hell yeah! dancing is kick ass.
Dance is superior to repetitive physical exercise for brain plasticity (2018)
61–70 of 224 posts
Re: Dance is superior to repetitive physical exercise for brain plasticity (2018)
#62If the postulated basis is correct and acts on a continuum, it wouldn't be a huge leap to think that doing physically challenging outdoor sports that require a high degree of reaction to constantly-changing surroundings would be even better than dancing. Sounds like a case for skiing, mountain biking, climbing, surfing, whitewater kayaking, etc.
I would disagree, dance requires an intimate letting go, while sports is a more mechanical shutting down. Dance is a sort of trance, and requires alot of letting go. Sports has a goal, has focus, its very “in the head” (exceptions do exist ala japanese arts, martial arts comes close but not as it is largely implemented in the west.) Not saying no brain plasticity work takes place, but dance has an active emotional el…
Dance is a sort of trance, and requires alot of letting go
I know what you mean, also when you talk about that certain tenderness, I have experienced that, and I can get that same thing out of sports like climbing/bmx/snowboarding. Take climbing: slowly reaching for a difficult hold you've never touched before, where you carefully lay your fingers on it, just touching it at first to make sure it'll actually hold you - and if not a fall an injury is certainly in there - while the rest of your body is at one wth the rock. That's basically the same for me. Or take snowboarding, just surfing a gentle slope, all alone while a snow shower slowly becomes heavier. There's no real goal there, focus fades, it's just you going with the flow. And getting that trance-like feeling really only works if you let go of certain natural fears.
Re: Dance is superior to repetitive physical exercise for brain plasticity (2018)
#63I've been a dancer for 30 years, of many forms. The best way I can describe dancing to non-practitioners is that it's like playing a silent, wearable musical instrument that demands attention from your entire body. It is not like playing a sport, except perhaps if you do it competitively :-)
Do you seriously not think that playing a sport requires control of your entire body? Have you ever tried to actively improve at a sport? Everything from basketball to golf is fine muscle control from the lowest to highest levels. Some people cant see their own bias I guess. :)
He’s describing it as a musical instrument. I think that’s a very good comparison, and is indeed not related to other sports.
Re: Dance is superior to repetitive physical exercise for brain plasticity (2018)
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
TL;DR: it seems trivially true that non-scientific, traditional knowledge can be a powerful source of understanding, especially when combined judiciously with science. > That doesn't mean traditions and beliefs are necessarily true, but they didn't evolve randomly either. Successful memes serve a purpose, and that can be rational outside of cultural rationality. The belief that no knowledge exists outside of the scie…
Samzdat has an absolutely excellent article on the distinctions between state-level (often technocratic) knowledge and on-the-ground knowledge, and the difficulties of communicating between the two and acting on them. It's part of a discussion of the book Seeing Like A State. I think you'd find it stimulating. https://samzdat.com/2017/05/22/man-as-a-rationalist-animal/
I've read this post, and Seeing Like a State after SSC's review of it (thank you for the reference though!). Both of these came after my Peruvian epiphany, but they really helped sharpen my understanding of epistemology. Though my focus here is a little different: instead of focusing on how top-down policy privileges techne over metis due to its legibility[1], I'm primarily interested in how the individual can make better use of metis from outside his bubble. This is the main thing I look for when I travel, and a nine-month, and a 6-continent backpacking trip I took in my early 20s was a really transformative experience for exactly that reason.
[1] The reason I don't focus too much on this aspect is because I've already found it productive to model politics and policy as a natural disasters, or millions of monkeys banging on typewriters: I don't think most humans are capable of what I'd consider critical thinking, and they're certainly not capable of exercising it in large, complex systems. I get that this is a little nihilistic, but in practice it just means being selective about how you choose to spend your time with and not getting too drawn into cases where you can't control it, like politics.
Re: Dance is superior to repetitive physical exercise for brain plasticity (2018)
#65I've been a dancer for 30 years, of many forms. The best way I can describe dancing to non-practitioners is that it's like playing a silent, wearable musical instrument that demands attention from your entire body. It is not like playing a sport, except perhaps if you do it competitively :-)
Do you seriously not think that playing a sport requires control of your entire body? Have you ever tried to actively improve at a sport? Everything from basketball to golf is fine muscle control from the lowest to highest levels. Some people cant see their own bias I guess. :)
Looks like you're just as caught up in your own bias as everyone else though :)
Not sure why you jumped to the conclusion that someone saying "X is not like playing a sport" is a claim that "sports are trivially easy compared to X". I don't think the parent comment was claiming that at all, just that they're different, namely that dance is not inherently competitive.
Re: Dance is superior to repetitive physical exercise for brain plasticity (2018)
#66If the postulated basis is correct and acts on a continuum, it wouldn't be a huge leap to think that doing physically challenging outdoor sports that require a high degree of reaction to constantly-changing surroundings would be even better than dancing. Sounds like a case for skiing, mountain biking, climbing, surfing, whitewater kayaking, etc.
Yeah, I wonder if they compared dancing to highly dynamic (non repetitive) sports, then would the results be different.
Soccer for instance, demands continuous concentration and is as taxing mentally as it is physically, esp. in certain positions. This seems to be similarly true with sports like hockey, basketball, tennis, etc. Not sure how much of it applies to stop-start sports like baseball, cricket and american football.
Climbing requires deliberate control over muscles, breathing, coordination and concentration, in manner that I haven't seen in any physical activity.
That being said, looking at some of the dancers I know, dancing can be incredibly physically taxing on its own.
Re: Dance is superior to repetitive physical exercise for brain plasticity (2018)
#67I've been a dancer for 30 years, of many forms. The best way I can describe dancing to non-practitioners is that it's like playing a silent, wearable musical instrument that demands attention from your entire body. It is not like playing a sport, except perhaps if you do it competitively :-)
Do you seriously not think that playing a sport requires control of your entire body? Have you ever tried to actively improve at a sport? Everything from basketball to golf is fine muscle control from the lowest to highest levels. Some people cant see their own bias I guess. :)
I think it's easier to be less aware of your entire body while practicing for other sports.
As someone who plays basketball and tennis, it takes a lot of focus to pay attention to my whole body for an entire practice session (vs. just a single part that I'm trying to improve). Most of the time, if I don't explicitly try to pay attention, I just use muscle memory and try to get into "the zone".
In tennis for example, I only need to pay maximal attention when learning a stroke (although of course it's beneficial to pay attention to every body part when just regularly playing - it's not necessary, and certainly something that a lot of recreational players don't do). Whereas with dance, it's required that you pay attention to your entire body for the entire practice session to memorize a choreography.
I think that's the difference that's important for this paper. If my elderly dad were to play basketball, he might rely on muscle memory. Whereas, if his nursing home taught dance classes, he would definitively have to pay attention to all of his body parts.
Re: Dance is superior to repetitive physical exercise for brain plasticity (2018)
#68I've been a dancer for 30 years, of many forms. The best way I can describe dancing to non-practitioners is that it's like playing a silent, wearable musical instrument that demands attention from your entire body. It is not like playing a sport, except perhaps if you do it competitively :-)
Do you seriously not think that playing a sport requires control of your entire body? Have you ever tried to actively improve at a sport? Everything from basketball to golf is fine muscle control from the lowest to highest levels. Some people cant see their own bias I guess. :)
it == dancing && it != sport
dancing.entails(entire_body)
sport.entails(entire_body)
Re: Dance is superior to repetitive physical exercise for brain plasticity (2018)
#69I've been a dancer for 30 years, of many forms. The best way I can describe dancing to non-practitioners is that it's like playing a silent, wearable musical instrument that demands attention from your entire body. It is not like playing a sport, except perhaps if you do it competitively :-)
So, you need to be a competitive dancer then? ;)
To get that good you need discipline and dance for years (or just be a natural), so don't seem that far fetched to be at a similar difficulty level as sports in this regard.
Re: Dance is superior to repetitive physical exercise for brain plasticity (2018)
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would disagree, dance requires an intimate letting go, while sports is a more mechanical shutting down. Dance is a sort of trance, and requires alot of letting go. Sports has a goal, has focus, its very “in the head” (exceptions do exist ala japanese arts, martial arts comes close but not as it is largely implemented in the west.) Not saying no brain plasticity work takes place, but dance has an active emotional el…
Dance is a sort of trance, and requires alot of letting go I know what you mean, also when you talk about that certain tenderness, I have experienced that, and I can get that same thing out of sports like climbing/bmx/snowboarding. Take climbing: slowly reaching for a difficult hold you've never touched before, where you carefully lay your fingers on it, just touching it at first to make sure it'll actually hold you…
A well executed boulder can often seem indistinguishable from dance. So many sports have a natural flow and tempo (the zone), that once you tap into, you really do feel one with the sport.
Sadly, the feeling can be fickle mistress and hard to tap into.