The Brave Movement is a standard zumba fitness class filled with high-energy and upbeat remixes of today’s hip-hop songs. The difference with Brave Movement and a regular zumba class is that there is less Latin beats.
Seventeen ladies and three men bounced around popping their booties and shaking their hips to Jason Derulo’s “Talk Dirty to Me” on the Sullivan Family Library lawn on Nov. 4 at 6:30 p.m.
“It was great, I actually felt the pain for a few days and liked it a lot, it was my first time and would like to see more of this on campus,” said Alilia Ngauamo Fataua, a sophomore and English major at Chaminade University.
Instructor Tia Sablan launched the Brave Movement in August 2014 and is known to be more than just dance fitness. It is between dancing your butt off getting an all-around workout and doing strength exercises.
“Get out there and try it even if you’re hesitant or feel like your uncoordinated,” said Sablan, an alumna of Chaminade University. “I have been doing it for a good five years and there’s not one person that has not gotten it down.”
Some were Chaminade students and some were Sablan’s usual members of her other zumba classes. Sablan had a table set up to sell little merchandises to financially help her movement. There was also a can food drive that OSAL will donate to the Institute for Human Service or Hawaii Food Bank for Thanksgiving.
Sablan explained her transparency about how the Brave Movement is very special to her and how she owes it all to God for bringing her this far after a doubting herself and lack of faith.
“God gave me a vision that I honestly thought was too crazy for someone like me to carry out and try to do,” she wrote on the Brave Movement page on Facebook. “It’s my wish that each person who experiences brave dance fitness feels the passion behind the purpose, and leave better than when they arrived fired up about life.”
Brave Movement is a cardio workout that targets a person’s mind, body and soul and is all about being active while having fun. Sablan’s concept behind the Brave movement is to provide a safe environment for everyone to be themselves and encourage each other in any aspect of life they need to be brave in.
Brave stands for beautiful, restored, accepted, valued and empowered. The Brave Movement emphasizes on building positive energy and changing people’s mindsets for the better because relationships are just as important as results. It hopes to do everything possible to help everyone who attends the movement that they are on their way to fully believe that they are B.R.A.V.E.
The OSAL programing department asks Sablan to instruct zumba on campus when needed, so this is not the first time she has done this. Sablan teaches another zumba class at the UFC BJ Penn gym every Monday at 8 p.m.
Sablan graduated CUH in Fall 2011 with a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice and is currently working on her Master of Science in Counseling Psychology.