WITH the start of the New Year comes new exercise regimes and pledges to lose that extra weight put on over Christmas. Many opt for the gym or decide to start running but there is another way, which involves shaking your hips and dancing to modern music- Jazzercise.

Jazzercise blends aerobics, yoga, pilates and kick boxing movements in hour long dance routines, burning up to 500 calories. There are classes in High Wycombe, Hazlemere, Cressex, Hughenden, Marlow, Bourne End, Beaconsfield, Amersham, Chalfont and Prestwood.

An Easy Fitness ticket will buy you unlimited classes for just £25 a month.

Here Sharon Walter talks about how Jazzercise changed her life.

AROUND 12 months ago I found myself in a real exercise dilemma - I knew I’d got to the point where I needed to do some - I just didn’t know what.

I’ve never been a gym junkie. All the exercise I’ve ever done has revolved around team sports chasing a ball, which always takes your mind off the fact you’re exercising.

So, with some trepidation I asked my sister if she thought I’d enjoy the Jazzercise dance classes she’s been doing for the last four years. “I don’t see why not,” she said, “you’ve got rhythm.”

Recalling the time, as a child, I ran screaming from a ballet class, I was hoping I wouldn’t have a similar reaction to Jazzercise at Highcrest School in High Wycombe some 40 years later.

“Just remember,” my sister said, sort of helpfully, as we walked into class, “it’s all about repetition.”

As I was hit by the force of nature, that I later discovered was the instructor Marthese Attard, I found a funny thing happened. I immediately started following the dance routine she was performing on stage. In fairness, I suppose it wasn’t that funny, I would have looked a lot stranger if I’d just stood there staring while everyone danced around me. But she immediately engaged me.

To be honest, that first lesson went by in a blur. I couldn’t have recalled one song or what I had done. In fact, I began to think that the repetition my sister was talking about was repeating the same mistakes for an entire hour.

But nevertheless I came out and signed up immediately.

At the next class, I felt less odd. You soon realise no one is looking at you and you very quickly begin to get the routines.

And as for doing exercise? Well I’m feeling all the benefits but without feeling like I’ve done an hour long, full body workout. I keep saying it must be the music - which is relentlessly brilliant, but I know it’s also the great dance routines and Marthese’s unbelievable energy, which makes the whole thing so enjoyable.

It’s hard to describe just how much I love it and how surprised I am by that. But in a year when I’ve met both Liza Minelli and Sharon Gless, Jazzercise still rates as one of the best things to happen to me in the last 12 months.

And I’m spreading the joy, often showing my long-suffering nephews and niece one of the routines, before we all jazzercise round the kitchen.

I’ve gone from doing one or two classes a week, to four or five and feel better than ever. I now understand what Strictly judge Craig Revel Horwood is talking about when he says things like “two eight counts”, I don’t ache in my back or knees anymore and, most importantly, I always feel like I’ve just gotta dance.

For details see: www.jazzbucks.co.uk