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Tango your way to fitness

amNewYork staff writer

July 16, 2008

Michael Foster, ballroom dance instructor at Smart Workout demonstrates using the Tango to get in shape. (Cassandra Vinograd)

It¹s no secret that dance is an effective form of exercise that manages to minimize boredom and still have you seeing results. While the Argentine tango might seem more like an exercise in drama, it¹s actually a stylized fitness workout, improving balance and postural alignment. Below, Michael Foster, ballroom dance instructor at Smart Workout, fills us in on a few basic tango positions, which can help tentative beginners get a jump on their footing.

Buoyancy and alignment:

1. Stress the balls of the feet to improve strength and accuracy in the stepping routine.

2. Alighnment with the rest of the body is stgressed.

3. Upper arm and shoulder is stressed while assuming the frame/embrace.

4. Full 8 Tango steps, to music.

Strength and upper arm and shoulder strength. Builds balance and stability while improving body structure. Lesson airms to teach how to connect every single muscle in the body while in motion to a musical rhythm.

Molinete & Giros:

1. Cross steps, side steps and f ull turns in motion to the Tango rhythm.

Ocho Front & Back:

1. Hipster/twisters, neck and chin teasers.

Ocho Cortadas:

1. Trick steps fast, maintaining accuracy in body alignment keeping the motions to the change in rhythm.

Body control, breath training, strengthening the arms and shoulders, rhythm in motion, achieving confidence in full body structure.