Having a ball
WANT to cut down on stress? Need to lose weight? Could use a little cheer and a firm touch as you enter the last decades of your life? Try ballroom dancing. “It’s a great cardiopulmonary activity,” dance teacher June Rawls says with the zeal of a missionary, “and it’s also a good way to socialise. The physical is very important, but so is the mental, and when you come here for an hour, you leave the world behind.”
Bijoux Dance Centre is a 186sqm mirrorlined dance hall in Miami, the United States, tucked among commercial warehouses that have more to do with heavy equipment than intricate dance moves. Yet every Tuesday at 8pm, about 20 middle-age and older Miamians gather there to waltz, fox trot and rumba. Or, at least they try to.
Rawls, 65, has been offering a ballroom dance class for the 55-and-older set since the beginning of the year. When she retired as a teacher, she decided her next career would be promoting her hobby and passion. As a lifetime ballroom dancer herself, she’s a firm believer in the gospel of movement, particularly for her generation of baby boomers.
Speak to her for any length of time and she will gladly enumerate the many benefits. She’ll even cite a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2003 that found dancing (as well as playing board games and musical instruments) might reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.
Not that Rawls’ students need any convincing. The troupe that converges on Bijoux weekly may not win any contests, but they’re delighted to swing and sway with each other – even if that means a few stumbles, toe stomps and embarrassed giggles.
Ballroom dancing has become fashionable again in part thanks to the popularity of ABC’S Dancing With The Stars. Dance studios, from the Arthur Murray mainstays to a University of Miami club, report a hike in interest.
But Bijoux owner and long-time dance instructor Nestor Nelson says the TV show may give some people a false impression of ballroom dancing. He tells his students to forget the lifts and dips and theatrical jumps
“I used to do that, sure, but at our age you can still dance without any of that.”
Nelson, 63, should know;he has been teaching dance for about four decades.
Bill Jackson, 64, began taking ballroom dancing classes two years ago. When he found out about Rawls’ Tuesday night course aimed at people of a certain age, the retired college professor immediately signed up.
“Ballroom dancing was something I always wanted to do,” Jackson says. “It was on my bucket list.”
Well, he can check that off now. He is slowly mastering the fine art – and it is an art. “I wanted to learn to dance the right way – other than having a drink and jumping up and down,” he quips.
Jackson has always maintained an active lifestyle. When he was younger, he scuba dived and played football and baseball. Dancing is a bit more sedate, but no less rigorous. And “when you close the door here, you’re in another world. You’re nourished,” he says.
Kimberly Kiddoo Jarrett, 62, agrees. The Coral Gables, Florida, psychologist signed up at Bijoux three months ago. Although she runs, swims and works out in the gym, she wanted to add a different type of exercise to her repertoire.
Jarrett admits she’s struggling on the floor and still has trouble recognising the tempo of a song and remembering the dance steps that go along with it. “But if you hit the sweet spot, like in tennis, you take flight. You’re one with the music,” she says.
Sometimes, though, it’s more than music that calls to the dancers. Edna de la Cruz, 54, wanted to make new friends outside her nursing job, so she began taking Monday night classes at St Matthew Episcopal Church near South Miami. Dancers there alerted her to the new class Rawls was offering for boomers like her, so she added Bijoux to her dance card.
“I wish I had started before,” she says. “I love everything about it. You interact with others and also get your physical exercise.”
Bob Benchley, 61, and his fiancee Mareni Starre, 60, met at a ballroom dance class about five years ago. “We both loved to dance, we had that in common from the very beginning,” he says.
Today they dance three or four times a week, including Tuesday night at the Baby Boomer class and the occasional private lessons at Bijoux.
Rawls and Nelson, who founded the Bijoux Dance Centre in 2005, say it’s not uncommon for beginneres to get hooked after a couple of lessons. Rawls took her first class in 1972, when she was a kindergarten teacher and all of 22 years old. She began taking as many classes as she could afford and introduced her ex-husband to the form as well. Eventually she would go on to compete in contests.
But it’s not competition that motivates her students. “It’s emotionally rewarding,” she says.
Not to mention it’s less expensive than, say, golf or tennis. She charges US$5 (RM15.50) for the hour-long baby boomer class.
Benchley, a freelance writer, points out that dancing is also more useful than other hobbies people take up.
“It’s cheaper than belonging to a fancy health club. And you’re not going to do push-ups at someone’s wedding.” – Mcclatchy-tribune Information Services