Get Dancin’ – It’s Good For You

Posted on by Keziah

Hey all!

I have recently gotten into dancing. Not ballet or tap-dancing, mind you, but more swing, 1950’s style and Victorian/Regency-type dancing.

Photo by Jackson David on Pexels.com

Today, I am going to be sharing with y’all a couple of videos which I have been trying to learn from, and why you should try to dance, say, at least 10 minutes a day. You’d never guess, but dancing is being used to treat those who suffer from Parkinson’s Disease. Dancing is really good for your mind, and we all want healthy brains, right? Right.

The Harvard Medical School published an article on this subject, where it was stated:

Studies using PET imaging have identified regions of the brain that contribute to dance learning and performance. These regions include the motor cortex, somatosensory cortex, basal ganglia, and cerebellum. The motor cortex is involved in the planning, control, and execution of voluntary movement. The somatosensory cortex, located in the mid region of the brain, is responsible for motor control and also plays a role in eye-hand coordination. The basal ganglia, a group of structures deep in the brain, work with other brain regions to smoothly coordinate movement, while the cerebellum integrates input from the brain and spinal cord and helps in the planning of fine and complex motor actions.

Dancing not only improves your blood flow, but it also positively affects the welfare of your heart and circulatory system. Plus, if you’re learning new dance steps, you are creating new neurological paths in your brain, which is extremely healthy. Dancing can also lower your chance of dementia, it helps in relieving stress, dancing activates many parts of your brain which you wouldn’t usually use, it improves your cognitive skills and when you dance with others, it challenges the part of your mind that deals with social interactions.

Overall, dancing is extremely healthy for you, and there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t give it a try. So, here are some videos which I love trying to figure out. Once I’ve got one of these down, it’s SO fun to dance with friends. Get some people together and have a dance party; just learn new dances together! It’s tons of fun with other people.

This is BY FAR my favorite version of the Charleston, but I don’t have it down yet. In fact, I’m only about 15 seconds into it, with learning this dance. LOL Hopefully I will have it down soon, though, and I can videotape it and show it to y’all. 😉
This is definitely one of my favorites. It is SO fun to do with a fairly large group of people, and it’s not even terrible hard to learn! Y’all totally need to give this one a try.
The Spanish Waltz isn’t too terribly hard to figure out, either. It’s loads of fun, and you technically only need four people to learn this dance, though more would be preferable. Add this to your list of dances to learn!
Okay! It took me forever to figure this dance out, but once I did, I had SO much fun doing it!! You need 8 people for this dance, and a good amount of time to learn this, as it is confusing, at first. Once the whole group has this dance down, however, it is SO fun and you’ll be able to go extremely fast, which is all the more fun. This is definitely a must for those wanting to learn line dances. 🙂
Last but not least for the dances, here is a tutorial of how to polka. The way I learned it, was learned the triple step (video below this one for more help on that), but you did it in a waltz-like position, while your bodies are constantly rotating in a circle. You’re always moving, and it’s loads of fun to learn.
Here’s a tutorial of how to do the triple step, which is essential to know, when you’re trying to learn the polka. 🙂

Well, I hope that this post inspired you at least a little bit to give dancing a try. What have you to lose, by trying it out? If anything, it will make you smarter. 😉

Cheers!

-Keziah ❤

Published by Keziah

HEY!!! I'm Keziah (pronounced kuh-zy-uh)!! I'm young, I'm married and I love Jesus. I also love anything vintage, reading, writing, dancing, historical re-enacting and so much more. I'm a firm believer in being able to accomplish most anything with discipline and that life is full of joy we don't often comprehend until we have lost it. Can't wait to get to know you!!! ♡♡

25 thoughts on “Get Dancin’ – It’s Good For You”

  2. Good for you! Sounds like you’re enjoying it.

    I have a rather complicated history with partner dancing. Swing dancing was a big fad in bars during the winter of 1997-98, my senior year at UJ. I’ll tell the story eventually in my blog, but the reason I didn’t stick with it was because the Jeromeville-Capital City swing crowd was cliquish and never seemed to want to dance with me, so once my friends stopped dancing, I didn’t have anyone to dance with.

    One of the first friends I made when I moved to the suburbs south of Capital City was the youth director at the church I was going to at the time. She was talking about swing dancing with a mixed group of high school and college students, and how they always needed more guys to dance with, so I started going again in 2007 (I was in my early 30s at the time). (This place, at a really cool looking rented ballroom in the old part of Capital City, was run by some of the same people who used to run swing dancing in Jeromeville in the 90s, but they didn’t remember me.) The same thing happened; I got back into it really quickly, but then all those friends stopped going regularly. But this time around, I was able to make new friends from dancing. (A few of them I’m still friends with, but they don’t dance anymore, and neither do I.)

    In 2009, those friends got me into blues fusion dancing. That place was much smaller, and even though at times it didn’t feel like my crowd, I felt like part of the family. But I started becoming somewhat disillusioned with the dance community around here a few years later. I mostly stopped swing dancing because most of my friends stopped, and swing is on Fridays and I’m always so exhausted on Fridays. The group had changed; there were a lot of high school kids there, because most of the other dance places aren’t all ages, and I was getting much older, of course. I was also having problems with my foot. The last time I went swing dancing was probably around 2016.

    I stopped doing blues fusion every week in the spring of 2017, but I still went there off and on, probably once a month on average, until September 2019. Blues fusion is easier on my foot. But I feel even more out of place with that crowd. Blues fusion tends to attract people who are, let’s say, into lifestyles that make me uncomfortable, and a lot of them are the type of angry young politically active people who don’t like people like me, so I kind of have to hide who I really am when I’m there. Many of the people I was close friends with there don’t go anymore, and the new people who have come to the group just aren’t the kind of people I naturally click with.

    So I don’t really know the point of that story… but if you’re dancing with friends, that’s a good thing. 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

    1. That’s a great story; thanks for sharing! I enjoy reading your long comments; they’re the best. 🙂
      Yes, dancing with friends is definitely a good thing. Especially when you mess up, and even though they still laugh at you, it’s totally fine because you know they’re lovingly making fun of you. If that makes any sense. LOL
      Have a great day! ❤ 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Really? Well, I’ll try… if my body permits! 😊 I really like that phrase,”Practice Makes Permanent,” that your friend came up with! 😄 Until recently, I thought “Practice Makes Patience” was the real phrase, until Dad told me that it is “Practice Makes Perfect”!! 😅

        Liked by 1 person

      2. LOL good luck!! Yeah, my friend said a guy teaching golf told him that and it has stuck with him ever since. I prefer it much better over the other phrase. Haha that is great. We learn new things every day, right?! 😂

        Liked by 1 person

  6. What a fun post! These videos are amazing. I love love love dancing, especially swing and regency dances! Unfortunately, it’s hard to find a lot of people to dance with or dancing events to go to, although I do get a chance every now and then 😕 It would be fun to learn more dances on my own, though :))

    Liked by 1 person

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