Hey, today we’ll be discussing why people love a ballroom dancing so much, and why ballroom dancing could improve your life in ways you don’t even know or ways that right now you don’t think could get any better. I mean, who doesn’t want to improve their lives? Who out there thinks everything in their life is so perfect, and nothing can be done to add to what they have right now? I hope that’s none of our listeners out there because we can always, always improve ourselves.

And today we’re going to chat about how ballroom dancing can add so much to your life.

I am one of your hosts Taras Denysenko

and I am Todd Combs.

Today we get to the core reasons why you should start either taking ballroom dance lessons or why you continue. You to take ballroom dance lessons. Hopefully taking lessons is not a one time whim.

Yeah, and that’s a really big one golfing and tennis and the gym like in our studio as well. That’s a lot of things that a lot of our students will do. And you’re right. They they always say something about they don’t do anything together. Yeah, yeah. And sometimes they I mean, I think I think they think that’s a good thing to do together. Like hey, you know, Honey, let’s golf together. But I mean, we played golf.

And, you know, it doesn’t matter. I mean golfing is not a side by side sport, right? It’s a side by side in the golf cart sport. But it is not a side by side sport. I mean, and then tennis scene. You know, doubles are fun. It’s great, but it’s not. It’s not a team building exercise, right? It’s not you. You just do your thing. You work at the net. I work back at the baseline. And we switch sometimes. Yeah, no, it’s not. It’s together but not hands on.

Yeah, it was totally cool about also ballroom dancing is if golf and tennis are your hobbies as well as the gym. But ballroom dancing also helps develop motor skills that improve your balance and body awareness. So we’ve had a lot of students tell us that. Wow, by taking learning the walls, I’ve actually improved my golf swing due to its timing. So that’s pretty cool.

Yeah, how many how many students do you have? Do you have the guys in our studio? It’s mostly the guys I’ve never had a woman do this though. There’s a lot of women golfers, but the Guys will sit there and and when we do Cuban motion drills, then they they innately get down to their golf stance. And they start to swing their knees and flex their knees to make their hips move and they start going through a hole. You know, they’re they’re, they’re, they’re recalling all of their golf lessons. They did not understand their body and you know where their body parts were and where you know where your knee move versus your, your ribs verse. Yes, you can see him that that really, that motor skill and the balance and the understanding of your body is huge. In eligibility people Mm hmm.

Totally. Totally have.

We have all that we have all that I mean, dancing used to be a sport or I shouldn’t say I mean, it’s a sport but I should say back in the day was not people didn’t really say Oh, dancing is a sport. It was activity in back in the day cuz you’ve been at it a year longer than I it was it does have its itsYou know, people think it’s for old people used to

Yeah, and I think that stigma i think i think that stigma is kind of kind of been put aside a little bit.

Yeah, definitely since you know Dancing with the Stars that really helped I mean because I think I said before it used to be that a woman came in smiling and a guy came in frowning totally always. I mean they always are pulled and drug into the studio. You hope they were not happy? Nope. But after dancing the stars they see all the pro sports figures and and things like that come in that it’s just it’s just so much more acceptable now he up yeah and and that’s Yeah, and it’s it’s good. But it’s um yeah, it’s something that that that guys you know really need to get into to move their body and then you know, all those other stigmas you know, but but definitely older people in guys moving you know, they need to be able to achieve these With your body. Mm hmm. And usually was like, the doctor would tell. I have have had so many, you know, elderly students who were amazing. And they would tell me the stretch me but I mean, that’s fine for a while but that’s tedious. Yeah, it’s boring stretching. I mean, it’s, it’s good for you I know but it’s not fun. And people usually come to the dance studio because they don’t realize they’re working out they don’t realize they’re doing things good for them because it’s, it’s hidden by all the fun. Yeah, totally.

And that’s, that’s really a big point to learn the dancing is that you do develop that specific muscle awareness because we do try to target certain muscle groups and body parts to be like, okay, stretch your spine and stretch your neck and lengthen your arms and all that so, you know, helps create that, you know, the twitch muscle awareness and you know, the smaller muscle groups so it’s not just straight up on picking up a dumbbell or stretch now just for stretching and or getting onto that exercise machine. So Definitely a targeted, targeted kind of cool, full body workout.

Yeah, and we and I have students that just had us it was a couple. And I mean, I said just it was a year ago but but the reason they come in back in my mind is because they were both swimmers and they taught swim lessons at a local. And I say a local facility was It’s huge. It was a big facility. And so there that’s their job is their their swimmers, and they came in and did a lesson. And I mean, they said, after the one, we did Waltz, right, so it’s a waltz. And even if people are new to dancing, they don’t know what a waltz is. I mean, you know, the waltz is a slow dance. But after they did it for must have done it for 1012 minutes. And he was like, wow, I’m getting a workout in a muscle group. It was like it is he was outside of his quad and somewhere in the inside. He was like this is you know, it wasn’t hurting him. But he could feel that it was working and he was just like, you know, swimming is an is like one of the best things you can do for total body workout. I mean, he uses so much of your entire body and he was really surprised about how he could feel something in such a slow, you know, beginner stage and he knew he was doing and he was impressed by it. So I was like, yeah, that’s me. That is right. That’s impressive thing. Yeah. And you know, makes it look good. I was gonna say and and all of that. I mean, who wouldn’t want to feel like a million bucks? Like, that’s what it makes you feel great? Yes, it makes you feel like a million a million bucks. You know, where does that term ever come from? Like, what does a million bucks feel like? I don’t I don’t know. Must have it must have started when a million bucks or so. I mean, it’s still a lot of money. Right? But like, makes me think of the Austin Powers movie. Yeah. It’s a million dollars. million dollars. That’s funny. Yeah, long time ago is a lot more but it’s still it’s still a lot. It’s still a lot. I still take it. Yeah, totally. Yeah, me too. Yeah. Now what this happened

So we know we of course are talking about the ideas why people ballroom dance. And we asked we put out on our Facebook page we put out on Twitter. We kind of wanted some some ideas. What are your, you know, what are your reasons for dancing? And we got a couple, we got a few responses. Right so now a couple of them because since our podcast is new, we asked some of our student body there you know about things so so we have a pool of people we can we can ask these questions to until our following base gets even bigger and bigger and hopefully everyone text emails messages in but I’m first going to talk about my one of my ladies emailed in Leslie Stanley. And was you know, Leslie, you’ve worked with Leslie before Yeah, sure. She’s awesome. She’s Yeah, she’s awesome. Because she my student that’s what

Yeah, yeah.

And it was me it’s all me. Just getting Leslie Just kidding. Okay, so she’s been dancing for 13 years ballroom Dancing she competes pro m travels all over the US. And just does does a lot of competitions. And as some of you don’t know, pro M is I mean, it’s the highest level student can can compete at so she’s been doing it for a long time now her I asked her top three reasons. So here’s here’s her top three to get more fun and enjoyment out of social life, meaning Leslie’s had. She’s met so many friends adjust from the studio. So she goes vacationing and there’s eight of them. All right, there’s eight crazy women they all go vacationing together. You know, you know, probably almost all eight of them. Yeah. And they go to Mexico they go this and that. She’s a travel agent now so she can just make trips happen. She has one student talk about odd that one student we have at our studio now. She’s not odd, but the fact that she came from the studio I used to manage a studio up in Washington, DC area. Yeah, Northern Virginia and He was a, I left Tysons Corner studio, and I came down to Texas and when I left he took lessons at Tysons Corner and then she moved down to my studio. So it’s weird that even though I didn’t really know her when I left but all you know, she took lessons from all the people all the staff I trained up there and things like that. It was interesting. So yeah, her and Jerry it’s Jerry get home. Her and Jerry are like a married couple. Now. They travel everywhere. That’s awesome. Yeah. Now, also number two for her was increased her self confidence. So she was she’s one of those people through she wanted to like physical challenge and demands for her body and bond dancing. She loves she loves she’ll go to you know, we could talk about technique for an hour and move, move your arm, you know, 20 degrees, no more, no less. And then she’s like, Oh, yeah, cool. I like that. You know, some people would that make their they would fall asleep. Yeah, right or they would want to shoot themselves, but she loves that she loves that. That physical challenge that ballroom dancing and competitive ballroom dancing were demands on her body. So that was that’s that built up her competence like some people take martial arts of course, right. So dancing, you know, can fulfill that. And then finding her third reason was finding the exercise and fitness she wanted and needed. Now Leslie is, she’s weird. She’s gonna listen to this. Because Leslie only eats because her body needs food to eat, where she doesn’t eat for pleasure. So my wife Lisa, you know, talks to us a lot and only she lives at least it’s always like, I don’t understand that. How could she do that? You know, lessons like I think I need to eat. So I’m going to eat this and then I’m going to go do go do something though. She does like cheese and she does like wine. But she doesn’t eat to eat. She eats because she has to and it’s like man, so she likes that exercise. She knows her body needs something. And she just found that ballroom dancing was such a great way for full body workout. And for and then it went she said it went for her mind to is like, a total mind to body kind of kinda. Now Now with that I wanted to tell one quick story about her and then we’ll go to your students. Well, before you tell them before you tell that story, Leslie, I know you’re gonna listen to this. I got to tell you about the food thing. I’m right there with you. I gotta say it. Yeah. Okay, well, it’s not like that anymore. But at one time, I’d be like, man, if I could just take a pill. And I don’t have to worry about cooking or eating or getting food. That would be that was me at one time as well. So I get it. I get it. So she’s not I’m glad I’m glad you’re normal now. I’m still working on Leslie. Okay. What’s your Wow, man? I love I love the I love food. Good. Okay. In this court in this COVID quarantines not doing good for me. Oh, dude, love a food. Yeah. Yeah. Neither dance. All right, back to the back to the story. Back to star back story. So her so Stress Relief is another of the main reasons why people come in. All right, job, whatever. But Leslie, she went through a divorce. So she took lessons for a little bit and her husband didn’t come in. Now her husband was he was, you know, there’s husbands who, who would look at the dance to like, we’re evil, we’re taking their wives wife away, and, you know, so he would come in, he was a nice guy, he, we, we taught a father daughter dance to him. And, you know, so, you know, he liked the studio. He didn’t want to dance, but he didn’t, you know, it wasn’t a negative thing. Or he thought, you know, he didn’t like us. It was one of those, one of those. So, but they got divorced, they came in I know where from her side, she had no idea what’s gonna happen, bam. If you want to divorce her, so she, you know, like anybody would freaked out in her mind. And she just started she developed this audio auto immune disease. I mean, it took I took a long time, they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. I mean, she went to specialist after specialist, but it was, it was something that, you know, almost like What’s that? What’s that TV show or the doctor? They only go to him when no one can figure it out. Dr. pimple popper? Yes. No, not Dr. Pepper pop. But imagine, imagine it was another It was kind of like that, but it wasn’t a pimple. It was a it was stress. Right. So, so yeah, so they had to go to the specialist and they finally figured it out. autoimmune disease. She was on an insane amount of prednisone. She had to stop taking lessons for a while. But all the studio people, you know, caller what’s going on go give her things. I mean, she had such a good network to the studio, that we were there and all the staff you know, we’re like a big family. We want to help each other out when when things like that happen. So, you know, finally she got better. She got better. She’s, you know, she loves her life now. It’s great.

That’s awesome.

But I’ll say How did our dance studio help Lizzie right? So we danced the stress away. Because you cannot think about your life stress when you’re busy dancing. You know, you have to listen to music, timing, do the technique you’re taught. Figure out what your partner is going to do or figure out how you can connect your body so you can follow what he’s going to do or if you’re a guy, figure out what my next pattern is. So you have to do so many things. If you have a stressful job. Dancing is I’m telling you dancing is the answer. Yep. Dancing is answer. And then, you know, like I said, we had the family support. We were there to, to kind of help her through her situation. We have we have several widows and widowers, alright, so they they help each other out. They talk to each other, lift each other up and when someone is hurting, you know, I think all our staff and cert staff and other students are instantly just like all right on them. Yep. You know that to help support and listen and things like that. And then and then if you’re in another studio if you’re if you’re listening in the future, you know, because right now we’re just getting the show started. So we, you know, we don’t have 1000 followers yet but what if your studio doesn’t, you know, had this atmosphere which which the studio I came from really didn’t you know, didn’t have this student body atmosphere and it was okay it wasn’t it was better or worse it’s just that studio didn’t have it, but when I opened my studio I want you know, that was my personality. So, so, you know, if your studio doesn’t have that, and you want it, you know, don’t don’t wait for the owners of the studio to make it happen. You know, if you’re a student and you want it go away for the teachers to make it happen. You know, create it yourself, right? You can make it happen you are responsible to change your environment, right no one else’s and is responsible to change your environment of your life. That’s the thing some people’s problems, right. They want someone else because they did this and because they did that, you know, you don’t take responsibility for themselves. Yeah. And it’s social.

True. It’s a really good point about dance studios, I think as a whole is that you you’re, you will become a part of that community. And it’s such a personalized and tactile or tactile. I don’t know, your some of its tactile Yeah. You. I mean, you develop different connections to people because you’re either dancing with them or you’re spending a good amount of time. It’s not like when you just go to the gym, or you’re kind of focused on your own workout. It’s, it’s just a whole different thing.

So right, because yeah, some of those are internal, you get there and you, you put your, you know, your headphones on and you’re in your own world, which is not bad. But dancing is. I mean, it’s something that we talked about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, right? And being around other people is is one of our basic needs. Yep, you know, is socializing socialization So, you know, that’s, that’s something we all need. Yeah, we need to do it. So now, that was that was Leslie Stanley. All right, now we go to one a year, ladies.

All right, here we go. I’m going to talk about Amber. So I know amber is gonna listen to this, but she did. So I reached out to her and I was like, hey, Amber. Once again during this COVID things we haven’t actually had a lesson. We haven’t had actual a lesson in quite some time because of my surgery but but we started our virtual lessons and I touched base with her and I was like, hey, so we’re doing the show. So give me three reasons why you love ballroom dancing so much. So amber has been dancing now. She’s working in her 11th year and she started just as a hobby, but then she turned it to what a lot of people do once it becomes a hobby. She turned into a competitive dancer. And she’s done several competitions across the country. And she does well she’s a very she’s, I could say she’s just rocks. She rocks, right? She’s an accomplished dancer. She doesn’t think so. But right, but we’re always our own worst critic, I suppose. But uh, yes, some interesting, interesting benefits she’s gotten out of her dancing one one is the exercise aspect. Now she’s very athletic in nature as it is already. She was a soccer player in college and she’s really into yoga and she’s an avid runner. And because she hasn’t been able to take lessons in a while, she’s found that she’s lost so much strength in her ankles. And because yeah, so as being a runner, and being physically active, some of those suppose muscles that you don’t always you don’t think that you get to work on she was getting that benefit out of her dancing. So she finds that the exercise the the it’s dancing is a fantastic cross trainer is or cross training. So that’s one of them.

Yeah, people don’t realize how much Yeah, yeah, pressure and pushing an extension and I mean you d ankle. We use the term in ballroom dancing on ankle awareness but you use your ankles a lot a lot yeah and I can’t think of any other reason that a normal Washington a normal should say a non dancer when does a non dancer work their ankles like like we do right and if you if you think about the basic structure like a lot of times in the studios will use a building structure like it doesn’t matter how nice the 10th floor is in a building if the first floor structure is not sound you know the 10th floor can look as nice as is nicely wants to but you know it’s gonna come crumbling down because the first floor is made on you know, popsicle sticks or whatever so you know, if you think about you know, just the basic you you know, you put a foundation down first on the house, then you build the house on top of it. You know if your ankles are weak, you know, that’s gonna mess up your entire body. Yep, your balance. I mean doesn’t matter how Know what else you have going on if you have weak ankles that’s that’s not good. That’s so true. And if you’ve never really danced before and you’re listening to this, you’re like, wow, why are they talking about ankles?

But that’s a great that’s a great analogy about the foundation of a building. You can have a great penthouse but that foundation ain’t there. It’s gonna crumble. You’re going down going down, you’re going down, but her second reason was an opportunity to be have self expression. And it was really fun what she wrote she said some people can create art some music. Now, here’s the funny part. Not saying that she’s half decent at dance, but she sure can’t sing or sculpt. That was funny. But yeah, dance is a big artistic escape from her for her, which I think is a really big thing for a lot of people because they may not be musical or they may not have personal friends. I can’t sing for the for the life of me but boy dancing. It’s it’s almost like somebody be able to express Express. Some people can express words through obviously their voice and we can express the music through our bodies. So that’s a big one.

Right? Yeah, it’s it’s funny, I think I’m gonna keep interjecting little stories here that I find like, in the beginning, couples, women love to dance And guys, you know, they’re, they’re not hating it, but they’re not, you know, they’re just in the middle somewhere. And at some point, they realize that they can admit it, maybe in their mind. It’s not said like this, like, Oh, you can express yourself musically. You know that that’s not what they’re thinking right, necessarily, but that’s what they’re doing. They’re able, they’re hearing music, and they feel a beat coming on. And then they think, like, spin their wife out to the side. Yeah. And they land in their mind. They’re thinking, Oh, I’m leading all this fun stuff. But if you break it down, it’s just its expression totally of your body to the music. And it’s weird because women are always into it. And then you know, they’re all call your they’re just kind of going. And guys have this one day that hits. You know, it happens different times but, but you can see when guys are like, they get expressive and they’re like, they think they created something they’re like they just created something amazing. And you can see they’re like, their confidence goes up and they’re like yeah, I’m awesome. Yep. Totally. That’s cool. Yeah, cool. And the third reason this is pretty funny how she put it she is a good way is a good one. Quote. I like to cheese.

Meaning it’s impossible not to smile when you’re having fun dancing, which is kind of you’re talking about as far as what Leslie you know, you just can’t help but to enjoy yourself. You really the endorphins kick in, you’re moving you’re you have that self expression. You’re in a room full of other people dancing, listen to great music. So you just even if you’re working on the hardest routine, hardest technique, you’re still gonna find enjoyable because it’s such a positive fun Music filled environment so that’s I like how she said that though I liked cheese Yeah, but yeah like that but a funny thing too is she said of course an honorable mentions got to be the dresses de corps gore’s, which will do, we’re going to be talking about dresses probably in one of the next episodes right probably next episode. But calves She also wrote down calf so again going back into the ankles and the string like little, little cows.

Who does is that now what she meant? She mean little count? Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe? I don’t know. I don’t know. Um, but like I said she is a competitive dancer as well. So she has opportunity to travel across the country as well as across the world.

And the social aspect, which was one of the things that Leslie was talking about. And, of course, her badass instructor. That would be me. I know that would be me.

She’s not talking about me when I come in there and we’re nope I’m sure she’s talking about me just talking about me. She’s talking about me but you know what you’re you’re you’re up there too though that’s that’s she I think she said that somewhere I think you’re up there but right under James but just above oh yes amber I heard what you said about that about Jane yeah I’m gonna yeah our listeners don’t know James yet and he never will.

So yeah, so that’s amber she gave me a few so that was cool. No, no, it’s great because I think like Leslie likes, like some students, they will she loves doing theater events. And you know, we we ran out of the theater and we do you know, that you know, pretty much themed routines but fourth one front like a theater you know, we have music or sorry movies or British invasion, whatever. And then you know, some people really love you know, like a nice a cheesy kind of is getting in the care of

With that song with that in and then some people hate it I students that do a lot of dancing and they do not like to do theater showcases they they like competing. They don’t like the showmanship. You know, it’s interesting. Yeah. You know? Yeah, I would have thought they would have liked it. But they, but they don’t. That’s okay. There’s so many facets in dancing. You don’t have to do one or the other. There’s Yep. There’s always something for you. That’s exactly right. Now, now I talked about my my next tune in right now I feel bad because we were talking about competitive ladies. And not I mean, I would say in your studio, what is the percentage of competitive dancers vers social dancers? Probably 10%. Right. 10%. So you know, some people think ballroom dancing. You have to be competitive. You have to, you have to do all this kind of stuff. And that’s not true. There’s way more social casual dancers than there are competitive dancers. Yep. It just so happens. Our competitive ladies are the ones who wrote in. So that’s who we’re talking about. That’s it. Yeah. Now Next one is when I mentioned on the last show. What’s the last show of the show before that? Nothing was last year but in Paterson so Ann’s been dancing for 11 years. She competes program. She travels throughout the US she went to Canada we’ve been at the Canada compete her number one reason was making new friends or meeting people making new friends and and has such a group of dance friends her calendar, she’s you know, she doesn’t work right now. Well, she’s not looking for a job she’s she’s just not working. And but she’s her analyze it to like the busiest retired people I’ve ever met. You know, it’s like, Can you do this? Oh, I don’t know. I got got a luncheon. I got. I got I got this. I’m like, you’re retired. Why? What are you so busy doing but she has so many friends and she’ll go through. You know, she has certain certain friends from the studio. She’ll go out on on lunches, and they’ll go to public Pacino’s little restaurant buys have martinis. Nice and things like that. So that she has a Yeah, it’s just a group of people. And they’re most of them dance related. Now she has other friends of course, but there’s a lot of them from the studio. So it’s hard to get her I mean, she she’s able to come out and take lessons, but sometimes I got to work it around her dinners and things like that. Now, she also number two was fulfill it fulfills a competitive desire to challenge herself. So Anna is one of those. She’s a high level tennis player. So I’m sure every I know every state has those, you know, those? They have classifications and I can’t remember what they are. But hers are, you know, one of the high ups when she says she says, Oh, I’m a I’m a blank blank, whatever it is, and everyone’s like, oh, wow, you’re at that level. I think it is. And then she she brushed off her shoulder and she’s like, Yes, I don’t think I knew that. I think there’s like different like was a 1234 is that a numeric thing? Or is it a I you know

Letter remember whatever. Yeah, but I do because we have tennis is really big in Virginia Beach as well. And so we have a few students that are like really higher Actually, we have a, I’m sorry, we’re taking away from and for a second, but we have a student that was a male student. He was a former professional tennis player. And he he was really a tennis coach tennis tennis pro. And his knees blew out. So he hasn’t been able to play as much. But now he’s very active in ballroom so maybe their paths will run. Maybe we’ll cross paths someday. Yeah, I should tell her to challenge him. Yeah. Throw the golf challenge him. Yeah.

Yeah, I wish I knew what the what that’s called. But I know there’s we have a lot of we have a lot of tennis players and they’re always talking first. We’re like, What level are you? Yeah. And then from that they kind of feel kind of like students I could see students going, getting the other go, but what level are you on Bruns? Three. Oh, I’m Brian. To and that they can their their brain just formulates all these connections. And then they know how to continue the conversation with each other because they understand the levels some sure tennis is is the same Yeah. But yeah, she likes that. You know she was such a good I don’t think she has made it where she thinks I’m never going to get better at tennis and that’s why I took ballroom but ballroom is one of those, you know that she was just a challenge sir. And she really likes to push her again, like less a little bit her mind her body limits, and, you know, dancing at a program level. It’s just challenging, you know, dance sport, you know, it’s not in the end. And also I would say these are competitive things for her. And it’s called dance sport for reason. It’s not dance hobby. Right? So dancing is it’s a guy I mean, I would compare it to anything else. Some people still just think of dancing as Oh, it’s just dancing. You know, it’s just just the you know, little hobby you do it can be but it can also be high level come You know, high level sport. And I wanted to say that I understand that because I think we’ve talked that there’s something I miss. I would do anything to be able to play full contact football games. Oh, dude, not touch football. Not not any of this stuff. I watch my son play for the first time this year full contact. And man, there’s something I miss running full speed, and just smashing into people. Yeah, I mean, there’s something in your brain like the endorphin. I mean, there. Yeah. And once you graduate high school unless you play college ball and things like, you just can’t do that anymore. And man, that’s Oh, I missed that funny. That is so funny. Did you feel that way about anything? I just want to I just want to jump on the field. Put some pads on and just run full speed. smashing the people. I miss.

Yes, totally. Totally. I get it. Like just that. Just full out. Like Yeah, I remember My brother and I one time, a couple years ago before we moved to Virginia Beach, we’re still in Rochester. We decided to join a soccer like adult soccer teams or whatever. And even though there’s not full contact, it was like full on running down the field. Just that exhilaration of just going and going and going. But uh, with my body now, even then, after we finished playing that game, I was like, couldn’t walk the next day. I can imagine if you do full contact football.

Yeah, see, for those of us or I shouldn’t say yes, for those of you don’t know Taurus had had a hip replacement. Yep. How many months ago four months ago?

Yeah, a couple months? December so we’re in May, like five months ago.

Yeah, yeah, him and a bunch of other at some. Dude, I knew you’re gonna say something. You know, but I’ll tell you.

We should do an episode on that because the physical benefits of ballroom dancing Now granted, my hip got just the years of dancing. That’s what caused the end genetics. But, man, dude, I can tell you like the ability that wrote the the flexibility and the amount of movement I have back is amazing. I can’t say enough about it. But let’s stay on. I could I could go off tangent. But what we could talk about because you have you have a blog that you do pain in the dance, yes, YouTube channel pain in the dance, go check it out. We my wife and I were documenting my journey to recovery. While it’s actually before the surgery, didn’t get too much during the surgery, even though I wanted to get it filmed. And then some post surgery stuff and it’s fun that we just shot some stuff. And it’s not just about the surgery, the recovery but some other hobbies that we do and we just kind of have some fun with it. But yeah, check it out painting the dance on YouTube. And once you check it out, click like and subscribe.

Like unsubscribe just like you should be to this podcast exactly scrapping now, and last one was mental health and I talked about that in the last episode. I won’t go in as much detail but break it down. Her mother had what was put in, you know, in in one of those care facilities. And her I think it wasn’t all time I think it was dementia. Now, gosh, I can’t believe I can’t remember which one it is right now. But you know, she saw her mom deteriorate mentally. And she just thought I heard one of her big goals is she she said, I just don’t want to do that. I don’t want to have to go through that I die. You know, I can’t let that be me. What are one of the biggest things that you can do for your brain? and dancing is one of them. So I have, I have output in the show notes of the show. I’ll link these articles. But I just wanted to have a quick little excerpt of these of these two articles. Okay, so here’s one of The article so this was in the Harvard Medical School. And this article said in 2000, in 2008, article in Scientific American magazine, a Colombian Columbia sorry University neuroscientists said that synchronizing music and movement, which is pretty much dance essentially constitutes a play pleasure double play. write that one down. Pleasure double play. Again, say it again. Wait, hold on, a pleasure double. And what they meant is, music stimulates the brain, the brain’s reward centers, while dance activates its sensory and motor circuits. So that was the right and then in 2003, a 2003 study in the New England Journal of Medicine, all right by researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine discovered that Dance can decidedly improve brain health. The study investigated the effects leisure activities had on the risk of dementia in the elderly. So the researchers, the researchers looked at effects of 11 types of physical activity. So they looked at golf, tennis, swimming, bicycling, dancing, group exercise, team games, such as bowling, things like that. Walking for exercise, climbing more than two flights of stairs. Okay? also doing housework and babysitting. Right? So those are active things, but found that only one of these activities that they studied dance By the way, lowered the participants risk of dementia. So this is according to those researchers. So I’ll link that so you know, brain health and dancing is like peanut butter and jelly. Alright, so it goes together you want to you have dimension your family, you have Alzheimer’s and you want to do something To help combat that, dancing, yep.