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Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)

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Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)

#81

Post by 082349872349872 »

agumonkey wrote: post #77
WalterBright wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, moving as one with your partner is a big part of it, and where much of the pleasure comes from.

Yeah I believe that our brains are extremely sensitive to shared experience, work, art, movement or else (singing in harmony would work too). It might even tap in primitive toddler brain phases.

Dance is very Gemeinschaft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeinschaft_and_Gesellschaft

> singing in harmony would work too

I believe at least some Amish sing at very low BPM.

Two possible interpretations: (a) they share the opinions of Baptists when it comes to dancing, so the BPM is deliberately so low as to be clearly undanceable, and (b) at normal BPM individual participants might just be staying in rhythm, low BPM requires close attentiveness to the whole to stay together.

Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)

#82

Post by allenu »

polishdude20 wrote: post #60

On the same note, has anyone joined any dance classes alone? What did you join? How was it going alone? Did you make friends? Do you still do it?

I did about ten years ago and danced weekly for 5+ years (swing dancing). I joined classes alone and it went totally fine. You make friends in the class and if you go dancing regularly, you see the same people, so you start forming a community. Best of all, people who go to the dances are there to dance and not get drunk, so it's a great, safe way to meet other people who want to socialize, too.

I stopped going regularly after a little over 5 years, mostly because I was plateauing in my dancing and getting bored with it. In my experience, you plateau multiple times, just as with any skill, but you find a way to get better and more creative, but at that point, my heart wasn't into improving anymore so I wasn't enjoying it as much. I definitely keep telling myself to get back into it, however, because it's such a great social outlet.

I'll also add that it's a really great activity because it's physical, it's creative, and it's social. Partner dancing forces you to learn how to work with other people and communicate better. Not everyone you dance with has the same skill level and you might think you're doing well communicating (when you're leading) but after dancing with several people you find out right away where you're not doing a good job.

I also did find that it made me more aware of my movements and improved my musicality. I got better at watching other people dance and seeing what movements they made and how they choreographed their "routines". That kind of tickled a different part of my brain I hadn't used before in any other activity. The "plateauing" I mentioned earlier forced me to get better at watching others and repeating what they did as well as seeing what I was doing and trying to change it up if it was getting stale.

Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)

#83

Post by mlyle »

klyrs wrote: post #71
michaelteter wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you will “meet” more women by dancing than by playing games on your computer. That doesn’t necessarily mean you will make any meaningful connections. Simply going places and interacting with people will also help you meet women. In fact, I think you’d sooner find a date by becoming a grocery store employee than a dancer, because you’re more likely to be having conversations with the people you meet. Dancing, esp…

If you want to meet people, there's a lot of skill and patience required, no matter the venue. Dancing is rather uniquely suited to meeting people. Dancing signals fitness and physical competency directly to the lizard brain. Of course, if you're bad at those things, you won't succeed in an environment of such honest signalling. And of course, if you go to a dance class and ask somebody out after the first session, t…

Not specific to dance here, but just replying to your general thesis:

The "just be yourself" advice is so hard, because it's what actually works, but it's also difficult to do when you care about the outcome.

And, of course, it has a prerequisite of a whole lot of work to make "yourself" into something worthwhile and interesting. Of course one would like a shortcut that still works if you've not done the prior coursework. ;)

Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)

#84

Post by justsee »

_yb2s wrote: post #79
macintux wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as someone who tried to take a tap class as an adult, only to discover it was for people who were already experienced dancers: yes, dance training is vastly more complex than exercise. Update: what absolutely killed me is that we would run through a complex step two or three times, and we were expected to be able to practice at home. I didn't understand what we were doing while we were doing it, there was no…

I have experience with a few types of dance including salsa and bachata, and also compete as a strength athlete- and find some of the more complex weight lifting moves- such as the push jerk- a lot harder and more technical than anything I’ve learned dancing. If every aspect of your timing and form aren’t perfect, it simply does not work at heavier weights, and can take years of constant practice to perfect. The extr…

Beyond fundamental moves in any partner dance style, the complexity increases significantly.

It's not just your coordination and flexibility in placing legs, feet, arms, hands, torso in various positions at the right time, it's also leading your follower, adapting to their own abilities, tension, movement, mobility, and mood, connecting with them energetically, with the music, with the floor, and practicing dance floor awareness to avoid collisions with other dancers, adapt your moves to a rapidly shifting available dance space, and being creative and spontaneous.

Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)

#85

Post by viraptor »

macintux wrote: post #38
ericmcer wrote: post #37

I don't have any science behind this, but it makes sense that training more complex motions would trigger greater brain improvements. Dance vs basketball or some other high coordination/skill activity might have less disparity than say dance vs. exercise bike.

Speaking as someone who tried to take a tap class as an adult, only to discover it was for people who were already experienced dancers: yes, dance training is vastly more complex than exercise. Update: what absolutely killed me is that we would run through a complex step two or three times, and we were expected to be able to practice at home. I didn't understand what we were doing while we were doing it, there was no…

You got thrown into a class above your skill level. That's bad on the teacher for not telling you really. Once you know the basics the rest is easier to build on top of that, but otherwise it's like trying to tell someone about design patterns while they're still struggling with syntax in programming.

If you liked the idea, give it a go with beginners again. You'll get back to that higher level soon anyway.

Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)

#86

Post by WalterBright »

changing1999 wrote: post #74
WalterBright wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With dance you are constantly learning new material. Much less so with an exercise routine, even if you "mix it up".

Not sure if you have experienced martial arts. It's constant learning. Sparring is a small part of the process. See kata in karate, hundreds of moves and transitions in BJJ, etc

No, I'm not familiar with martial arts. I didn't consider it an exercise routine.

Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)

#87

Post by mikhmha »

A bit unrelated to the main topic but whenever I exceed a certain threshold of smoking cannabis (>0.3g) it seems to induce some automatic rhythmic movement in me. If there's music playing I can tune into the rhythm of the music. If there's no music, I will move around a lot while twisting my limbs, stretching my arms, holding positions and breathing, in various rhythmic and also strange ways. Some people have described it resembling a form of yoga or tai-chi. Whatever it is, it feels like a benefit? I've noticed my posture has improved and in the gym my numbers have also gone up despite 0 diet changes. Its like a full body stretch that activates all these minor muscles in my body.

I don't know - whenever I think about quitting this "bad" habit, I remember that it would just be replaced by sitting around looking at my phone. Being put into this physical trance by a drug has to be infinitely more healthy than that right? I trade one addiction for another.

Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)

#88

Post by dsclough »

mikhmha wrote: post #87

A bit unrelated to the main topic but whenever I exceed a certain threshold of smoking cannabis (>0.3g) it seems to induce some automatic rhythmic movement in me. If there's music playing I can tune into the rhythm of the music. If there's no music, I will move around a lot while twisting my limbs, stretching my arms, holding positions and breathing, in various rhythmic and also strange ways. Some people have describ…

THCs effects on proprioception are interesting enough to be worth pursuing if you have any interests in the physical realm. Dancing, climbing, lifting weights, running. Clearly one should be careful and I wish weed was still good for me but it’s just anxiety city so I’ll leave it to the folks who haven’t ruined their brains to enjoy.

Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)

#89

Post by __turbobrew__ »

alunchbox wrote: post #48

A book I read 'spark' by John J Ratey, discussed this in a few chapters. Cardio/Running at 70% maximum heart rate lead to brain plasticity and even allowing new synapses to make connections and grow. However, he did argue an exercise that also required concentration e.g dancing, basketball, skateboarding would have better results. It's absolutely crazy, that we misunderstand how our brains are intended to work in the…

I like trail running. It combines cardio with balance and problem solving (where do you place your feet, dodging obstacles, recovering from stumbles, very dynamic compared to running on a road or treadmill).

I strongly believe that trail running is much less prone to cause repetitive stress injuries, I see so many people pound thousands of kilometres on pavement and then wonder why their knees give out at 45.

On the other side I know people getting injured when trail running, but it always seems to be acute (like scraping a knee or spraining an ankle) and they are back at it within a week or two.

Finally, at a pseudoscience level I believe that we as humans evolved to run over uneven semi-soft ground and therefore trail running is one of the most natural movements.

Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)

#90

Post by _yb2s »

justsee wrote: post #84
_yb2s wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have experience with a few types of dance including salsa and bachata, and also compete as a strength athlete- and find some of the more complex weight lifting moves- such as the push jerk- a lot harder and more technical than anything I’ve learned dancing. If every aspect of your timing and form aren’t perfect, it simply does not work at heavier weights, and can take years of constant practice to perfect. The extr…

Beyond fundamental moves in any partner dance style, the complexity increases significantly. It's not just your coordination and flexibility in placing legs, feet, arms, hands, torso in various positions at the right time, it's also leading your follower, adapting to their own abilities, tension, movement, mobility, and mood, connecting with them energetically, with the music, with the floor, and practicing dance flo…

I imagine, being an art form, there is almost limitless possibility for complexity and difficulty in dance. However, I would argue the same is also true for strength sports, which ultimately are a type of martial art. I don’t think one is categorically simpler than the other- they both offer people of any skill and ability level lifelong challenges. My point was not to claim dance was easy but that “exercise” is not always something simple and mindless that once learned you just tune out and let your body do. Personally, I can’t stick with something boring- having ADHD, exercise is only possible for me if it is also fully mentally engaging.
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