Dancing into a New Year in 2021

With nowhere to go, entertaining ourselves at home became the norm. Some took solace in baking banana bread, others mastered the technique of sourdough, some of us just ate both.
Knitting, painting and learning Mandarin Chinese occupied us for a few hours, but it was music and the urge to dance it all out that kept us movers and shakers sane. Now more than ever we are looking forward to dancing our way into a new year. We have put together some
advice and tips on how to get your movement back over the winter months and to prepare you for coming back to studio.

The physical benefits of dancing, we all know, include:
– improved condition of your heart and lungs.
– increased aerobic fitness.
– improved muscle tone and strength.
– weight management.
– stronger bones.
– better coordination, agility and flexibility.

The mental benefits of dance have become more obvious to us all since Covid entered our
lives.

Dance helps to reduce stress and increases levels of the feel-good hormone serotonin. In other words, dancing makes us happy both inside and out.

As we prepare to go back to the dance studio in the (hopefully) not too distant future, we wanted to put together a few tips to get us back into the groove:

Warming up:

Dancing is an exercise and needs a proper warm up routine. We need to get our heart rate up and blood flowing to our muscles. This helps us to prepare our body for increased activity and reduce the risk of injury. The warm up phase actually begins with aerobic movement but many dancers like to start more gently. If you just want to “get the kinks out,” here are some alternatives to static stretching that will do the trick:

-Roll down the spine
– Isolations like head, shoulder, rib, pelvis, wrist and ankle rolls

To increase your body temperature before dancing, start with 5 to 10 minutes doing any of the following:

– Brisk walking
– Jumping jacks or small jumps in place
– Light jogging, marching, prancing, skipping (around the room or in place)
– Lunges across the floor
– Push Ups
Find what works for you and make it part of your daily routine. We can’t wait to welcome
you all back in studio and of course feel free to contact us anytime!