Super Bowl, Declining Youth Team Sports, Underscore Decline in Physical Activity

Posted on February 3, 2014 by WildBill

The gigantic marketing power of the NFL has made the Super Bowl more important than many of our national holidays, but only a few dozen players are getting exercise. And even the combined roster of the entire NFL is a drop in the bucket compared with the millions of fans sitting and watching in stadiums and on TV (and eating too much often-unhealthy food). Meanwhile, according to the Wall Street Journal, many youth team sports are declining, as the youths prefer to spend increasing amounts of time with videogames and social networking (and watch their waistlines grow). Both adults and youths would be better off doing some—any!—form of dancing than just sitting. And unlike football, baseball, or other pros, they can dance their entire life. Interestingly, after all the hype leading up to the Super Bowl, the uneven score (and other missteps that infuriated many fans) may actually mark the end of the growth in the NFL.

UCWDC Worlds Championships: Best Country Western Dancers

Posted on January 22, 2014 by WildBill

Wilddancer attended the annual US country western dancing championships in Nashville (“Music City”) during the week starting with New Year’s Eve, where hundreds of slender, fit people vied for top honors in eight different couples dances plus line dances and team dances. These folks were all having fun and staying in shape at the same time.

Who Will Keep Their New Year’s Resolutions to Take Dance Lessons?

Posted on January 14, 2014 by WildBill

There are a few perennial New Year’s Resolutions that are made, and usually broken. While social dancing, per se, does not appear in most popular top ten resolutions, it likely is a good possibility for at least two of the top ten—getting fit and learning something new. And it should be a particularly good choice because it is a lot less demanding than many of the alternatives.

Any Dancing is Better than No Dancing

Posted on January 3, 2014 by WildBill

As part of its continued promotional campaign, YouTube did its own “12 Days of Christmas” video, which included a “9 Dancers dancing” verse with two options: Prancercise: A Fitness Workout, and Evolution of [Football] End Zone Dancing. The former was 5 minutes of a slender, fit woman with ankle weights hopping through a park. You can see that this is good exercise.

The latter was two slender, fit guys in football jerseys—actually Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake– hamming it up. Some exercise for those two. But end zone dancing in football gear is done by a tiny fraction of folks, while the vast majority are sitting and watching TV. No exercise here.

Senior Olympics Winner Trains by Dancing

Posted on August 22, 2013 by WildBill

One of the good things about getting older is that your preparation for athletic competition can be more fun. According to The Wall Street Journal the nearly-99-year-old Jim Kales skipped doing most of the track and field events he specialized in, opting instead to dance three to five nights a week (three hours each session), play tennis six days a week, and bowl occasionally. His dancing expertise includes swing, cha cha, salsa, rumba, bolero, tango, foxtrot, quickstep, waltz, and Texas two-step. This year he won two gold medals, three silver medals, and a bronze medal.

Dancing Can Rescue People Who Sit Too Much and Negate Exercise Benefits

Posted on July 26, 2013 by WildBill

Even if you spend seven or more hours per week in moderate-to-vigorous exercise, if you sit in front of your TV too much of the rest of your waking hours your health may be compromised, according to a study published in 2012 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and reported in the Wall Street Journal [3/12/13]. The American Heart Association and other experts say that you should aim for 10,000 steps per day, but according to a 2010 study published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, Americans only averaged about 5,100 steps. We at Wilddancer strongly urge people to make up some of the average 4,900 steps deficit by dancing, which most people would likely agree is more fun than walking on a treadmill or step machine or riding an exercycle.
There is considerable regional variation in people’s step counts, from a high of about 6,500 in fitness-conscious/ outdoors-oriented Colorado to states like Arkansas and Tennessee with a low of about 4,500. But obesity levels (and life expectancy) correlate pretty closely with these counts. The latest data come from the journal Population Health Metrics, published by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. The county-by-county analysis shows that California’s San Francisco had the lowest 2009 obesity rates, 20.2% for women and 17.8% for men, compared with the women’s national average of about 36% and a high of nearly 60% in some parts of Mississippi. Marin County women expect to live to 85, compared with the national average of 80 and 12 years longer than in Perry, KY. (These figures are averages, and factors like age, education, income, and race can cause significant differences.) The most telling figures, though are that the poorer-performing counties and states have life expectancies than many third-world countries with much worse food, water, nutrition, and medical care.

What’s Baseball Got to do with Dancing?

Posted on July 18, 2013 by WildBill

Actually, a lot! Baseball, football, basketball, and other sports are popular to play AND to watch. Thanks to continuing admiration of athletic heroes, extensive media coverage (some of it about the seamier aspects like performance drug abuse), and loads of advertising dollars, they have continued to attract more and more fans. But those fans would be a lot better off if they spent more time playing, and less watching (and often over-eating while they watch). They would be better off skipping a few games and spending some time on the dance floor.
Even for the players, there isn’t that much action. The Wall Street Journal [7/12/13] measured how much action occurs in a major league baseball game, and learned that 90% of the game is spent standing around. Major league football is even worse.
But in recent years baseball teams have learned what dancers have always known: Good songs with good tempos make the experience more productive and more fun. Actually, the practice of playing a special theme tune as each batter takes the plate started 20 years ago, and continues to be refined, according to the San Jose Mercury News [6/11/13]. Teams and players swear that using the right tunes (which might change over time depending on the players’ moods or batting averages) can boost their performances.
Baseball has been blessed since 1908 with the theme song “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”, which is actually played at a comfortable tempo for a Viennese (fast) waltz … though you likely won’t find many baseball fans who can waltz that fast.

July 27 is National Dance Day!

Posted on July 5, 2013 by WildBill

Who knew???This is a big deal in the dancing community, and needs to get more publicity. Wilddancer (http://wilddancer.com/) believes that ANY dancing is better than no dancing. According to the Dizzy Feet Foundation: ” Launched in 2010 by reality TV show “So You Think You Can Dance” co-creator and Dizzy Feet Foundation co-president Nigel Lythgoe, National Dance Day (NDD) is an annual celebration that takes place on the last Saturday in July. This grassroots campaign encourages Americans to embrace dance as a fun and positive way to maintain good health and combat obesity. NDD achieved national recognition when Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), a long-time proponent of healthy lifestyles, announced at a press conference on July 31, 2010, in Washington, D.C., that she was introducing a congressional resolution declaring the last Saturday in July to be the country’s official National Dance Day.” Even though NDD is not a household word across America, there is lots going on. There are two dance routines posted on the Dizzy Feet site—Everybody Dance and Hip-Hop Master Class 2013. Local organizations and teachers are planning flash mobs. Stanford’s Richard Powers and several vintage dance experts are putting on the Santa Clara Vintage Dance Weekend beginning July 26. And much, much more across the country.

New Waltzing Book by Powers & Enge

Posted on May 10, 2013 by WildBill

Teaming up with Nick Enge, Stanford’s Richard Powers has extended his already wide-ranging coverage of new and old variations on the waltz to extol the benefits to one’s living style in “Waltzing: A Manual for Dancing and Living”. All ballroom dancers are familiar with the slow waltz, and more advanced ones with the fast Viennese waltz, but far fewer with the new cross-step waltz, and likely fewer with the older mazurka and hambo. And the truly adventuresome waltz geeks will want to try the five-step waltz and seven-step waltz, naturally in 5/4 time and 7/4 time respectively. Likewise, the authors have broadened the list the usual benefits of music, physical activity, and touch to include such aspects of living itself as social relationships, smiling/laughing, and giving. In keeping with the times, the publication of the book was crowd-funded. Sign up for a pre-publication copy ($20) here. Copies should be available in early June.

Good Tempos for Exercising, Dancing

Posted on April 5, 2013 by WildBill

Quoting Costas Karageorghis, deputy head of research at the School of Sport and Education at London’s Brunel University, the April 2, 2013 Wall Street Journal says workout music between 125 and 140 beats per minute is best to boost stamina and motivation. Of the 17 couples dances that Wilddancer covers today, for which the standards federations or experienced teachers give tempo ranges, 7 of them are in this range, 6 are slower, and 4 are faster. Given our focus, we’d say that all 17 are fine for motivation because they are fun. Officially slower ones such as the (slow) waltz and the bolero are more romantic than fitness-producing, but samba, hustle, and polka are energetic … at least as measured by the sweating and shortness of breath they produce. And the faster ones–quick step, Viennese waltz, salsa/mambo, and country two-step generally use songs of shorter duration (except many salsas are long … maybe a measure of macho for male dancers).