lotus

previous page: 4.8 When and where does Championship Ballroom Dancing air?
  
page up: Dance FAQ
  
next page: 4.10 What can be done about perspiration?

4.9 Is dancing good for my health?




Description

This article is from the Dance FAQ, by eijkhout@jacobi.math.ucla.edu (Victor Eijkhout) with numerous contributions by others.

4.9 Is dancing good for my health?




First the DISCLAIMER: don't take the following for gospel. If you have
medical questions, go talk to a physician.



**Overuse**


While dancing, you use your knees and ankles a lot more than in daily
life. Overuse can be a real problem. Take it easy, do stretches, ice
your joints if they give you problems.



**Losing weight**


Reports on this are contradictory. It is definitely true that dancing
is an athletic activity. On the other hand, it is very much stop and
go, so you may not reach the level of constant exertion needed for
weight loss.



**Injuries**


Apart from simple overuse injuries, there are the injuries that one
dance partner sustains because of the other.


Ladies, consider the potential harm that rings, long nails, and other
seemingly innocent accesories can inflict.


Gentlemen, jerky movements can hurt your follower.


Then there is the subject of aerials, lifts and drops. The concensus
seems to be pretty much that you shouldn't do those socially. If you
have plenty of space on the floor and there is no risk to other
dancers, then you only do them if you and your partner have rehearsed
them, or if you have agreed in advance to do such potentially dangerous
moves. Never spring such moves on unsuspecting partners. Do you really
want to risk dropping a woman and find out only after the fact that she
was pregnant or recovering from surgery?


Here is some more about such injuries:


Sometime during my teaching semester at the University of Utah,
information is presented to the dance students in my class addressing
lifts and drops, and more importantly in social settings:


Having accomplished over 100 hours of research on skull fractures,
especially avoidable ones, the bottom line is this: It only takes 33
ft pounds of energy to fracture a skull, or approximately 398 inch
pounds of energy (1). Skull fractures, many times go untreated and
also many times result in a fatality several days later. Sometimes,
however the death is instant. You determine how much energy to expect
from a fall:


Take your own height in inches. Multiply your height by the distance
in inches it would take to fall to the ground. If you are lifted off of
the ground, multiply the height of this lift by your weight when you
impact the non-yielding floor and you will find you have more than
ample energy to fracture your skull. As a medium sized individual,
that figure for me is 13,000 inch pounds just falling to the ground and
striking my head - let alone being lifted off of the ground by someone
who is probably NOT formally trained in this precise art, but who also
is probably not aware that ACROBATICS of this nature are usually taught
by performing arts professionals with spotters and mats. (The same as
with any other gymnastic type move).


The powerfully sad part to this situation is that deaths by dancing
ARE not only unacceptable but preventable. My exact words to my
students are : Dancing is a sport, an art form, energetic and enjoyable
- it is not supposed to be risky, nor dangerous. Lifts and drops
should be left to the professionals in cabaret settings, competitions
etc., where the risk to the participants are known to them, and there
is NO risk to other dancers on the same floor. The Appels, the Savoys
are marvelous to watch because they have perfected this wonderful art
form of lifts and drops. They are the professionals !


When club owners refuse to enforce a no lifts/drops policy, we need to
express our dissatisfaction with this and leave. More nightclub owners
need to own up to their responsibility in not allowing lifts and drops
on their social dance floors. Unfortunately, those that do not comply
will find more and more litigatious survivors out there that will
force them to do just that or be looking for a real job when the
lawsuit hits. . In all gymnastic events I've seen, the gymnasts are
surrounded by mats to protect them from non-yielding surfaces and skull
fractures. **** There is logic here.****


Leave the lifts and drops for cabaret, performances, etc and
instructors should adamately discourage their students from trying to
accomplish that which can be so deadly. My condolences to the families
of those victims of such senseless ego building.


(1) OSHA study March 1978. Dept of Industrial
and Operations Engineering. College of Engineering
The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. "An erconomic
basis for recommendations pertaining to specific
sections of OSHA standard, 29 CFR Part 1910
Subpart D - - Walking and working surfaces.



STUDIES ON SKULL FRACTURE WITH PARTICULAR
REFERENCE TO ENGINEERING FACTORS
American Journal of Surgery, November 1949
E.S. Gurdjian, M.D., John E. Webster M.D. and
Herbert R. Lissner M.S. Detroit Michigan



ENGINEERING ASPECTS OF FRACTURES
Herbert R. Lissner, M.S. and F. Gaynor Evans, PhD.



X RATED PLAYGROUNDS
Pediatrics Vol 64 No.6 December 1979
pg 961-963



THE MORTALITY OF CHILDHOOD FALLS
The Journal of Trauma Vol 29 No 9 1989
John R. Hall, M.D., Hernan M. Reyes, M.D.,
Maria Horvat, B.S., Janet L. Meller, M.D.
and Robert Stein, M.D.


After researching the fragile nature of our skelatal features, I've
become more safety minded and wish more of our students would
understand the necessity of using good sense in dancing. [Pam Genovesi,
Utah Dance Challenge 103471.1321@compuserve.com ]

 

Continue to:













TOP
previous page: 4.8 When and where does Championship Ballroom Dancing air?
  
page up: Dance FAQ
  
next page: 4.10 What can be done about perspiration?