Metro Detroit

Fit through footwork

By Cortney Casey
C & G Staff Writer

» Click on image to view full size « Photo by Deb Jacques Dale Lott of Detroit and Karyne Johnson of Southfield teach techniques of Motown-style ballroom dance as students look on at the Southfield Parks and Recreation Building Jan. 9. Physical therapist Kathy Cook says dance offers numerous physical benefits, including improved posture, balance, strength, coordination and cardiovascular health. Photo by Deb Jacques Dale Lott of Detroit and Karyne Johnson of Southfield teach techniques of Motown-style ballroom dance as students look on at the Southfield Parks and Recreation Building Jan. 9. Physical therapist Kathy Cook says dance offers numerous physical benefits, including improved posture, balance, strength, coordination and cardiovascular health.

Erika Ryan has yawned her way through enough aerobics classes to know she prefers revving up her heart rate another way.

Often spurred by a similarly minded friend declaring, “I’ve got the bug: We need to go!” Ryan likes to hit local hot spots — especially around Mount Clemens, where she works and grew up — for a little hip-hop and disco dancing.

It may not involve sweatbands and tennis shoes, but it’s “one heck of a workout,” Ryan laughed. “I work up a sweat dancing. When I (go out), I can’t get off the dance floor.”

If you’re among the ranks that find treadmills tedious, ellipticals unexciting and stationary bikes boring, it might be time to join her there.

Proponents of dance claim the art form’s benefits extend far beyond the ability to capably cut a rug at a wedding or snag the spotlight at a club.

Dance promotes strength, balance, coordination, cardiovascular fitness, flexibility, postural awareness and proper alignment, all while releasing endorphins and decreasing stress levels, said Kathy Cook, a physical therapist with Henry Ford Macomb Hospital’s Chesterfield Therapy Department.

The breadth of dance ensures availability of options for all ages and abilities, she said, and because the movements employ a range of muscles, dance is less repetitive than using the typical workout machine — meaning the participant might find it “a little more interesting or exciting” and be more likely to stay engaged.

Locally, opportunities to discover dancing are abundant, from local parks and recreation programs to dance academies to hybrid dance/fitness studios.

Karyne Johnson said students in her Motown-style ballroom dancing and hustle classes, offered through Southfield’s and West Bloomfield’s parks and rec departments, seem to sign up for various reasons, including a desire to get in shape.

“Four minutes of constantly moving is good for you — it’s good for your heart; it’s good for your muscles,” she said, referring to the length of an average song. “It kind of keeps you flowing.”

The hustle is a line dance-like class, while Motown-style ballroom dance is “a more comfortable style of ballroom,” she said. “The posture isn’t as structured. It’s a dance you can do to most popular music.”

Especially with the hustles, “you can work up a sweat,” laughed Johnson. “If you stay with it, you’re going to work up some energy.”

As a 15-year employee and 40-year patron of the Macomb Family YMCA in Mount Clemens, Ryan has sampled an assortment of courses offered there, including belly dancing, which amazed her with the amount of core strength it required and promoted.

She’s also become passionate about Zumba, a fitness/dance class with Latin flare. She gleefully recalled “sweating to death” at her first class, which was a full house of students ages 11-90.

“Never once did I see them take a break,” marveled Ryan, who has decided she eventually wants to earn her certification to teach the technique.

The Macomb Family YMCA also offers a general adult dance course described as “an all-around dance class … a jazz, hip-hop, fun, energetic way of moving to get fit,” said Ryan. “It’s a good, fun, sweaty way, with good music, a lot of booty shaking and energy.”

At Jazzercise Fitness Center of Royal Oak, franchise owner and certified instructor Jane McNamara said she often hears from customers how weary they are of old standbys like treadmills, and how being amid an energy-fueled classroom of fellow dancers is a major motivator.

“It’s just made to be really fun, so people forget they’re working out,” she said of Jazzercise, which incorporates cardio, strength training and stretching, all choreographed to music that ranges from standards to techno.

According to McNamara, the average participant “torches” around 600 calories in a one-hour Jazzercise session. Instructors offer modifications and low-impact options to accommodate dancers of all skill levels, and the center also offers a “Jazzercise Light” class three days a week, geared toward clients looking for a milder workout, she said.

Post-New Year’s, Arthur Murray Dance Studio in Sterling Heights has seen an influx of customers looking to make good on their resolutions to get in shape, said manager Wesley Arnold. The facility offers group and private instruction in a plethora of partner dances, including fox trot, the cha-cha, salsa, country dances, swings, shuffles and more.

“It’s definitely a great form of exercise, and it’s something that you can do that doesn’t feel like exercise,” he said. “Working out is nice, but some people don’t like to go to the gym and feel like they’re in that routine. We get a lot of people in who want something to move around and have fun and not feel like they’re working out.”

Arnold insists patrons “don’t really stick around because of the dancing.” It has more to do with the perks, whether it’s physical fitness, socialization, a chance to reconnect with a partner, etc., he said.

“It’s more about the benefits that you receive from it,” he said, “than the actual learning how to dance.”

You can reach C & G Staff Writer Cortney Casey at ccasey@candgnews.com or at (586)498-1046.