My name is Claudiu Gutu. I was born in 14.09.1986 in Timisoara, one of the biggest cities of Romania. I am not a single child, I have a brother that has a nice career as a photographer.

Since I was little I liked sports a lot, so I practiced football and table tennis as an amateur. Though, my biggest passions remained singing and of course dancing. Unfortunately I couldn’t fulfill my dream of singing (only in karaoke :)), but since I was 14 years old I started my dancing career. I’ve been part of one of the most popular Modern Dance Crews in Romania for 8 years and I won lots of first places during all the dance competitions I’ve ever participated in. I traveled a lot with this crew in my country, but also internationally. The experience that I gained in this crew helped me a lot in becoming the person I am today and I was very lucky to have such an honorable mentor. He always gave me good advice and helped me shape my personality.

​Due to the poor financial situation of my family, I have been working since I was 13. Furthermore, I worked during college in order to be able to afford continuing my studies. After graduating from college, I began my career in Zumba® in March 2011, being the first instructor holding a Zumba class in my city. The event was promoted in the media and this helped me to enjoy the presence of over 100 people in my first Zumba class.

So far, I have got the following qualifications: Zumba® Fitness, Zumba® Toning, Zumba® Kids & Zumba Kids Jr, Zumba® Pro Skills, Aqua Zumba®, Zumba® Step and STRONG by Zumba. I have always tried to keep up with everything that’s happening in my career and thus I attended all the European Zumba Conferences, and the London academy in 2016. The sessions I attended helped me to improve my instructor skills, quickly noticed by my students who do not hesitate to tell me all the time how Zumba has changed their life, how happy and free they feel during the Zumba classes.

A significant step in building self-confidence, as a Zumba instructor, was to post my personal Zumba choreographies on my YouTube channel,on which I received positive feedback. I had a successful collaboration with a famous Romanian singer, Kamelia. We shot together the official Zumba choreography of the song Amor, the video becoming viral after a short period of time. It was distributed by media all over the country. The song has become popular all over the world within 1 year; the choreography has over 35 million views on YouTube and the official song recorded over 85 million views.

Three years ago, a dream came true for me, I was for the first time in ZIN™ Convention in Orlando, being selected one of the finalists of Zumba® Next Rising Star contest, mentored by Kass Martin and Steve Boedt. In July 2018 I was one of the presenters at the Zumba Fitness Concert in Orlando, led by the creator of Zumba, Beto Perez. In 2019 I also had a session at the Zumba Fitness Convention from Orlando together with all the finalists from the Rising Presenter contest from 2017 and 2018 and it was a real success.
I’m very happy and lucky having the chance to travel around the world and spreading my love for Zumba everywhere.

Last but not least, considering my personal life, my family gives me a great sense of fulfillment with the support from my wife and a lot of love from my two little boys: Andrei, 7 years old and Matei, 4 years old. They always keep me positive and make me fight through to be better every day.

I promise you that this pandemic will pass much easier in dance steps! 😉 Take care of you, my friends!🤗💗