Dancing Old Age Away

By Van Khoa, Thanhniennews

September 24, 2008

Vietnam

Every afternoon, 77-year-old Bui Van Diem from District 10 comes to his dance class two hours early to practice before the class starts. 

“If I don’t dance, I can’t sleep or eat well,” says Diem, who signed up for the dance class at a local Retirees’ Club two months ago.

Every day in clubs and at parks such as Gia Dinh, Le Van Tam and Le Thi Rieng, thousands of elderly people like Diem do the tango, rumba, and waltz as a way to stay active and fit.

Diem’s teacher, Phuong Minh, who has taught dancing at the District 10 Retirees’ Club for the past ten years, says most of his elderly students have diabetes, high blood pressure or some kind of cardiovascular diseases.

Many signed up for the class because friends had told them their health improved by taking up dancing.

“In the beginning, only five to seven people attended my class,” Minh says.
 “Now, I have around 30 to 40 students showing up to dance every afternoon.”
Nguyen Phi Lam, another dance teacher at Gia Dinh Park in Go Vap District, has also seen enrollment in his class climb steadily.

From only one class with five to seven students two years ago, he now teaches three classes, each of which has around 60 students, mostly elderly people.

Minh and Lam say slow dancing relieves many of the physical pains some elderly citizens experience everyday.

57-year-old Tran Nhat Tan, who has practiced dancing in one of Lam’s classes for two years, says the cha-cha-cha has eased the pain in his bones and joints.

“When I dance, my body sweats a lot and I feel better,” he says. “I can sleep well and my blood pressure returns to normal.”

Meeting new people and making friends at the class is anotheradvantage, said Tan.

60-year-old Tran Dinh Lieu, who has danced with Lam for one-and-a-half-years, has also watched his body get slimmer with dancing.

He has lost six to seven centimeters on his waistline, he says. But it’s the ability to walk normally again that he’s most grateful for.

Lieu has sciatica, a nerve disease that gives his legs terrible pain. He used to lie in bed all day. Then he signed up for the class and step by step, learned to dance.

“I can walk like other people now,” he said. “And my legs only hurt once every three to four months, instead of everyday like they used to.”

Lieu shows up at Gia Dinh Park at 4:30 every morning, practicing a little before the 5 a.m. class starts.

He told two of his friends with cardiovascular problems to sign up for the class too.

68-year-old Tran Thanh Ha, a public health lecturer at Pham Ngoc Thach Medical University, says dancing helps her stay alert and remember things better.

She has danced with Minh for two years. “Before taking the dance class, I often got the flu,” she says. “Now I seldom get sick and feel happy most of the time.”

Dancing is so beneficial to health that even the Ho Chi Minh City’s Nutrition Center used to provide dance classes. But the classes have since closed as their organizer, Dr. Nguyen Thi Kim Hung, left the center for a teaching job at Pham Ngoc Thach Medical University.

As a former dance student at the center, 62-year-old Nguyen Thi Phuoc saw her diabetes improve after two years of dancing there.

She now dances with Minh’s class at the District 10 Retirees’ Club.
Dr. Hung says her former diabetes patients at the center had lower blood sugar, felt happier, and cared about their appearance and health more than those who did no dance.

“It seemed that they hadn’t known happiness before dancing,” Hung says. “They told me they wished they had begun dancing much earlier.”

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