The new cross-training: Dancing

I am always seeking to vary my exercise routine --  cross training to mitigate my high injury risk and to work different muscles 

More broadly it simply seems good to try new things 

- even during a pandemic and as I get older and fall into an entrenched routine 

-- and good to try activities that I am a beginner even if I am spectacularly inept*

Dan Lieberman (of Born to Run fame) points out in his new book that our hunter gatherer running ancestors NEVER trained - no one in the Stone Age ever practiced running for months or years to prepare for long persistence hunts let alone to compete in a 10k race.  Rather Lieberman believes hunter gatherer training consisted of a combination of hours and hours of walking combined with... yes, dancing ** 

So when teammate Harrisson leads a dancing routine after our hill sessions,  I join and encourage the other guys,  I mean if I am willing to dance, any one could try. 

Unlike most dancers in 2021 I am not at all interested in sharing videos of myself on
Tik Tok.  Rather  like our Stone Age ancestors I am interested in the exercise itself - the physical and spiritual aspects and real time group experience.

Of course videos were released on social media and the haters and trolls poured scorn and derision on my clumsy efforts. Nonetheless I hope to continue my dancing efforts (and it turns out some of these same haters have been sidelined from endurance sports with overuse injuries that might also have been mitigated with activities like dancing).  

* Earlier in life I made a number of earnest and energetic efforts at ballroom, salsa and tango dancing -- all that resulted in the instructors quickly taking me aside to dance one-on-one with me and ostensibly help me (and more importantly spare my  female dance partner customer from having a frustrating and wasted evening).  I was discouraged from returning for second classes.   My dancing inability seems rooted in some genetic lack of music skill, try as I might I could never discern the musical beat.  I recall  my 4th grade music teacher gently asking me to only pretend to play the recorder at the big parent/school concert and so I moved my fingers and pretended to blow into the instrument.. later kindly Sunday School teachers would ask me if I would sing Christmas Carols as quietly as possible during performances...  

** "Dancing isn't running, but it's usually more fun and such a universal, valued form of human physical activity that we should consider it another gait akin to running... like long-distance running, dancing can go on for hours, requiring stamina, skill, and strength... and both can induce altered states" (from Exercised)