Swing Dynamite Blog
Thoughts and news about swing dancing in Ottawa
Dancing Sharpens the Mind
[ No Comments ] Posted by Mercedes on Oct 20, 2011 in Learning Swing Dance, Nifty Not Totally Swing Related
I recently read this article about “dancing making you smarter”. That title is a little misleading in the sense that what the highlighted research shows are the surprising benefits of dance on the mind. Social dance, as it turns out, sharpens the mind through improving its memory, the ability to think spontaneously and to reduce the risk of developing dementia in later years. The article offers the stats and explains, in comparison with other brain teaser activities and sports, how dancing is different.
Will Learning Other Dances Make Me a Better Swing Dancer?
[ 3 Comments ] Posted by byron on Apr 26, 2011 in Getting Good at Swing Dancing, Learning Swing Dance
I’ve heard this question asked so many times that it’s become a formula:
Will learning X make me better at Y?
Here are some variations I’ve seen:
- Will learning Tango/Belly Dancing/Foxtrot make me a better Blues dancer?
- Will learning Tap/Hip Hop/Kung Fu make me a better Lindy Hopper?
- Will learning Lindy Hop/Ballet/Contemporary/Latin dances make me better at West Coast Swing?
The answer is only partly intuitive. Obviously, practicing X doesn’t make you as good at Y as just practicing Y. Ask any athlete: cross training has both advantages and disadvantages. Learning blues by doing Tango, or vintage jazz by doing hip hop, is like trying to get good at soccer by practicing ballet, sprinting and karate. Sure, you’ll get great balance, learn to kick stuff, and run fast. But it’s NOT SOCCER.
Back when I was playing rugby, when it came to kicking I was at a disadvantage compared to the guys who were also on the soccer team. If I’d started playing soccer, it would have made me better at kicking–obviously kicking is just a much bigger part of soccer than rugby, so at the very least it would mean a lot more kicking practice. But on the other hand, there are major differences–such as soccer balls being shaped very differently from rugby balls. At the end of the day, it would be a better choice to simply practice kicking a rugby ball.
Every dance style has its own aesthetic, and range of motion. Each one has areas of focus that become strengths, and peculiarities that stand out from other dances. So when you learn another dance style, you benefit from expanding the range of movements you’re comfortable doing, but you also train certain habits that won’t work for other dance styles. Here are some examples:
Continue reading “Will Learning Other Dances Make Me a Better Swing Dancer?” »
Creativity Means Destruction
[ 2 Comments ] Posted by byron on Apr 13, 2011 in Learning Swing Dance
There’s a major misconception about creativity. We see it in the business world when people talk about “creative professionals” and maybe that’s why it crops up so much in dance.
The myth? That “creative” means “bursting with ideas.”
The main mistake here is that creativity is linked to the generation of ideas. But that’s not entirely true. Thinking up ideas is the first step, but it’s not the definitive point where creation occurs.
The moment of creation is when you eliminate all possibilities but one.
In other words, the heart of creation is decision. It’s about reduction, not expansion as commonly thought. In that sense, creation requires destruction. Let’s look at the problems that this confusion creates: Continue reading “Creativity Means Destruction” »