Dance Takes Drudgery Out of Exercise Routine

Bored with the gym and tennis lessons, Marianna Orro was looking for a new exercise. She heard about a tap dance class and signed up with a friend at a studio outside Cleveland.

In the middle of her new class, she heard hip-hop music next door. She signed up for that class too.

“I don’t even know the music that we dance to,” said Orro, 57. “It’s the kids’ music. But dance is dance, and I assured them I wouldn’t be in their recital.”

Orro took dance classes as a child. And like many women, she has returned to dance as a more engaging way to stay in shape.

Repetitive exercise such as running or using an elliptical machine can get boring, said Jennifer Hex, a teacher at Dance Studio No. 1 in Los Angeles. Classes once abandoned in childhood, such as tap and ballet, offer an option to at least vary the fitness routine.

Hex said people could have reservations about getting back on the floor or at the barre, which could offer benefits beyond weight loss, such as muscle toning and stress relief.

Before taking up dance, anything from ballet to ballroom, you should first examine what sort of experience you’ve had before, she said.

Are you a complete beginner or are you familiar with time steps and shuffles? She then suggests figuring out what you want from the class, be it a good cardio workout or flexibility and toning. She then recommends observing a class first to avoid embarrassment.

“Then again no one is probably paying attention, since everyone in a dance class is worried about how they look and not what everyone else is doing,” she said.

Most important, she said people shouldn’t worry about being able to dance at the same level as when they were younger. Taking it one class at a time is a good rule. For new ballet students, she suggests starting out with barre exercises and working up to other skills. Hex said that, surprisingly, movements learned as children all come back.

“Dance gets into the nervous system. It’s like getting back on a bicycle,” said Anita Feldman, a dance teacher at Berest Dance Center in Port Washington, N.Y. She teaches a class of seven adults, some of whom are well over 60. “It makes people feel young again, and it keeps their minds sharp since they have to think about the rhythms and the steps.”

Jen Cutraro in West Lafayette, Ind., said she wasn’t sure why she stopped taking classical ballet when she finished college. Dance had been a staple in her life since she was about 6 years old and she had taken classes regularly until she was 22.

But after a self-proclaimed “granola girl phase,” she decided that at 31 she would pull out her old leotard and tights and give ballet another shot.

Amazingly, it was a graceful re-entrance.

Cutraro said most of the moves came back as well as the childhood glee of just being in dance class. She has moved up from a beginner to a mixed-level class and is thinking of adding more so that she can get back on pointe. She isn’t ruling out performing again, either.

“Sometimes I get a little dizzy moving across the floor,” Cutraro said. “I remember I could definitely turn a lot faster when I was 14. And I’m still having trouble with double pirouettes.”

Once the fear of getting in front of the mirrors passes, sometimes dance class brings a new mind-set.

Sarah Kassabian, 25, of Millburn, N.J. said she came back to dance mainly as a way to burn off stress after work. She had taken ballet in high school but dropped it in college.

Nine months ago, she joined a class at a local community center. She said she was not interested in being on stage, but wanted to gain leg strength, since she was also training for a marathon.

“I find that it’s a way to relax and forget about the day,” Kassabian said. “Ballet is pretty new to me at this point, and so I have to concentrate on what I’m doing in class, not what went on at work.”