
What Is Different in 2024
The expansion is not only about more time slots. Santos has redesigned the schedule around distinct intensity levels and musical formats:
- Zumba Blast (Tuesdays and Thursdays, 6 p.m.): A 60-minute high-interval class built around Latin pop, reggaeton, and Afrobeat. Expect repeated squat-and-twist combinations, quick directional changes, and no burpees. The American Council on Exercise estimates comparable formats burn 500–800 calories per hour, with sustained engagement of the core, legs, and glutes.
- Zumba Gold (Mondays and Wednesdays, 10 a.m.): Lower-impact choreography adapted for joint sensitivity, seated options, and slower transitions. The median age in this class is 62, though Santos emphasizes it is open to anyone recovering from injury or rebuilding baseline fitness.
- Zumba Sentao (Saturdays, 9 a.m.): A chair-based resistance format new to Okemah this year. Participants use a sturdy chair for seated dips, standing lunges, and core rotations. Santos introduced it after requests from shift workers and parents who wanted weekend strength work without a gym membership.
Classes run out of the Okemah Community Wellness Center, the repurposed hardware store Santos and her husband converted into a studio in 2021. The space keeps the original pressed-tin ceiling and maple floors, which means cross-trainers with lateral support are strongly recommended over running shoes.
Meet the Instructors
Maria Santos, 34, holds Zumba Basic 1, Zumba Gold, and Zumba Sentao certifications through Zumba Fitness LLC. She moved to Okemah from Tulsa in 2018 and taught her first local class in the basement of the First Presbyterian Church with eleven participants. Her Tuesday evening class now caps at 45.
James Okonkwo, 28, joined in 2022. A former drum-line instructor at Okemah High School, he teaches the Thursday Blast class and designs the playlist rotations. Okonkwo grew up in Oklahoma City and relocated here after his partner took a teaching job at the elementary school. He is pursuing a group fitness certification through ACE.
Darlene Hightower, 51, leads the Monday and Wednesday Gold sessions. She is a retired LPN and a breast-cancer survivor who started taking Santos's classes during chemotherapy in 2020. She became licensed to teach Gold in 2022. "I do not care if you have two left feet," she said. "I had them during chemo. We figure it out together."
What First-Timers Actually Need to Know
If you have never taken a Zumba class, the instructors address the common anxieties directly:
- No dance experience is required. Choreography is repetitive and cued visually. You will not be asked to memorize a routine or perform solo.
- The lights stay on, but dimmed. You will see the instructor clearly. No one is watching your feet.
- Bring water and cross-trainers. The maple floor is smooth. Running shoes with heavy tread can catch during pivots.
- Arrive ten minutes early. Santos or Okonkwo walks first-timers through the room layout and a three-minute breakdown of the four basic step patterns used in most songs.
Why Residents Keep Coming Back
The retention rate among Santos's regulars is unusually high for group fitness in a town this size. Several participants have attended the same Tuesday class for three years or more.
"I started because my doctor said my blood pressure was borderline," said Carla Mendez, 44, a third-grade teacher at Okemah Public Schools. "It is down twenty points now. But I stay because I know people's names here. My daughter comes on Saturdays. It is the only thing we do together that does not involve a screen."
The social component is deliberate. Santos organizes a quarterly potluck at the studio, and Okonkwo runs a free community playlist on Spotify where participants suggest songs for upcoming classes.
Schedule, Pricing, and How to Sign Up
The full nine-class weekly schedule begins January 8, 2024. All sessions are held at the **Okem
