10 Surprising Benefits of Argentine Tango
In a world brimming with fitness options and the gurus that peddle them, it’s easy to take one look at Argentine Tango and dismiss it.
“What’s so beneficial about it?” you might ask. “And how does it differ from what I can get at the gym?”
And to that, I have several answers.
Ten of them, to be exact.
1. Greater Flexibility
Is touching your toes without pain or flexing your knees a constant struggle (*raises hand*)?
Argentine Tango will fix that issue right up. Because like yoga, tango’s dissociation, pivot, and extension exercises stretch your muscles and help extend your range of motion, one practica at a time.
Seniors and those with sedentary lifestyles will especially benefit from tango, as muscle fibers and joints naturally stiffen and dehydrate with age and inactivity.
2. Cardio Health
If 30 minutes of exercise is enough to lower your blood pressure and cut your risk of heart disease in half, then I’m sure you can imagine what two hours of tango does for your cardiac health.
Featuring sustained, low-intensity movement, tango slowly and steadily helps your heart muscle become more efficient and better able to pump blood throughout your body. And while cardiac strength isn’t visible like muscle strength is, just one week of Argentine Tango is enough to feel its cardiac benefits, as your resting heart rate will decrease and you’ll get less winded from everyday physical activities.
3. Improved Balance
Ever wonder how ballet dancers create elegant, elongated figures without toppling over?
The secret lies not in their lithe frames, but in their strong feet and ankles.
Like ballet dancers, your feet and ankles are home to dozens of tiny muscles, ligaments, and bones, structures that contribute to balance. Unlike ballet dancers, however, the structures in your feet are likely underutilized, especially if commutes and office environments are part of your daily life.
Tango, thankfully, remedies the shaky ground modern life cultivates, by subjecting your feet and ankles to weight-bearing exercise and long lengths of time under tension. And in addition to improving your skill as a dancer, strong metatarsals help reduce your risk of debilitating falls, both on and off the dancefloor.
4. Improved Strength and Toned Muscles
Unless you’re lucky enough to live in a walkable neighborhood, chances are cars are a necessary part of your life (they certainly are for mine). And though convenient, stagnancy wreaks havoc on your muscles. Without regular movement, your body softens and expands, and not in the places you want it to.
Besides working your metatarsals, tango sloughs away body fat and works the muscle groups in your legs, back, butt, and core, muscle groups that, after at least three months of consistent use, you’d be crazy not to show off.
Tango aids in weight loss and muscle toning.
5. Remedies Touch Starvation
There’s a reason why single ladies flock to Argentine Tango.
Because at its core, tango is an extended hug, one that carries on for hours at a time, one that delivers healthy, affectionate human touch without the pressure, risks, and uncertainty of dating and casual sex. And hugging for 20 seconds or more generates oxytocin, a bonding hormone responsible for feelings of relaxation, happiness, and satisfaction.
To see tango’s touch starvation remedy for yourself, all you need to do is visit the nearest milonga, or dance social, where crowds of dreary, Debbie Downers transform into glowing, Chatty Cathies as the hours wear on.
6. Improved Emotional Health
I took up Argentine Tango during an emotionally turbulent time in my life, as a newcomer to my current Texas home, with no friends and a stressful new job.
And while tango didn’t save me from my bigger emotional demons, it kept me out from clinical depression’s clutches.
This is because, like other hobbies that involve movement, tango generates endorphins, your body’s feel-good, depression-busting chemical. Just 30 minutes of tango is enough to whittle away your worries and irritation, a natural, enduring high that magnifies when paired with good food and good music.
7. Razor Sharp Intelligence
Intelligence is more than just the grades you earned at school – as a malleable trait, it pertains to how you acquire, retain, and apply information.
I’ve already provided an overview on tango’s many challenges; lets get more specific this time.
Body control and spatial awareness, where you work and isolate muscle groups that don’t normally get used, is the primary way of developing intelligence as a tango dancer, traits that will make you stand out in a world that has become increasingly immobile and desensitized.
Tango makes you more flexible.
8. Quick Decision Making
While all tango dancers benefit from classroom instruction, structured practice will only get you so far.
This is because tango is a mercurial, improvisational dance, one that changes depending on the music, skill level, and mood.
To develop lighting quick decision-making skills, skills that will make tango dancers lust after you, you must cut your teeth in the wilds of the milonga. You must experiment and make mistakes. And to keep said decision-making skills, one must apply them over a sustained period.
9. Robust Empathy
Empathy is one of those words that’s thrown around a lot, but what is empathy, exactly?
Often confused with sympathy, which is the mental act of understanding another’s feelings, empathy is the physical act of relating to others, by placing yourself in another’s shoes and feeling their emotions as if they were your own.
And though some people naturally have more capacity for empathy than others, empathy is like any other muscle in your body. You can choose to use and strengthen it.
Tango, and all other forms of partner dancing, is a fun and rewarding way to build empathy, because you’ll learn to consider and sense the various unspoken needs, emotions, and movements of your partner. And best of all, the more you dance, the greater your empathy becomes.
10. Better Relationships
Add the previous nine benefits together and you arrive at the final sum, improved relationships, in all areas of your life.
For example, tango, and the wide array of people it attracts, taught me how to identify attachment styles, an invaluable skill that’s helped me choose healthy relationships in friendship, business, and love.
Tango’s relationship benefits are also a two-way street; without needing to speak, healthy, happy people will pick up on your improved confidence, physical appearance, and calm, empathetic state of mind. They’ll be drawn to you like butterflies to nectar, and they’ll stay around as well.
Thinking of becoming a tango dancer? What do you hope to benefit from Argentine Tango?
