The Kiwa playlist is designed to give you the feeling of being on vacation based on our favorite destinations – Hawaii, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Class becomes your vacation between vacations.
While there are many songs we love and they may be perfect for dancing to, they may not be conducive to dance fitness. According to neuroscience, the best dance songs are a blend of predictability and complexity. The best dance fitness songs are heavy on the predictability and lighter on the complexity (i.e. those random rhythm changes that don’t feel like they “fit”). We want songs that make us feel good, and we need songs with the right tempo for the moves we are doing.
Playlists are not a collection of my favorite songs. There are many songs I just love and are great for dancing to, but the complexity makes it too complicated for dance fitness. Each song has a job to do and a time to do it. When I songs get swapped out, the new song has to have a similar tempo or rhythm to the one being replaced so it can slide seamlessly into the playlist. When the song doesn’t meet this criteria, I am forced to do a whole playlist shuffle. Full shuffles are good for your brain so I don’t avoid them completely, I just try to keep them to a minimum.
Did you know your brain will try to sync your feet to the beat of the music? Kiwa playlists will have songs that range from 80 beats per minute up to 150 (only one or two songs at this pace) with the average for the whole playlist at around 119 beats per minute. This puts the overall intensity of the class equal to that of a brisk walk.
We start gently, getting our bodies familiar with some basic moves – if songs are on the shorter side we may have 2 warmups, one for the upper body and one for the lower body. Then we slow it down with a toning song with less dance and more concentrated movements with or without hand weights.
This will become the pattern, one or two faster songs followed by a chance to “regroup” with a slower song. Occasionally we will “burst” with a really short, fast song with repetitive moves. This song’s job is to get our hearts pumping. This varying of tempos and intensities is what gives the class a dance party feel and allows you to work out longer before feeling tired.
In the middle of our class we do our 4-wall “line dance.” This song’s job is spatial orientation (a brain exercise). Knowing where the midpoint in the class is can help those pacing themselves while recovering from or working through injuries.
As our time winds down, so does our activity. Before we hit our final stretch which ends the class, we gradually slow the tempo, focusing on balance moves and a step-touch which will bring our heart rates down slowly.
Updated January 2026
KIWA dance fitness 