DANCING FIT

After 15 minutes of regular warm-up exercise,spend 30 minutes at the barres doing basic steps such as demi plié,grand plié or arabesque. Demi-plié involves holding on to the barre with one hand,keeping your spine straight. Then,half-bend your knees,feet facing on opposite sides. As you bend the knees,also cross your feet. The bending action acts on the abdomen and the rear (hip) thereby firming the stomach.

Grand plié is the same as demi plié,except that you bend the knees fully by lowering your upper body. Make sure your knees don’t touch the floor. This helps in balancing the weight and knocking calories off the thighs.
Next is arabesque. With both arms on the barre,stand on one leg and stretch backward your other leg. This stretches and thus strengthens your hip and the back muscles.

“Ballet is a great stress-buster. When you are jogging,your mind can wander,but in ballet,you have to focus hard and it gives an overall sense of wellbeing,” says Aguilera.
If you think ballet is too old-fashioned and slow,pep up your workout with salsa. “Salsa is a full-body exercise with which you can burn at least 300 calories in an hour. It particularly works on oblique muscles (the muscles lining your abdomen on your left and right sides) that are usually missed out during jogging or running,” says Bangalore-based salsa teacher Lourd Vijay. He recommends a few basic salsa steps that you can team up with aerobics. His 60-minute session offers knee lifts,arm circles,with a bit of mambo and cha cha thrown in for effect. Stand,with your feet slightly apart and the knees half-bent like in a demi plié. Step slightly forward with your right foot. Your foot should barely leave the ground as you do this. Step forward with the left foot in a similar way. Now,try to swivel.

After that,step backward,first with the right foot and then the left. Team this basic step with aerobics for a good exercise.
Tango,another ballroom dancing form,also strengthens your feet and tones the arms. “Tango requires strong feet as it has footwork. It is good for posture and balance. Frequent walkers are better at it than others,” says Aguilera,who also teaches Argentine tango. The tango dance sessions includes stretching,balance exercises,slow rhythms and tango-style walking. The tango walk means walking on one line,feet crossing in each step. The steps are adjusted to the music and one should not raise the feet while walking. “It gives an elegant gait,” shares Aguilera. A basic tango step,called ocho,involves placing both hands on the back of a chair,bringing the left foot forward,then the right foot forward. Join both feet. Now,take the left foot backward and then the right foot backward. Join both feet. Cross left foot in front of right taking it behind. Then,take your right foot backward followed by your left. Join them. “The steps help in getting a perfect posture and synchronisation. It can simply be described as a forward,backward movement followed by a swivel,” adds Aguilera.

Gyms too have full-fledged dance workout programmes. Fitness First,a British gym with centres in Delhi,Bangalore and Mumbai, has a programme called Body Vive which is a fun,interactive 55- minute workout. It’s done with a bouncy fitness ball (made of burnt resistance plastic) and optional hand weights. The 12-step session begins after a warm-up and involves lifting arms,holding the ball between the knees with the feet apart and swinging it around to any kind of music. The toughest part,says fitness expert CJ Suarez,is making the figure 8 by lifting two balls but at the end,“it helps tone your arms”. After stretching the muscles through this dance cardio,you let them relax through yoga,followed up by deep breathing. Then,you do ab crunches with the ball. Clearly,dance alone cannot keep you fit. “One needs to follow regular exercises if they really want to keep in shape,” says Suarez.