Tango for Balance - Parkinson's - elderly - dance
- balance problems?
FEAR OF FALLING?
PD? Injury? Aging?
More about Tango
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Come along to
TANGO
FOR BALANCE
MEDICAL RESEARCH HAS SHOWN THAT TANGO IS GOOD FOR
PROBLEMS OF BALANCE.
This is especially rewarding for those with Parkinson's Disease.
IT IS ALSO GREAT FUN AND A WAY OF EXERCISING TO LOVELY MUSIC.
Expect a lot of individual attention and a warm welcome from Anthony,
your teacher. There is a Tango for Balance Class every Thursday
Morning at The Room, at 11.15 - 12.15. £10 per person. (0208
808 9318). Anthony also teaches the Buckhurst Hill PD group on Monday
Mornings at 11.00.
There is no need to come with a partner, however you may wish to
do this with your carer. It's a lovely activity to share. SO
OF COURSE CARERS ARE WELCOME.
See below for a more detailed introduction
Anthony will come and teach tango for Balance at your
local support group or association.
£10 per person per lesson - or Anthony will come and
give a class to your group - the suggested maximum number is 6 couples
(12 people) - individual attention is crucial, and with larger numbers two
teachers are necessary.
PERSONAL TANGO FOR BALANCE TRAINING: £80
for one hour. Anthony will come to your house
with his music if required.
Ring 0208 808 9318 to arrange a session.
MAP ON WEBSITE
www.the-room.org.uk
contact: howell.anthony1@googlemail.com
Yoga on Tuesday nights at The Room. Tango on Wednesdays.
Parking is free at weekends and after 6.30 during the week.
Lovely sprung dance floor
Fully air-conditioned
Huge collection of tango CDs
Easy transport connections
THE ROOM
33 Holcombe Road, Tottenham Hale, London N17
9AS
020 8 808 9318
(5 mins from Tottenham Hale on the Victoria Line and Bruce
Grove overland or any bus to Tottenham)
TANGO FOR BALANCE
- TM
Recent research at Washington University School of Medicine,
St Louis, Missouri, has posited that tango exercises may be an appropriate
and effective strategy for ameliorating functional mobility deficits
in people who are frail and elderly. This was specifically noted
in sample groups of individuals with Parkinson’s disease and randomly
selected groups of elderly people. Those who participated in tango
lessons showed improved balance over those who participated in standard
exercise classes designed for the elderly and for people with PD.
Tango may be danced either in the embrace or in “the practise
hold” – one partner holding the other by supporting the upper arms.
Working in pairs like this increases balance security. Tango helps
people who have difficulty walking in dual-task conditions, since the
partners are concerned with executing a simple sequence in time to the music:
the leader instigating and the partner following. In Tango for Balance
classes, these roles are exchanged, encouraging both participants to think
at the ame time as they move. Tango also helps alleviate panic problems,
freezing while turning and other gait troubles symptomatic of fear of falling
down.
“Loss of functional mobility can lead to low self-esteem, poor
mood, withdrawing from activities, and decreased quality of life.”(*
1) The social nature of partner dancing alleviates these effects.
But it is not only the elderly who suffer from balance problems:
it is a problem which may affect those injured in accidents, those with
inner ear disorders, and many others, so Tango for Balance is not only
for the elderly. It is for anyone who wishes to improve their ability
to balance.
WHY TANGO?
Tango is exceptionally good for equilibrium – primarily because
tango is essentially a walking dance in partnership. This means
that, at the level relevant to Tango for Balance, two feet are on the
floor at any one time. One is your own, one is your partner’s.
Essentially when one stands in the practise hold with a partner, four
feet are sustaining stability rather than two – this is like using another
person as a support frame. However, as classes progress, couples
are encouraged to move together without using the partner for support.
Walking alone involves moving from one foot to another.
There are three crucial events involved in this: instigation of the
move forward, passage of one foot past the other – with pressure on one
hip – and landing on the other foot – transferring pressure to the
other hip. Tango encourages dancers not to “dip” in the hip when
walking forwards. Allowing the hip to become displaced while transferring
weight is a major cause of instability.
Three possibilities exist in moving from one foot to the other
– or indeed in rebounding back to the initial foot. You can walk
forwards, backwards or to the side. Tango works with all three
of these movements, and with the simple transference of weight from one
foot to another “on the spot”. In a conventional tango class, preliminary
exercises will encourage participants to move through these actions
without a partner, developing “an axis” – that is, an ability to balance
collectedly (one foot without weight on it next to the foot with weight
on it) after forward steps, backsteps, sidesteps or rebounds back onto
the foot initiating the step. In Tango for Balance, such exercises
may be done later, where appropriate, once a measure of balance security
has been attained. Exercises may also be performed seated to encourage
strength in knee and ankle.
The second essential component to tango is the pivot, a rotation
of the ball of the foot achieved by releasing the heel. Fear
of performing this action, or indeed the functional inability to perform
it, leads to freezing in turns and is a key cause of falls. Participants
in these balance workshops are assessed for pivot ability and, where
capable of pivots, taught how to perform this action without losing their
axis, or, where incapable, shown how to develop a strategy for turning
without pivoting.
Partners are encouraged to exchange lead and follow roles,
so that they learn how to instigate and how to respond to movement.
They are also expected to swap partners, which creates a pleasant social
ambiance – raising morale. And all these issues are addressed to
the accompaniment of music, which stops them feeling like a chore.
While a vestigial unconditoned walking response can be observed
in babies, we learn to walk, unlike other animals. We learn to
walk as we learn to talk and to think. Walking is a conditioned
activity that requires a number of complex muscular coordinations.
However, our ability to walk in a confident balanced way may be improved
as we bring walking closer to its natural roots in the unconditioned response
from which it evolved. Tango encourages crossover coordination
between the upper right and the lower left parts of the body. Crossover
coordination has implications for autism and Asperger’s Sydrome, dyspraxia
and dyslexia.
This was discovered by observing crawling patterns in babies.
Freedland and Bertenthal have stated that “crawling experience, and
specifically experience following the onset of hands-and-knees crawling,
contributes to the development and reorganization of a number of other
skills, such as spatial orientation, fear of heights, and postural stability.”
(*2)
Significantly, some infants later diagnosed with Asperger’s
Syndrome have exhibited crawling patterns that deviate from the basic
diagonally opposing limb patterns. Diagonal coupling of the limbs
“maintains the most stable centre of gravity.” (ibid)
By encouraging crossover coordination, tango develops our ability
to maintain “the most stable centre of gravity” – for dancers are encouraged
to coordinate crossover rib rotation with walking, thus maintaining
a connection with their partner.
For all these reasons, tango is good for a confident walk,
with diminished fear of falling.
Tango for Memory
In addition, tango may well help dementia sufferers, since
participants are encouraged to memorise short choreographic sequences
known as “figures”. This encourages stimulation of memory linked
to physical action, which may be more effective than memory exercises
which are simply done in the head.
Anthony Howell
References
* 1) Effects of Tango on Functional Mobility in Parkinson’s
Disease: A Preliminary Study
Madeleine E. Hackney, BFA, Svetlana Kantorovich, BS, Rebecca
Levin, DPT, and
Gammon M. Earhart, PT, PhD
*2) Freedland, R. L. & Bertenthal, B. I. (1994) Psychol.
Sci. 5, 26-32.
A former dancer with the Royal Ballet, Anthony Howell was founder
of The Theatre of Mistakes which performed at many venues including
the Paris Biennale and the Galerie Farideh Cadot, as well as at the Theatre
for the New City and the Paula Cooper Gallery in New York. His
performance art has been seen at the Tate, the Hayward Gallery and at
the Sydney Biennale. His seminal textbook, The Analysis of Performance
Art, is distributed by Routledge, and he is internationally regarded for
his performance art workshops. In 2001 he received a £6000 LADA bursary
to study the tango in Buenos Aires. He now demonstrates the tango
internationally and teaches it at his studio/gallery, The Room, in Tottenham
Hale.
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