Dance Argentine Tango to improve mental health

Tango is one of our passions in life. It has come to the attention of mental health professionals all over the world, and is now being used to help in the treatment of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, as well as to assist in Couples Counselling.

The following excerpt from an article by Luis Andres Henao was recently published on Reuters ...

BUENOS AIRES, Aug 31 (Reuters Life!) - On the fourth floor of Buenos Aires' largest psychiatric hospital, patients dance the tango with doctors and nurses.

A few months ago some were too shy to talk and others could barely keep their balance when they walked. Today, they embrace their partners cheek-to-cheek, gliding and pausing across the floor to the mournful chords of a traditional accordion.

Doctors as far afield as Italy and Australia are using Argentina's world famous tango to treat problems ranging from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease to phobias and marital breakdowns.

"Treatment is not just about therapy and drugs, it's about giving them a nice time to enjoy themselves," said Trinidad Cocha, a psychologist who teaches a weekly tango therapy class at the Borda Hospital in Buenos Aires.

"They relax and all the labels disappear. We're not doctors, nurses, musicians or patients. We're just tango dancers," she said as couples danced across the hospital's makeshift dancehall.


TIGHT EMBRACE

Researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine found the when patients with Parkinson's took tango lessons their balance improved.

Its intricate steps helped to improve the memory of Alzheimer's patients in Britain. In Italy the trust needed for the tango's tight embrace and its backward walk are used in couple's counseling.

"With tango, you have the advantage of having many different styles of dancing to fit each specific patient," said Martin Sotelano, chairman of the Wales-based International Association of Tango Therapy.

"You focus on the embrace and the communication for couples counseling; the eight basic steps of tango for Alzheimer's; and the tango walk, that requires so much grace and rigidity, can help a patient with Parkinson's."

Read the full article here... Reuters ...

Argentine Tango in Port Macquarie

Argentine Tango Link

"It takes an athlete to dance, but an artist to be a dancer"

Here's a lovely Argentine Tango link of Natacha Poberaj & Jesús Velazquez on UTube that a friend just emailed us... click here

maybe if I keep practising...

What part of you are you struggling with?

Are you one of those people who is perfectly happy with yourself? Congratulations... ever thought of writing on how to become so? If you aren't perfectly happy with yourself and have a 'problem' with a part or parts of you, consider this; could the part that you keep obsessing on as your problem, actually be something you could turn into your best feature?

Take one of my students in Tango for example... she has large, long feet. She thinks they are a liability, but I see those feet as an asset in training. You see those feet once trained can become her most sought after feature. Tango requires the feet - especially the woman's feet to move with grace and perform little movements to embellish her dancing. Aside from dancing though my student's feet have taken her on many adventures... you see she is a traveller. Those feet have taken her around the world many times and led many adventures for groups... those feet have taken her on many bush walks every week. They are an amazing asset. But still she groans with desperation that they aren't perfect.

I wonder if we could start to see our worst feature as having a 'message' for us. Instead of looking at what we see as 'wrong' with us we could start to ask... what is the 'gift' in this part of me?