Put On Your Dancing Shoes; It’s a Great Brain/Body Workout
We don’t teach dancing anymore. Arthur Murray Studio’s are hard to find. Used to be, in school as part of Physical Education (which we also don’t teach so much anymore), we taught a semester of dancing. Usually, ballroom dancing. Specifically, waltzing. With a partner, which was awkward, but we were all awkward together as teenagers. We learned how to waltz a circle around the gym. And we survived.
When asked, many people respond, “I don’t dance”, thus shutting down any opportunity to find out if that’s even true. Or ever was.
No one dances anymore, unless you count drunk dancing in a bar, hopefully with your clothes still on. Maybe it won’t appear on YouTube, and go viral.
As underrated and ignored as it is, dancing is a WOW and complete experience, integrating nearly all your brain/body systems. It increases cognitive thinking, physical ability to move, coordination, vestibular (balance) skills, and vision. It’s fun, once you get the hang of it.
Looking like it might be easy when it might not be, dancing requires you to concentrate and pay attention to what you’re doing. You can’t text or email, but you can carry on a conversation while dancing and get to know your partner. You can laugh at your dance ability. Or your partner’s. Or both.
Dancing is physical. You have to move, and that requires moving parts of your body that you don’t think about moving, like your feet, your shoulders, and your knees. Your central core has to be strong to support the moves. You might need abdominal work, which leads to better physical health.
Dancing is coordination. All of us have danced with the klutz stepping on our toes and yanking us around the dance floor. We felt like rag dolls, and were sore the next day.
Dancing is balance. You move from one foot to the other while keeping time and rhythm to the music. Keep track of where you are going, avoiding any clueless klutzes, and their partners.
At first dancing might be hard, and you might not like it, get it. You got no rhythm, and two left feet. But like everything else, the more you practice, the better you become. Eventually, like learning to ride a bike, driving, or surfing, you don’t have to think about it; you just move. You get to know a lot about someone when you dance with them. Music is the distraction for moving your feet while stimulating cognitive brain function, practicing balance and vision, working on language skills and coordination, overall well-being and mobility. Heck, it has it all in one package with no special equipment or talent, just a willingness to try something different, or maybe revisit an old skill.
Get out your dancing shoes; I hear some music.
That’s Aging Intelligently.