Article Source ​ There are so many reasons why dancing is good for you, it's hard to know where to begin. It's great fun and good for the body as well as the mind. Besides being a good form of exercise and having a truly positive impact on our health, a recent study actually showed that it also makes us smarter (something to do with remembering the dance steps, thus exercising the brain). ​ So, why is it good for you to dance? Here are the top 10 reasons: ​ 1 - Great way to exercise and stay fit Dance is a great way to stay in shape. If you don't like the gym, dancing can bring fun back into the exercise. ​ 2 - Burn calories and lose weight Dancing is all about moving your body and moving your body is a great way to burn calories. How many will you burn depends on how vigorously you dance. In an one-hour session you can burn from 250 to 400 calories. Yes, losing weight can be fun and enjoyable. ​ 3 - Improved health Dance can effectively promote good health by improving cardiovascular fitness, strengthening the muscles, increasing circulation, decreasing blood pressure, lowering the risk of coronary heart disease, reducing stress, and many other positive benefits. ​ 4 - Greater Coordination Great for improving control over your body, timing and coordination skills. You will learn how to move with grace and poise. ​ 5 - Good for bones and joints Dance is a weight-bearing activity, meaning it's great for your bones. Weight-bearing exercises has been proven to increase bone density and help reduce the risk of osteoporosis. ​ 6 - Build confidence Dance builds confidence by giving you a sense of success and achievement when you master it. ​ 7 - Great way to meet new people Dancing provides a natural icebreaker and is a great way to meet new people and make new friends. ​ 8 - Lifts your mood Any exercise can raise your spirits by raising the endorphins or so called feel-good chemicals. This can lighten your mood and reduce the risk of depression. ​ 9 - Good for your Mind Dancing will keep your mind active. It will improve circulation to the brain and help stimulate the memory by remembering all the steps. Great mental exercise. ​ 10 - Improved overall well-being Dance has an outstanding positive effect on both physical and psychological well-being. ​ There you have it - 10 reasons why you should dance. There are, of course, many more benefits of dancing, but we have to stop somewhere. ​ Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Alexander_Holt/124209

"Dance — and physical activity — should have the same status in schools as math, science and language. Psst: it may even help raise test scores, says Sir Ken Robinson." Read the full article here.

"It's the age-old debate: Is dance a sport? The answer is, without a doubt, YES. Of course, dance is much more than just a sport. But when we get down to the logistics of it all, it's impossible not to recognize it as the athletic endeavor it is. Here are 10 reasons why dance absolutely qualifies as a sport." Read the full article here.

Everyone knows that training is the cornerstone of a successful career in dance. But as a dance educator, I also take comfort in the fact that high-quality dance training helps shape students into genuinely good people (in addition to creating future artists, which is a wonderful goal in itself.) These are the lessons dance teaches that help make students into better humans: Improvement Takes Commitment Over Time In my tap courses at Cal State University, sometimes students are shocked when they can't learn something quickly. In today's world, we're used to getting fast results. You need an answer—Google it. You need to talk to someone—text them. The cooking channel wants your dinner to be easy, the physical trainer wants your workout to be five minutes, Rosetta Stone can have you speaking Mandarin in an hour. But dancers know that even when you have aptitude, there's no substitute for hard work and perseverance. Acquiring any skill of value takes time. It's the way we learn to dance, to play music, to speak a foreign language, to succeed academically, to change social norms and to break down barriers. We lace up our shoes day after day, week after week, year after year and learn how to dance. Commitment over time is the very antithesis of modern living and is at the core of dance training. "Failures" Are Opportunities At the foundation where I work that gives low-cost dance lessons to underserved kids, we do assessments to place students in the appropriate level. Every year we remind the kids that in academic schooling not moving up to the next grade every year is seen as a failure but in the arts, it is normal to stay in a level for multiple years as you perfect your skills. Every year there are kids who don't move up and are upset. But they soon realize that moving to the next level comes with mastery of a certain set of techniques and mastering those techniques takes hard work. You Don't Get Something For Nothing In dance class you are only entitled to what you earn. And what you earn doesn't even necessarily have to be perfect dance technique. Some of my favorite students over the years have not been the best tap dancers but they've been magnificent students. They show up on time and are prepared, they work hard, they sweat and they persevere. Maybe they don't become the most skilled dancer in the room, but they often reap the most benefits. And here is the beautiful part: those kids have worked hard exactly because they don't have a feeling of entitlement. We Are Accountable to Ourselves and Each Other At the foundation where I teach we have a very strict wardrobe policy. Any student not properly dressed sits and observes class that day. It may seem overly harsh, but there's wisdom behind it. There might be a time that a dancer or their family forgets the uniform, but it doesn't happen again. Over time, as the dancer matures, they learn to be responsible without the parents being involved, and you no longer hear "My mom forgot my shoes." Dancers also become responsible for learning the material. They learn that the teacher is not a puppet master who can make a body do the correct thing; it is up to the student to learn the material. They learn that they are responsible to the rest of the class, and that being absent lets down their classmates because other dancers can't get in a good practice without everyone in the room. Missing class, coming to class unprepared or not focusing on executing the steps properly, they learn, affects everyone else. Cutting Corners Isn't An Option My younger students will invariably ask me when they can move to the next level and my answer is very frustrating to them, I'm sure. I say that there is really only one level: beginning. If everything goes well in the beginning, improvement will flow. If any corners are cut, it will be hard to become advanced. I distill advanced steps down to the same words I use for a person's first tap lesson. Anyone with an aptitude for dance who excelled a little too quickly will tell you that they eventually go back to fill in the gaps. What Other People Think Doesn't Matter In a world that is so concerned about appearances, dance teaches you that what others think is not the most important thing. I try to explain to my young students that they can't let their experiences get derailed by what they think someone else may be thinking. If they stand front and center in class and make a mistake, what does it matter what another student thinks? Stand in front, get that correction, improve because you want to and let someone else's view be damned. Let those too lethargic to meet their potential stand in the back and watch you strive to be better. If you can't do it today, there is always next class and you are already on the way because you have begun. This article was originally posted on Dancemagzine.com