My first high school dance. I walk across the room to pick my date out of the phalanx of girls when — bam! — the music starts. Loud ’80s cheese. I jiggle here, strut there. The pace quickens. Lunge, lurch, dance. I’m pouring sweat, scratching rafters; flushed with serotonin and innocent fun.
The song ends, and I overhear a voice whispering loudly, as if still contending with music, “Is he dancing or doing aerobics?” Ouch!
My high school skin was too thin to avoid some lasting damage from my classmate’s searing scrutiny, and I still measure my steps in public. But at home, there’s always a beat flowing out of me, and our kids all sway, jig, and spit bitty beats before they walk or talk.
My parents say I was the same way as a toddler, rocking to Linda Ronstadt, gripping the coffee table, and swinging the ballast of my sagging diaper like a boggy metronome. My brother and I would syncopate through long car rides, tapping seat beats with empty water bottles — Mahalia Jackson and Luther Vandross belted at the top of Mom’s lungs.
Dance aerobics
So what’s wrong with dancing “aerobically”? Absolutely nothing, according to Sean Levesque, a group exercise specialist for Metro Minneapolis and Greater St. Paul YMCA. He teaches Turbokick, Hip Hop Hustle and Drums Alive (among other classes). He trains groups of adults and kids and says it’s like “building a village — students form emotional attachments to songs, routines, and these attachments help them retain moves to grow stronger and more coordinated.”
Kids 8 and up gravitate toward hip-hop because of its “unlimited freedom. It’s interchangeable with any style,” says Levesque. “Just let your posture go and move your body in a way that fits you. Kids learn actual dance moves: Mambos, cha-chas, and grapevines without even knowing it.”
In Drums Alive, which kids can start as early as 4 or 5, the setup is simple. Flip an aerobic step platform and use it as a stand for a stability ball, bust out drumsticks, and pummel the ball, making Animal from “The Muppet Show” look like a statue. Levesque appreciates kids’ percussive urges and recognizes that it’s a lot more productive to wail on a giant rubber ball than little brother’s fleshy head.
Mind-opener
“Dance is mind-opening,” says local theater producer Binky Rockwell, whose son Sam proved a ballet natural at age 8. Sam began training seriously with the Minnesota Dance Theatre (and Dance Institute) at 11, which helped him surge through his tween years with passion and poise. Dance, particularly performance, not only raised his confidence, it drew out other gifts as well. Musical talent flourished, schoolwork blossomed.
“Sam was doing unbelievably well academically with multiple commitments and no time to spare,” says Rockwell. “His mind became automatically disciplined. You learn to take in this incredible amount of data and are then challenged to do something more than just spew it back. [Dance] really opened up Sam’s life. “Not a bad argument for arts in education,” adds Rockwell.
Heroes’ workout
My mom says that dancing can be like “hooking onto a tow rope that pulls you gracefully through treacherous ground,” much as Greek heroes Theseus and Ariadne relied on crane dancing to pull them through Minotaur’s labyrinth.
Empowering as it is, dance is something you can start at home, and it doesn’t need to cost anything or make you drive anywhere. It builds family fun, kinesthetic intelligence, connects kids with their own rhythms, and sets ‘em free.
Sheff Otis (a.k.a. “The Dadiator”) is a local writer, fitness fiend, and father of seven. He blogs at SevenSidekicks.com and Dadiator-Workout.com.
