VIENNA - What started as a typical Saturday afternoon at Grand Central Mall was interrupted for about two minutes as the food court was hit by a flash mob demonstrating their Zumba moves to mall patrons.
Brian Anderson, owner of Zk Fitness in Marietta, which opened in December, organized the flash mob.
Anderson has been a certified personal trainer for eight years and a certified Zumba instructor for five years and said he wanted to highlight a different aspect of fitness through the demonstration. He said the flash mob had been in the planning stages for about two months.
"The concept of my gym is show that fitness has more than just a physical benefit, it also has a mental benefit," he said. "As seen here you can have fun with it, let loose with the stress of life, the stress of family, money and fitness can be a way to release for yourself."
As the mob assembled from the food court, several patrons, with camera phones or small digital cameras in hand, caught all or part of the Zumba demonstration.
Anderson said he just wants to show how fitness can be different.
"The Mid-Ohio Valley area does not concentrate as much on health as it should, I think," he said. "I think this will help bring awareness you can do anything you enjoy and turn into something healthy for you, such as dance."
Anderson said he chose the mall for its size and because it is a place where people gather.
"In general there are not too many public places you can go to with space for us to move around," he said. "The mall was a natural spot because people gather here and we knew we'd have an instant audience pretty much. None of the stores would be large enough."
Anderson said the mob's performance was stopped near its end by mall security officers.
"They said they would have preferred we had contacted mall management to be cleared first," he said. "They said it was for safety issues and I perfectly understand that."
Before they began, Anderson said the mob members had a group discussion about safety and how it was to be their utmost concern.
"It went fine and there were no problems," he said.
Anderson said there was no further incident with security.
About 40 people were to be part of the mob, Anderson said, and he estimated about 50 people showed up for the event.
