What you said here is very excellent. Ballroom dance is the best of physical activity for health mentally and physically.
May I sare your experience of that as a lady , how to obtain an appropriate muscle tone over her lower loin muscle ?
(Someone suggested to imagine one pencile was held centrally by those muscles;books mentioned to brace the waist , but seldom described how to do that .)Thanks.
ylchen

Al,
I started dancing in December just after getting my diploma as an Architect. Learning to dance for me was also a thing that would happen sooner or later out of sheer social necessity.

I did Judo as a child and as a student started Thai Boxing (Muay Thai... please don't confuse with Kick Boxing or Tae Bo).
The first thing I found the martial arts training helped with was posture. Not that I hurt any less or find it easier to have the right waltz posture, but what I noticed compared to the other young men is that it never crossed my mind to question the fact that I have to stand a certain way.
When we are being told about balance I know what our instructors are talking about.
The male instructors find it easier to teach me some things about movement because they can just ask me to show them a kick or a punch and can then tell me what part of that movement they want me to keep and adapt.

My martial arts teacher says dancing and martial arts are related. He told the class a couple of weeks ago that dancers that pick up martial arts tend to be very good students as they bring a lot with them from dancing (footwork and balance especially).

Though I am stopping Muay Thai now, the training times coincide with my group lessons at the dance studio... and I never was very good at martial arts. Funny how being tall and slender has always been my crux and now I find myself somewhere where everyone is thrilled with my body (187cm 62kilos I think thats 6'2'' 137 pounds) and I am feeling bad at the fact that I am actually trying to put on weight so a simple kick in the stomach wont send me flying across the room.

The greatest thing though was when I told my dance instructor what my Muay Thai teacher was asking me to work on more and the exercises he wanted me to do outside training and telling him in turn what she asked of me for dancing. They found they had so much in common ;)

regarding your 2nd question - you are right. Engineers and the likes tend to have a very analytical mind. I too have been dancing for 2-3 years now. I come from an engineering background and find ballroom dancing very challenging.

I agree with the mental challenge and the ability to handle the mental challenge. Figuring out the other dancers, determining what movements can be executed in a situation and figuring out the split second to execute a lead based on the ladies position and movement is a real mental challenge.

Sometimes for me, the most satisfying dances are not the ones were we have lot of room and dance at our best, but when we manage to dance well in a difficult situation. It's like winning a challenging game.

Hi Al

I am so glad you initiated the comparison between the martial arts and ballroom dancing. It is just I want to study Capoeira (hey, this is fighting & dancing at the same time), and I was wondering whether my dance practice will help me to master it quicker. Information here confirms that it will. I also think that flexibility & balance learnt in any martial arts gives a very good foundation for beautiful dancing.

Regards

I take Pilates classes,run, light weights about 3 or 4 times a week--plus Yoga about 3 times a week on my own. I have a closet full of all kinds of syllabus dance tapes that I use with a teacher--dance partner once a week. Plus, I have taken ballet for 6 years once a week or so, just to work on posture. So, I guess I am an engineer-analytical type.

I have been ballroom dancing for about 7 years, competed with a A. partner for 3 yrs. and some pro am. I find ballroom, especially Int. Std. and Latin hard and requires lots of thinking and work. I am always looking for short cuts or overlapping activities that help my ballroom. Most of the teachers that I have seen just teach and nothing else--including not taking lessons from higher pros.

Haven't tried Martial Arts but it seems like a good supplement. Some of the friends that have done it have progressed faster than most.

I took Argentine Tango for awhile and appeared to really mess up my hard earned posture and movement for ballroom tango.

Anonymous said: I took Argentine Tango for awhile and appeared to really mess up my hard earned posture and movement for ballroom tango.

Could more people comment on this? Will Argentine Tango ruin the posture? Or can one separate the postures?

I too, have been in martial arts most of my life. I noticed the ability to adapt to certain positions much easier than other people as well. I base my theory off the martial artist's ability to maintain balance, mind body coordination and one leg strength. By that I mean a martial artist is more apt to be able to stand on one leg while moving the other around than a normal person. This makes the transition much smoother for me.

I must agree with the others on the educated person(s) answers.

Al. In our final of Dancing with the Stars. We have the former undisputed World Light Weight Boxing Champion
Kostya Tszu. For somebody who never danced before he is quite remarkable and deserves to be in the final. There is no Salsa but his teacher is the Luda Kroitor current World Salsa Champion. If there ia a world title for skipping he would be there also. From this I would say that any sport which has quick thinking and fast footwork does help. These dancers have performed all the Latin and Modern Dances 10 all told. And for the very first time one American Smooth Dance thrown in. I'll mention the Kostya skipping again. I was dumbstuck with what he did with a rope.

My theory is ballroom dancing attracts the musically inclined. And the mathematically inclined seem to be musically inclined as well.

I also believe (with no supporting evidence) that the artistically inclined (as in painting and drawing) tend not to be musically inclined. In fact I have never known anyone to be really talented in music and talented in the graphic arts. This may only be a consequence of my very limited experience