[skookum]

If the postulated basis is correct and acts on a continuum, it wouldn't be a huge leap to think that doing physically challenging outdoor sports that require a high degree of reaction to constantly-changing surroundings would be even better than dancing. Sounds like a case for skiing, mountain biking, climbing, surfing, whitewater kayaking, etc.

[codr7]

Don't forget martial arts. I've had good experiences from teaching Wing Chun to students who practiced dancing and/or (somewhat surprisingly in this context) Yoga before. What dancing and martial arts have in common more than the rest of your list is creativity and two minds working together.

[mtalantikite]

Absolutely agree. Before everything shut down I used to practice yoga at a school here in Brooklyn that was very physically demanding and attracted a lot of more advanced practitioners. Most of the advanced students had long histories with dance or martial arts (or both). All of these arts teach increased awareness both physically and mentally, challenges your proprioception, and surprises the body with creative movement.

I personally had been looking for a place to practice a martial art to add to my yoga practice, but then covid hit and the city shut down. Hopefully after all this is over though.

[codr7]

I'm far from objective, having practiced and taught Wing Chun for more than 25 years; but from the martial arts I've been in contact with, WC excels at teaching physical and emotional awareness.

Cuts both ways, I've been looking for oppurtunities to teach but people are so nervous and spinning now that it's mostly impossible to reach through.

[nickjj]

I didn't read the paper in depth. Is the benefit of dancing from having to remember a series of steps in addition to being physically active?

Just asking because a lot of martial arts forms require remembering dozens or even hundreds of specific movements in a specific order.

[mtalantikite]

Well if you know anyone in New York I’d be happy to take a recommendation for a WC teacher. I tested positive for the sars-cov-2 antibodies already, so I’m not as worried about being around people at this point of the pandemic (within reason).

[codr7]

Go for it!

Not personally, but I have a rough idea by now about who knows what out there.

This looks like a good start to me:

https://sifuchowwingchun.com/

[mtalantikite]

Thanks!

[cycomanic]

I agree with you, in my experience teaching salsa students who had martial arts experience had very good body control and often did much better than others.

However one aspect that is missing in martial arts or yoga is musicality, i.e. in addition to synchronising with your own body and a partner you also need to synchronise to the music. This is one aspect that some of the aforementioned students struggled with, if they did not have previous other experience with music.

[Priem19]

“In our view, the more pronounced effects of dancing on the human brain can be explained by the fact that dancing promotes a large number of processes at the same time: spatial orientation, movement coordination, balance, endurance, interaction and communication.”

That means I'm golden with skateboarding as well; fantastic.

[burntoutfire]

Sound like soccer and other teams sports are also perfect. Sucks that I'm terrible at pretty much all of them...

[sandworm101]

If we are looking at brain effects, the advantages must outweigh the risk of brain injury inherent to the activity. Playing football might help brain plasticity but at considerable risk of brain injuries. Most all the team sports (soccer, lacrosse, hockey etc) have varying degrees of associated brain injury risks, but not dance or other non-competitive sports. At lease when dance (or rock climbing) is competitive the competitors do not share a movement space and so don't knock heads.

[burntoutfire]

There's always volleyball, where competitors don't share the playing space.

[cjbenedikt]

How about gymnastics?

[dbcurtis]

absolutely. Physical therapists often prescribe gymnastics for kids after they “graduate” from more intense PT.

[idclip]

I would disagree, dance requires an intimate letting go, while sports is a more mechanical shutting down. Dance is a sort of trance, and requires alot of letting go. Sports has a goal, has focus, its very “in the head” (exceptions do exist ala japanese arts, martial arts comes close but not as it is largely implemented in the west.)

Not saying no brain plasticity work takes place, but dance has an active emotional element, a tenderness, which i dont see sports really fulfilling.

[balfirevic]

> I would disagree, dance requires an intimate letting go, while sports is a more mechanical shutting down. Dance is a sort of trance, and requires alot of letting go.

This is very dance specific (almost anything you can say about dancing will be - since different dances can be as different from each other as curling is from powerlifting).

I've been dancing Argentine tango for many years (have also taught it) and, for me, it's very focused and very "in the head" activity. No one could tell from outside, though.

[cutler]

I took-up Argentine Tango after several years of a debillitating back and neurological problem. I'd been going to physios, chiropracters and an Alexander therapist for a long time with no results but as soon as I began to learn tango, along with a regular exercise programme, the problem cleared-up. Even better, my new tango social scene soon became a major source of web dev clients.

[balfirevic]

I'm so glad every time I hear about someone discovering and enjoying tango!

Nice to hear that tango helped your back, although I'm a bit surprised as I've found that I need a some back exercise to relieve the stiffness that I get from dancing (although this happens only when dancing for multiple hours a day for several days, as you do on festivals).

[idclip]

Like you, my judgement was very subjective .. the dancing i had in mind was “for fun”, rather than a performance.

How do you feel about the difference between dancing to have fun and dancing to preform or teach? How big is that difference would you say?

[balfirevic]

I dance social tango (as do the vast majority of tango dancers) so, except for teaching, all of my dancing is "for fun".

For some background - tango is an improvisational partner dance (no choreography), danced together with other couples on the floor (it can get very crowded). One person - usually the man - leads, the other person - usually the woman - follows (I'm a leader).

Teaching is pretty different from just dancing for fun. Not so much in that there is less thinking but because I think of different things. When dancing for fun, I mostly think about:

1) The music and how to interpret it by leading certain steps or moves and by varying the speed and the energy of our dancing.

2) The position of my partner - her orientation and offset in relation to me, which leg does she currently have her weight on, the amount of momentum in her movement, etc.

3) The emotion of my partner - does the embrace feel comfortable to her, is she barely keeping up with the steps, is she in the mood for something more technically demanding or does she seem happy dancing simple musically appropriate stuff in a snugly embrace.

4) The situation on the dance floor - how crowded it is, is there any available space that I can move into, where is my back turned to, so that I can see what's going on around me and protect my partner from rubbing against other dancers (these two are sometimes in opposition, so you often need to do a lot of turns).

There is no talking during the dance - all of this is felt through the embrace.

When teaching, the focus shifts:

1) I need to consciously think and verbalize my own movement in much more detail, as that part is somewhat automatic when I dance socially but needs to be explained now.

2) There is much more focus on what my partner did wrong, instead of seamlessly adjusting the dance to her "mistakes".

3) I don't put that much focus on interpreting the music creatively, but instead try to bring the concept I'm currently teaching into the dance in several different ways.

As for performances, I barely did any (only demonstration dances after the class, and absolutely no competition performances) so I can only say that, due to all eyes being on me and my partner, the thinking intensifies :) But ideally it wouldn't, except for purposefully putting the lesson material into the dance - it is a demonstration after all.

I also want to point out that tango is very personal and other people might not approach it in as analytical fashion. Especially the followers - some of this stuff does not apply to them at all and their focus is elsewhere.

[stinos]

Dance is a sort of trance, and requires alot of letting go

I know what you mean, also when you talk about that certain tenderness, I have experienced that, and I can get that same thing out of sports like climbing/bmx/snowboarding. Take climbing: slowly reaching for a difficult hold you've never touched before, where you carefully lay your fingers on it, just touching it at first to make sure it'll actually hold you - and if not a fall an injury is certainly in there - while the rest of your body is at one wth the rock. That's basically the same for me. Or take snowboarding, just surfing a gentle slope, all alone while a snow shower slowly becomes heavier. There's no real goal there, focus fades, it's just you going with the flow. And getting that trance-like feeling really only works if you let go of certain natural fears.

[screye]

A well executed boulder can often seem indistinguishable from dance. So many sports have a natural flow and tempo (the zone), that once you tap into, you really do feel one with the sport.

Sadly, the feeling can be fickle mistress and hard to tap into.

[spopejoy]

The trance like aspects aren't really what it's about with dance. Sports/martial arts/yogas are great, but the whole point of TFA is that dance is different. The others have all sorts of strengths, so it's a little puzzling to me why the argument would be made "yeah but sports too!" Nobody's criticizing sports here, and the implicit argument here that "naah, dance can't be special" is not based on fact and kind of off-topic.

Having studied a little modern dance, being a sw dev and bicycler, lifelong musician, and a pilates fanatic -- dance absolutely has more for the brain/body/emotional/spiritual connection. It's kind of the whole deal and it is unique this way.

[idclip]

I can imagine sports tapping into that kind of potential .. i get you

[tetris11]

Depends how you sport. In London, my daily 15km cycle to work would have me constantly starting and stopping, sprinting small hills, dodging tourists, racing fellow bikers, brushing cars, and basically being alert at all times for any and all dangers (this was before the mass cycle lanes). There was a weird adrenaline induced rhythm to it that would grant me both physical and mental relief everyday that I had somehow made it to work without dying.

Since I've moved to the countryside; boring endless gentle hills, breathtakingly stunning scenery that offers no challenges, and my brain basically goes into autopilot. I get to work feeling physically fulfilled but mentally drained.

[thesz]

https://books.google.ru/books?id=V8_Saizq_88C&pg=PA119&lpg=P...

"...Pele had scored an unbelievable six goals while in a kind of trance-like state..."

Pele often played in trance-like state, feeling he can get through his opponents.

[wittyreference]

That's very poetic.

And entirely ungrounded.

[pretendscholar]

The expression with respect to sports and thinking: "If you're thinking you're sinking." Has anyone on this site ever actually played a sport long enough to get good at it? Being good at most time sensitive tasks involves entering a flow state. You aren't thinking in the traditional sense.

[ComputerGuru]

One benefit dance has is being low risk, especially for someone that might be in a partially compromised state.

[pizza234]

I'd qualify using "lower" rather than "low". There's actually plenty of injury also in dancing, in particular, to knees and backs.

[screye]

Yeah, I wonder if they compared dancing to highly dynamic (non repetitive) sports, then would the results be different.

Soccer for instance, demands continuous concentration and is as taxing mentally as it is physically, esp. in certain positions. This seems to be similarly true with sports like hockey, basketball, tennis, etc. Not sure how much of it applies to stop-start sports like baseball, cricket and american football.

Climbing requires deliberate control over muscles, breathing, coordination and concentration, in manner that I haven't seen in any physical activity.

That being said, looking at some of the dancers I know, dancing can be incredibly physically taxing on its own.

[clairity]

basketball, in normal times. it's easily as engaging and much more accessible relative to those activities, which all require specialized equipment and significant travel for most people.

(as the lakers-magic scrimmage game is on in the background... thank goodness the nba is back at least)

[corpMaverick]

For what is worth. Boxing (without actually being hit) and climbing is practiced as therapy for Parkinson's patients. Probably because they require a lot emphasis on coordination and body awareness in general.

[d_silin]

I love indoor climbing, really makes physical exercize the opposite of boring.

[biswaroop]

Absolutely. I highly recommend going outdoor climbing: the mental aspect is even more intense. A lot of the time is spent route reading and figuring out safety gear, which are mostly cerebral.

[lowestprimate]

Same here. I tell friends climbing is a bit like random yoga with a bunch of problem solving thrown it. Plus it literally self selects for people who you would put your life into their hands.

[ausbah]

I'd add trail running to that lisyy

[elliekelly]

I was thinking dodgeball, too.