Core Dancing in Newton, Massachusetts, brings “reality into dancing.” Lenny Levin describes Core Dancing as a new brand of dancing that takes it outside the conventional paradigm and addresses the problems which are overlooked and underplayed. It allows people who never thought they could dance to learn and enjoy dancing. Also, it will help people who have been dancing for a long time overcome the “mechanical” stage and make progress.
In Lenny’s opinion what separates their dance studio from other dance studios is two fold. On one hand, millions of people are fascinated by dancing and attempting to learn how to dance. On the other hand, the majority of new dancers after initial practicing make no progress as far as the body movement is concerned and lose motivation to continue. As a result, either they have to stop dancing or endure a sense of false accomplishment and cover up their feelings for years to come. This creates an atmosphere of disconnection with reality and contributes to further frustration and discomfort.
The problem is that dancing movements or “technique” are taught on the awareness level by demonstrations and verbal instructions such as move your hips or keep your knees soft. However, the human brain must receive precise commands to move specific joints and muscles or musculoskeletal system will fail to respond properly.
According to Lenny, when he was studying kinesiology, a science of human movement, he realized that dancing movements can be defined by kinesiology terms and described as changing positions with proper weight shift. As a result, he developed specific training programs related to movements such as rumba, bolero, waltz and tango basic steps, and others to train the body beyond the awareness level with precision and fluidity.
This approach involves learning functional human anatomy and understanding how joints and muscles interconnect to produce a specific movement. This approach is fundamentally different from training your “hips,” “legs,” or “shoulders” on the awareness level by a high volume of repetition forcing the body to move in your “own” way.
Core Dancing is a much more effective alternative to a high volume of repetitive training that prevents reaching the “the ceiling” and avoiding overuse injuries as well. Also, Core Dancing reduces significantly the training curve and provides plenty of room of progress by improving the understanding of how to move required joints and muscles more efficiently.
Core Dancing changes the focus from practicing the dancing figures to training movements with a proper weight shift. In order to transfer the weight efficiently, specific joints and muscles must work in a coordinated fashion and all elements of coordination have to be brought into play. The main elements of coordination include base of support, skeletal alignment, balance, range of motion, muscular actions, timing control and, synchronized and bi-lateral movements.
Developing these elements cannot be done through a series of exercises on the awareness level. One should study functional human anatomy and how the body is designed to move. As Lenny kept learning about the human movement system, he discovered that the body is programmed and designed to shift weight naturally between different positions if all coordination elements work together efficiently.
It means that Core Dancing is not about drilling specific movements to perfection such as a Latin motion or Waltz basic step. Rather, it is about learning how the body is designed to shift weight while changing positions as opposed to forcing your “own” way of moving the body.
Lenny’s proudest moments coaching dancers occurs when he is helping new dancers make progress in a relatively short period of time and developing a better understanding of how further improvement can be achieved.
From Lenny’s experience, he believes the prevailing misconception is that if you do not learn dancing movement beyond the mechanical stage at a young age you will be unable to make any progress when you become older. In addition, if you focus on practicing dancing figures without proper body movement, it will lead to a lack of progress and a loss of motivation.
His goals for this year are to increase the number of students and to produce a TV reality show.
Lenny founded Core Dancing after being asked on more than one occasion if he was available for dancing instruction after they had seen him practicing this new brand of dancing.
In addition to the benefits accorded to their dancing, this training approach will make the body more functional, healthier and coordinated to be used in any other physical activity such as running, swimming, weight lifting, basketball, hockey, soccer, tennis, golf, baseball and many others.
Quote: ” In addition to the benefits accorded to their dancing, this training approach will make the body more functional, healthier and coordinated to be used in any other physical activity . . .”
Tags: dance, Waltz, Latin
