"I just don't have time to try dancing." "I'd like to, but where am I going to find money for lessons?" These kinds of objections are what inspired me to create Social Ballroom Dance - so the benefits of dancing could be available to everyone, not just those with money and the means.
In preparation for the site launch this December (more on that later), let's look at some ways dancing can improve our life, health, and productivity.
Transcript:
Hi guys! My name is Ian Crewe. I'm an instructor at the Joy of Dance Centre in Toronto, Ontario, and the creator of Social Ballroom Dance: Where you can learn your dance, at your place, on your schedule.
When I tell people that I am a ballroom dance instructor, usually I hear a response, something like "Ooh dance! I've always wanted to try but..." followed by some objection about either money or time. In other words, most of us want to dance but we either feel we can't afford it or we don't have time.
Two of the biggest advantages of learning from home is that it gets around these two objections: First of all, it's a lot more affordable, and it's a lot more convenient - you can dance anywhere you have an internet connection. So there's no need to spend long hours driving to or from a studio.
There are a lot of other things that ballroom dancing can do for you, especially if your job tends to be looking at a computer screen and sitting down for most of the day. So for those office workers, this video is especially for you.
Now, the first advantage of dance is it gets you out of your chair. You know that study about how important it is to get up and move around every 20 to 30 minutes - you know, to increase blood-flow and reduce eyestrain? Yeah how many of us actually do that? *Crickets* That's what I thought.
Now, when you have something fun like ballroom dancing, that helps to motivate you, to get up, get the blood flowing, have a little more fun, so that you can get that exercise that you need.
And by the way, dancing also helps to reinvigorate your brain. Looking at a screen for hours on end can be kind of mind-numbing - believe me I know. Getting up and moving around a little bit can help to wake you up, and throw the circuit breakers on your brain. So when you come back you're feeling more aware and more productive.
It also helps to relieve stress in your body - sometimes, when we face a challenging task, and it's really starting to get frustrating, we need that break to just shut our brains off. Ballroom dancing provides that opportunity.
It also helps to release things like serotonin, endorphins; these are feel-good hormones that help to put us in a more positive frame of mind. So when we come back, we feel much more able to tackle the task at hand.
It's also really good for posture: If you find yourself going into the 5:00 a.m. slouch, then this is a good way to improve your posture, keep you nice and poised, and that can help to avoid back problems later on.
Number 5, is it helps to stimulate creative thinking: My wife can attest to how often I use dancing as a metaphor to understand a concept that I'm unfamiliar with. Ballroom dancing encourages lateral thinking - in other words, it helps you face challenges in unique ways, and to come up with unique solutions.
Number six! Ballroom dancing encourages persistence. Nothing worth learning ever came easy, and dancing is no exception. If you take the time and apply yourself to ballroom dancing, the discipline you'll learn from that will carry over into other areas of your life.
And finally, number seven - it gives you a social outlet. The reality is dance is ultimately a social activity. So the more confident you get with it, the easier it will be to say go out to a party where there's dancing involved.
It's particularly useful for people who want to get out of their regular routine and meet some new and interesting people - and did I mentioned that dancers tend to be really interesting people?
So these are some of the advantages for those of you who live a more sedentary lifestyle. You may feel like you're just too busy to add anything new to your day, and fair enough: Just remember that you only need to add about 10 minutes of practice every day to start feeling some of the benefits that we talked about.
And just know that, like the inspirational speaker Eric Thomas once said: "you are where you are because of WHO you are." So, if you want to go somewhere else, you will have to change something sooner or later.
And for those of you who are ready to take the plunge, this December, our website is launching its official online ballroom dancing program! And we're offering 75% off of all of our subscription rates, which means that you get access to all of our instructional videos, plus a few perks that we will talk a little bit more about later this month, for less than five dollars a month.
Right now, we have videos up already in salsa, tango, rumba, and waltz, and we will be adding more videos every month. I believe we're going to try and get some East Coast Swing videos up there by December.
So if you're interested in any of that, or you want to see where it's all going, grab a subscription this December. And if you know anyone who might like it, maybe as a Christmas present, feel free to pick one up for them as well.
So I hope you found today's video informative. If you had any questions or comments, you can always message me on my Facebook fan page: Ballroom Dancers Anonymous, or you can email me at ian@socialballroom.dance, again that's ian@socialballroom.dance.
And next week, we are going to be looking a little more closely at how you can learn dancing, how you can get access to dance lessons without ever leaving your home.
And no, I won't be talking about my website the whole time - we'll be exploring the full range of options, so that you can find the solution that works best for you. So I look forward to seeing you then and until next time, happy dancing!