No Experience Necessary - You Will Start Dancing Right Away
Next New Dancers class - 2 July 2023
We Dance At Balboa Park in the War Memorial Building at 3325 Zoo Dr (in the Zoo parking lot)
Here are just a few of the benefits that Square Dancing provides:
Physical fitness - dancing is moving to music which burns calories and improves oxygen consumption by your body while not feeling like exercise
Mental fitness - dancing is thinking ahead while moving to music which makes it better than solving puzzles when it come to sharpen your mind
Social fitness - square dancing is meeting new people who share your interest which builds a communal feeling in you
“Dancing
with the Stars” helps drive trend
NEW
YORK—September
12, 2006
Regardless
of gender, generation or income group, more and more people are going to
the dance floor for a workout versus a gym, and an exercise physiologist
at New York City’s Hospital for Special Surgery - a leading center for
sports medicine - thinks she knows why.
“The best exercise program is one
that is safe, balanced, promotes fitness and, importantly, one that
people will do regularly because they enjoy it,” according to Polly de
Mille, exercise physiologist at the Women’s Sports Medicine Center at
Hospital for Special Surgery.
“The
social aspects of dance help to make it very attractive for an
increasing number of people versus, say, an elliptical training machine.
Scientific studies are now also telling us that many things make dancing
an excellent fitness regimen with attractive benefits,” de Mille said.
Of course, balanced, targeted gym
workouts can provide excellent fitness benefits as well, but for some
people, the “fun factor” is missing at the gym.
“Those
working out in gyms are often plugged into their iPods or their reading
material, following their own regimen. Those dancing, however, are often
moving in unison, possibly facing one another or touching, and having a
communal experience. Connection and cooperation with others is integral
to the experience,” she said.
Dance
is also very good for balance and posture, according to Beth
Shubin Stein, M.D., an assistant
attending orthopedic surgeon in the Women’s Sports Medicine Center at
Hospital for Special Surgery who is trained in sports medicine and
shoulder surgery.
“Dance
is also a great aerobic workout, and it tones many different muscle
groups,” Dr. Shubin Stein said.
Popular
TV programs like ABC-TV’s “Dancing with the Stars,” which returns
for its third season September 12, underscore the romance and passion
sometimes involved in dance. De Mille cautions, however, that people
need to know their limits and pace themselves before considering some of
the acrobatic moves seen on TV.
While
dance may not be for everyone (de Mille personally finds regular runs in
Central Park to be very calming) and a few precautions need to be kept
in mind, she says studies clearly show that the health benefits of dance
compared to gym workouts are impressive. Specifically: Dance movements
are multi-directional versus the straight forward motion on treadmills,
ellipticals, Stairmasters, etc. Joint mobility may benefit from the
varied movements. One study demonstrated improved range of hip motion
and flexibility of the spine on young adults who followed a three-month
program of dance training.
Dance
movements are weight-bearing and varied compared to a stationary bike.
That is important for maintaining or improving bone density. Studies of
recreational ballet dancers between the ages of 8-14 show higher bone
mineral content in their hips and spine than in girls who did not dance.
Dance
requires agility and balance as well as various speeds of movement,
skills that are generally not a focus of typical gym workouts. Studies
of older populations who engage in dance-based exercise programs
demonstrate improvement in balance and agility. This may be important in
reducing risks of falls in this population.
Dance
is mentally stimulating, requiring focus on coordination and learning
movement patterns. Most people will read, listen to music, or watch TV
to alleviate the boredom associated with most indoor exercise equipment.
Dance requires being mentally engaged with physical movement, a constant
mind-body connection.
Emotional
responses are common in dance and would rarely occur in a gym workout.
The music, movement patterns and mental engagement involved in dance
often evoke emotions. One study showed that breast cancer survivors who
participated in a 12-week dance and movement program not only improved
their shoulder range of motion, but also showed improvements in measures
of body image and quality of life.
Dance
also can be a substitute for a cardiovascular gym workout. Depending on
the type of dance, it can be an excellent cardiovascular workout when
done regularly. It would result in the same health benefits associated
with any form of activity that involves sustained effort in the target
heart rate zone, such as improved cardiovascular function, lipid
metabolism, endurance and body composition.
De
Mille advises people considering dance as fitness therapy to keep three
key points in mind: Treat any pain first -- People should see their
doctor and perhaps a physical therapist to have their pain issues
diagnosed and treated properly. Pain is a warning signal that something
may be wrong.
Wear
good shoes -- Dance shoes often don’t have the kind of cushioning and
support that other exercise shoes offer. Style should not completely
replace sensibility. Dancers should be careful about the footwear they
select.
Don’t
get swept away — People can challenge themselves more than they
should. As with any activity, pacing yourself, listening to your body
and knowing your limits is important.
“From
a mind-body perspective, anything you do successfully on the physical
end will positively affect your mental and emotional states. Dancers
have excellent posture, and just standing a little straighter can have a
surprising transfer of power to your next board meeting or challenging
conversation,” commented Jenny Susser, Ph.D., a sports psychologist at
the Women’s Sports Medicine Center at HSS.
The
first of its kind in the United States, the Women’s Sports Medicine
Center at HSS is a nationally recognized health resource for active
women of all ages and abilities, from eager novices to professional
athletes.
Read
an ABC
News piece on dancing for fitness.
About
Hospital for Special Surgery
Founded in 1863, Hospital for Special Surgery
(HSS) is a world leader in orthopedics, rheumatology and rehabilitation.
HSS is nationally ranked No. 1 in orthopedics, No. 3 in rheumatology by
U.S. News & World Report (2007), and has received Magnet Recognition
for Excellence in Nursing Service from the American Nurses Credentialing
Center. In the 2006 edition of HealthGrades' Hospital Quality in America
Study, HSS received five-star ratings for clinical excellence in its
specialties. A member of the New York-Presbyterian Healthcare System and
an affiliate of Weill Medical College of Cornell University, HSS
provides orthopedic and rheumatologic patient care at New
York-Presbyterian Hospital at New York Weill Cornell Medical Center. All
Hospital for Special Surgery medical staff are on the faculty of Weill
Medical College of Cornell University. The hospital's research division
is internationally recognized as a leader in the investigation of
musculoskeletal and autoimmune diseases. Hospital for Special Surgery is
located in New York City and online at www.hss.edu.
Use
It or Lose It: Dancing Makes You Smarter
Richard
Powers
For
centuries, dance manuals and other writings have lauded the health
benefits of dancing, usually as physical exercise. More recently we've
seen research on further health benefits of dancing, such as stress
reduction and increased serotonin level, with its sense of well-being.
Most
recently we've heard of another benefit: Frequent dancing apparently
makes us smarter.
A
major study added to the growing evidence that stimulating one's mind by
dancing can ward off Alzheimer's disease and other dementia, much as
physical exercise can keep the body fit. Dancing
also increases cognitive acuity at all ages.
You
may have heard about the New
England Journal of Medicine report
on the effects of recreational activities on mental acuity in aging.
Here it is in a nutshell.
The
21-year study of senior citizens, 75 and older, was led by the Albert
Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, funded by the National
Institute on Aging, and published in the New England Journal of
Medicine. Their method for objectively measuring mental acuity in aging
was to monitor rates of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease.
The study
wanted to see if any physical or cognitive recreational activities
influenced mental acuity. They discovered that some activities had a
significant beneficial effect. Other activities had none.
They
studied cognitive activities such as reading books, writing for
pleasure, doing crossword puzzles, playing cards and playing musical
instruments. And they studied physical activities like playing tennis or
golf, swimming, bicycling, dancing, walking for exercise and doing
housework.
One of the
surprises of the study was that almost none of the physical activities
appeared to offer any protection against dementia. There can be
cardiovascular benefits of course, but the focus of this study was the
mind.
There was
one important exception: the only physical activity to offer protection
against dementia was frequent dancing.
Reading
- 35% reduced risk of dementia
Bicycling and swimming - 0%
Doing crossword puzzles at least four days a
week - 47%
Playing golf - 0%
Dancing frequently - 76%. That
was the greatest risk reduction of any activity studied, cognitive or
physical.
Neuroplasticity
What could
cause these significant cognitive benefits?
In this
study, neurologist Dr. Robert Katzman proposed these persons are more
resistant to the effects of dementia as a result of having greater
cognitive reserve and increased complexity of neuronal synapses. Like
education, participation in mentally engaging activities lowers the risk
of dementia by improving these neural qualities.
As Harvard
Medical School psychiatrist Dr. Joseph Coyle explains in an accompanying
commentary: "The cerebral cortex and hippocampus, which are
critical to these activities, are remarkably plastic, and they rewire
themselves based upon their use."
Our
brain constantly rewires its neural pathways, as
needed. If it doesn't need to, then it
won't.
Aging and
memory
When brain
cells die and synapses weaken with aging, our nouns go first, like names
of people, because there's only one neural pathway connecting to that
stored information. If the single neural connection to that name fades,
we lose access to it. As people age, some of them learn to parallel
process, to come up with synonyms to go around these roadblocks.
The
key here is Dr. Katzman's emphasis on the complexity of our neuronal
synapses. More is better. Do whatever
you can to create new neural paths.
The opposite of this is taking the same old well-worn path over and over
again, with habitual patterns of thinking and living.
When I was
studying the creative process as a grad student at Stanford, I came
across the perfect analogy to this:
The more
stepping stones there are across the creek,
the easier
it is to cross in your own style.
The
focus of that aphorism was creative thinking, to find as many
alternative paths as possible to a creative solution. But as we age,
parallel processing becomes more critical. Now it's no longer a matter
of style, it's a matter of survival — getting across the creek at all.
Randomly dying brain cells are like stepping stones being removed one by
one. Those who had only one well-worn path of stones are completely
blocked when some are removed. But
those who spent their lives trying different mental routes each time,
creating a myriad of possible paths, still have several paths left.
As the
study shows, we need to keep as many of those paths active as we can,
while also generating new paths, to maintain the complexity of our
neuronal connections.
In
other words: Intelligence — use it
or lose it.
Intelligence
What
exactly do we mean by "intelligence"?
You'll
probably agree that intelligence isn't just a numerical measurement,
with a number of 100 plus or minus assigned to it. But what is it?
To answer
this question, we go back to the most elemental questions possible. Why
do animals have a brain? To survive? No, plants don't have a brain and
they survive. To live longer? No, many trees outlive us.
As
neuroscience educator Robert Sylwester notes, mobility is central to
everything that is cognitive, whether it is physical motion or the
mental movement of information. Plants have to endure whatever comes
along, including predators eating them. Animals, on the other hand, can
travel to seek food, shelter, mates, and to move away from unfavorable
conditions. Since we can move, we need a cognitive system that can
comprehend sensory input and intelligently make choices.
Semantics
will differ for each of us, but according to many, if the
stimulus-response relationship of a situation is automatic,
we don't think of the response as requiring our intelligence. We don't
use the word "intelligent" to describe a banana slug, even
though it has a rudimentary brain. But when the brain evaluates several
viable responses and chooses one (a real choice, not just following
habits), the cognitive process is considered to be intelligent.
As
Jean Piaget put it, intelligence is
what we use when we don't already know what to do.
Why
dancing?
We
immediately ask two questions:
·
Why
is dancing better than other activities for improving mental
capabilities?
·
Does
this mean all
kinds of dancing, or is one kind of dancing better than another?
That's
where this particular study falls short. It doesn't answer these
questions as a stand-alone study. Fortunately, it isn't a stand-alone
study. It's one of many studies, over decades, which have shown that we
increase our mental capacity by exercising our cognitive processes.
Intelligence: Use it or lose it. And it's the other studies which fill
in the gaps in this one. Looking at all of these studies together lets
us understand the bigger picture.
The
essence of intelligence is making decisions. The best advice, when it
comes to improving your mental acuity, is to involve
yourself in activities which require split-second rapid-fire decision
making, as opposed to rote memory
(retracing the same well-worn paths), or just working on your physical
style.
One way to
do that is to learn something new. Not just dancing, but anything new.
Don't worry about the probability that you'll never use it in the
future. Take a class to challenge your mind. It will stimulate the
connectivity of your brain by generating the need for new pathways.
Difficult classes are better for you, as they will create a greater need
for new neural pathways.
Then
take a dance class, which can be even more effective. Dancing
integrates several brain functions at once — kinesthetic, rational,
musical, and emotional — further increasing your neural connectivity.
What kind
of dancing?
Do all
kinds of dancing lead to increased mental acuity? No, not all forms of
dancing will produce the same benefit, especially if they only work on
style, or merely retrace the same memorized paths. Making as many
split-second decisions as possible is the key to maintaining our
cognitive abilities. Remember: intelligence
is what we use when we don't already know what to do.
We wish
that 25 years ago the Albert Einstein College of Medicine thought of
doing side-by-side comparisons of different kinds of dancing, to find
out which was better. But we can figure it out by looking at who
they studied: senior citizens 75 and older, beginning in 1980. Those who
danced in that particular population were former Roaring Twenties
dancers (back in 1980) and then former Swing Era dancers (today), so the
kind of dancing most of them continued to do in retirement was what they
began when they were young: freestyle social dancing -- basic foxtrot,
swing, waltz and maybe some Latin.
I've been
watching senior citizens dance all of my life, from my parents (who met
at a Tommy Dorsey dance), to retirement communities, to the Roseland
Ballroom in New York. I almost never see memorized sequences or patterns
on the dance floor. I mostly see easygoing, fairly simple social dancing
— freestyle lead and follow. But freestyle social dancing isn't that
simple! It requires a lot of split-second decision-making, in both the
Lead and Follow roles.
At this
point, I want to clarify that I'm not demonizing memorized sequence
dancing or style-focused pattern-based ballroom dancing. I sometimes
enjoy sequence dances myself, and there are stress-reduction benefits of
any kind of dancing, cardiovascular benefits of physical exercise, and
even further benefits of feeling connected to a community of dancers. So
all dancing is good.
But when
it comes to preserving (and improving) our mental acuity, then some
forms are significantly better than others. While all dancing requires some
intelligence, I encourage you to use your full
intelligence when dancing, in both the Lead and Follow roles. The more
decision-making we can bring into our dancing, the better.
Who
benefits more, women or men?
In
social dancing, the Follow role automatically gains a benefit, by making
hundreds of split-second decisions as to what to do next, sometimes
unconsciously so. As I mentioned on this
page, women don't
"follow", they interpret
the signals their partners are giving them, and this requires
intelligence and decision-making, which is active, not passive.
This
benefit is greatly enhanced by dancing with different partners, not
always with the same fellow. With different dance partners, you have to
adjust much more and be aware of more variables. This is great for
staying smarter longer.
But men,
you can also match her degree of decision-making if
you choose to do so.
Here's
how:
1)
Really pay attention to your partner and what works best for her. Notice
what is comfortable for her, where she is already going, which signals
are successful with her and which aren't, and constantly adapt your
dancing to these observations. That's rapid-fire split-second decision
making.
2) Don't lead the same old patterns the same
way each time. Challenge yourself to try new things. Make more decisions
more often. Intelligence: use it or lose it.
The huge side-benefit is that your partners will have much more fun dancing with you when you are attentive to their dancing and constantly adjusting for their comfort and continuity of motion. And as a result, you'll have more fun too.
July 30, 2010
Copyright © 2010, 2013 Richard Powers
Top illustration by Tam King