I have always enjoyed dancing. As a little girl I took up the different styles at my local dance school. Ballet, Tap, Jazz, Scottish, Irish, and Dutch. At that age it was a great opportunity to use up my excess energy from sitting at a school desk most of the day. It also gave tone and grace to my body and allowed my creative right brain to imagine a multitude of scenarios and identities as I moved to the music. I continued until my later school years, at sixteen replacing dance with studying for school certificates and preparation for university entrance. It was a lovely time of dance concerts, sparkly costumes, and competitions. During my childhood, dance provided for me a broad range of skill development – physical, mental, social, and emotional.
Once I left school, dance went on the back burner. Life took its place and other pursuits were discovered. I moved into the teaching profession alongside the constant demands of motherhood. It was not until my mid-fifties arrived that my passion for dance resurfaced. My favourite style became Zumba – a combination of Latin American and Indian Bollywood steps to lively music. This form of exercise allows for a freedom of movement and expression that reached to my core. It also has become a wonderful arena for social interaction, particularly with other women. While we dance we imagine ourselves atop a Carnivale float or in a Latin Dance Studio in South America or on the streets of India moving in unison to the rhythms of Bollywood.
A multitude of benefits are present, particularly now I had reached my ‘wisdom years’ – those years after active engagement with the busyness of life. As I began regularly attending classes I felt fitter and happier than I had in a long time. I was not truly aware of the transformation, yet I knew there was a motivation and energy to continually engage in this fun form of exercise.
” Dance is the hidden language of the soul”
Martha Graham
Zvi Lanir (PhD) in his book ‘The Wisdom Years – Unleashing your Potential in Later Life’ highlights dance for the numerous benefits it brings to us in the years between retirement and old age. Men and women are living longer in the 21st Century and a window of years have been identified where people remain physically active and open to conscious and mindful reinvention.
The obvious physical benefits of dance are the ability to achieve an enjoyable cardiovascular workout. As the body moves, the oxygen surging through the blood stream positively enhances both the body and brain as they work in synergy. While we may need to modify steps as they are learnt or when our energy is depleted, the continued benefits of regular exercise can improve our well-being. Dance also improves our flexibility and can prevent balance problems and falls.
I’ve also discovered dance is a ‘super food’ for our brain. It has been identified as the one form of exercise that builds agility in all three regions – the right and left hemisphere and the rear lobe of automated and sensory functions. When you dance the left lobe allows you to follow the instructor’s directions. Your right lobe allows you to creatively express as you dance, infusing your emotions and imagination as you move. The rear lobe allows you to instinctively remember the dance step sequences so you can seamlessly integrate each of the brain hemispheres.
Social benefits of dance are profound. The obvious enjoyment of moving as a group fosters both connection and interaction between participants. Our particular Zumba class has an age range from young professional women and mothers to active women in their sixties. The older women provide the younger ones with beautiful role models of feminine energy that can endure throughout the decades. Women can also become each others’ support systems for life’s challenges, both inside and outside the Zumba class.
The benefits of dance for well being are numerous. Particularly as we age it becomes a wonderful choice of exercise to enhance life and build social connections. If you have not tried dance for a while, or at all in your life, consider taking it up as a form of exercise. No one is concerned with making the perfect moves and you have the opportunity to get fit without really noticing the effort.
