What a weird human mistake to create such a false dichotomy.
Don't tell me longboard surfers aren't dancers.
Lessons schmessons, move your body and learn how to control its movements to better express yourself and better manipulate it with respect to its context, whether in water, suspended from a giant sash, or rolling on a wooden floor.
Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)
141–150 of 201 posts
Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can I ask how old you are? How many of your friends are interested in dance? Are you interested because others are going or does it stem from an intrinsic desire? Many of my friends (late 20's, early 30s) wouldn't dream of being the first on a dance floor, or trying a class. I think most would rather shoot hoops or go hiking. Dance doesn't even occur to them as an option. My personal theory is that there's a stigma.…
I'm 31. None of my friends are interested. I mainly wanna try swing dancing because I saw a video of a competition and it looked like so much fun. It's really cool seeing people be able to command their body confidently and I see that and think "I wanna do that".
Just do it! Most venues have a beginner class that is specifically designed for people who have never danced (there will likely be others in the same boat as you). I started a few years ago, now I teach it and it's all I do in my spare time. It's also a great hobby because you can either go all in like me, or show up once a week for 1h and still have good time, meet people etc
(based on your username), Poland has a great scene by the way.
Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)
#143This conclusion on "Dance" is to narrow i think. What about TaiChi/QiGong? Or martial arts? or yoga?
Instead, maybe, the research might have focused for "exercises that requires high coordination and awareness of body is superior to weightlifting"
Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)
#144I do MRI work, and my gut is that none of the claims about dance vs. exercise would replicate. The behavioral data suggests that activity of some type will improve cognitive function (main effects of time). Such beneficial effects of activity on the brain have been shown before, and this is generally accepted. However, the authors' behavioral data doesn't show any difference between the dance vs. exercise groups. Thi…
I lack the in-depth knowledge but correcting p-value thresholds for multiple hypotheses is very basic science. I doubt your criticism is valid given that some basic error like this would never pass peer review.
Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)
#145I do MRI work, and my gut is that none of the claims about dance vs. exercise would replicate. The behavioral data suggests that activity of some type will improve cognitive function (main effects of time). Such beneficial effects of activity on the brain have been shown before, and this is generally accepted. However, the authors' behavioral data doesn't show any difference between the dance vs. exercise groups. Thi…
I have done lots of free-form couples dancing (over 20 years, several times per week, some of it in complex styles like argentine tango) and in my first-hand experience the major difference from other kinds of exercise is that you need to harmonize your movements with your partner and music, and you need to improvise. The complexity of the movement is not it, nor the "exercise". There is lots of other research sugges…
I also wonder if even just the close physical contact itself has a positive impact on brain chemistry.
Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
Once it's moving, a bicycle basically balances itself. That's why the hardest part of learning to ride one is starting and stopping.
You still need to adjust your balance. If you send a bicycle off without a rider, it will tip over after a while. Same with standing up. Needs constant small adjustments.
A bicycle without a rider will keep going straight (maybe on a slight curve if the frame is misaligned) so long as it has enough speed.
Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
You still need to adjust your balance. If you send a bicycle off without a rider, it will tip over after a while. Same with standing up. Needs constant small adjustments.
A bicycle without a rider will keep going straight (maybe on a slight curve if the frame is misaligned) so long as it has enough speed.
On a mathematical plane in vacuum it will. On uneven ground and turbulent air, it will not.
Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)
#148I think the difference in outcomes is likely to be down to "continuous learning of new movement patterns and choreographies" vs "participants performed the same exercises repeatedly ... We avoided combined arm and leg movements in order to keep coordinative demands low". That said, I think dance is great.
That said, dance is a really fun way to package repetitive movements. And if younger people did more of it, the men on this site would spend less time bitching about how hard it is to meet women. *cough*
That said, dancing is super hard. It just doesn't click with some brains. Like at all. With mine for example. I can't repeat full body movements. I can't remember sequences of those movements even as short as 3. Any diagrams that attmempt to teach dancing make no sense to me. Foot placement seems completely arbitrary. I always had a very hard time learning things I don't understand and I'm not sure if I ever actually learnt any. I see no connection between dancing and music. Regardless of the professional level of dancers when I look at them dancing I recognize no connection between what I hear and what they do. Like those two things are at completely separate layers without any meaningful sync between them.
And that's all before even considering things like social anxiety or being a highly sensitive person which makes various stimuli including social ones so strong that they become unpleasant.
The closest I ever was and probably I'll ever be to drawing any pleasure from dance like activity is Light Saber.
Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 course…
> The "just be yourself" advice is so hard, because it's what actually work
For attractive people or at least those whose attractiveness is not totally niche
Re: Dance training superior to physical exercise in inducing brain plasticity (2018)
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
From reading HN, it sounds as if many (at least among the terminally online?) in the Old Country could stand to verbesser their Vereinsleben *. When speaking with colleagues and friends still in the Old Country, depending upon whether I wish to shock (or not), I decide between saying I live (in a Gemeinde ) or in a commune . Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKIaS0lh-uo * that said, tinder is still incredibl…
To riff on the risque, I advertise [if forex, SPJ is allowed these days to be remembered for idealizing the shitting of pants..] the idea of experts’ pants as a a commodity to die metaphorically for (With the caveat that some might enjoy seeing instead what the experts are hiding when the tide [of fashion] goes out) (& one can e.g. with this explain, with mauvaise foi, Hipour’s smile)
Shirts are topologically indistinguishable from crotchless pants; do we have a metric here?
https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/review-scaling-people-by-claire... goes into the differences between (in 1984 terms) inner- and outer-party expertise (aka foxes and lions? psychopaths and clueless? morlocks and eloi?).
Yeah, when you've already known since ever to discount the wandering ones, what're a few more transients* to ignore? :)
Lagniappe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molniya_orbit
[could a signifyin' fox pass for a lion? someday I need to track down RvRG, Ich, Claudius, Kaiser und Gott]
* but if you can control transients, mode switching is an excellent way to rummage around under the noise floorboards for signal. (somewhere there's an XKCD about limitations of earth observation that was way too optimistic, and already had been for however long we'd had structured shutters)