Ballroom Dancing: Sway Your Way to a Dancer's Body
If you ready my first article about Fluidity, then you may be interested in this one as well. Its a fun, different approach to exercising and gets you brushed up on your dancing skills at the same time! How great is that? imagine...Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire flowing accross the stage -- so graceful and beautiful, but did you ever think of Ginger's amazing body as being credited towards ballroom dancing? Dancing With the Stars has shown the world that dancing is a very fun, effective weight loss and muscle toning tool that shouldn't be overlooked.
Most of us have only danced with a partner at high school dances and weddings, which takes little direction and patience, but with ballroom dancing you will need a little more determination and time before you gym alternative becomes ballroom dancing. Beginner classes start off slowly: You can spend the entire first hour doing nothing but the basic step, first in front of the mirror and then with rotating partners, and the only sweat comes from your palms (or, unfortunately, your nervous partner's). But soon enough, once you learn a turn and a variation or two, you'll be moving continuously through entire songs. It's this uninterrupted movement that raises your heart rate while you're too busy thinking about the steps and having fun to notice.
According to the iVillage calorie calculator, a 140-pound person can burn an average of 349 calories in an hour of fast social dancing and 191 calories in slower styles. Swing, salsa and quickstep are obvious fast choices. However, with the slower styles such as tango or traditional ballroom (waltz, cha-cha and foxtrot), it's easier to dance longer without stopping.
In addition to exercising your leg muscles, social dancing also works your core and upper body as you concentrate on maintaining proper posture -- holding your arms strong and looking your partner in the eye, not looking at your feet. And all that spinning helps you develop a sense of balance you can't really get anywhere else.
"Physically, new dancers use muscles that they've never found before, because you use so much of your body when dancing," says Jeni Breen, the salsa and tango coordinator at Sandra Cameron Dance Center in New York City. "They develop coordination skills that they've never had before, because they've never had to use them."
Over the years, Breen has watched many people transform their bodies through dance, but it takes more than just classes to make that change happen. Many ballroom studios open their doors for students to gather without the teachers and apply what they've learned. "In the classes you learn the vocabulary," Breen explains, "and then the practice sessions -- because you're doing it without stopping or slowing down -- are where you'll lose weight very quickly. It's a language. Once you know the language you can have a long, extensive conversation."
And there are other benefits to learning the language: Dancers quickly make friends in class (shared embarrassment and excitement always brings people together). Plus, as you grow more comfortable with the steps, the movement becomes a satisfying form of expression. "A lot of people who have previously had no experience with a creative or artistic activity gradually discover their own artistic sensibility [in dancing]," Breen says. No, you don't need the sequined leotards, pounds of blush and a spotlight to get a kick out of dancing. But you can bring that new artistic self to a nightclub or another wedding, along with a slimmer body and a dress made for showing off your moves.
Interested in signing up for a class in your area? Get started at SandraCameron.com, BallroomDancers.com and ArthurMurray.com.
Psst...I like Arthur Murray in Hayward, CA (they are a long time friend and customer of ours) I highly recommend them. Ask for Daisy.
