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.
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.
Just asking because a lot of martial arts forms require remembering dozens or even hundreds of specific movements in a specific order.
Not personally, but I have a rough idea by now about who knows what out there.
This looks like a good start to me:
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.
That means I'm golden with skateboarding as well; fantastic.
Not saying no brain plasticity work takes place, but dance has an active emotional element, a tenderness, which i dont see sports really fulfilling.
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.
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).
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?
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.
And entirely ungrounded.
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.
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.
Sadly, the feeling can be fickle mistress and hard to tap into.
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.
"...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.
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.
(as the lakers-magic scrimmage game is on in the background... thank goodness the nba is back at least)