I often hear women complain about their partners, spouses and male friends having two left feet, or how they cannot coordinate their hands, legs and other movements. This led me to wonder why women crib so much about men not being able to dance well, despite most of our Indian Gods (Natraj and Krishan) being great dancers. India has a rich tradition of male dancers. In fact most of prominent faces in dance are male dancers. Be it classical, contemporary, or mainstream Bollywood, every other leading face is that of a male dancer. Can every man be a Pandit Birju Maharaj or a Fred Astaire? During a recent trip to America, I came across a study on why men are such bad dancers. So, I decided to share this with my readers.
Researchers claim men wag their arms a lot because dazzling a woman on the dance floor is a tricky challenge for a man. Extra hip-wiggling could put her off, one hand punching the air looks a bit like Hrithik Roshan and overdoing it with the arm movement risks comparison with Sunny Deol.
Now, science has come to the rescue, with a move-by-move analysis of what makes a man a good dancer. Incidentally, it is all in the knees. Psychologists asked 19 young men to dance to a drum beat from a German nightclub tune. Their impromptu routines were recorded on special 3D cameras and then transferred onto featureless computer characters. This allowed a panel of 35 women to judge their performances without being influenced by the dancers’ looks.
The women rated the men’s ability on the dance floor and the scientific team worked out which moves had made the difference. It appears that the mistake most men make is to use their arms too much.
Three body parts emerged as most important — the neck, the torso and the right knee, according to the report in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters. The best dancers, it seems, varied both their moves and the scale of their moves. Researchers said that a good dancer makes big and small movements and variability shows creativity.
The research team also found out that the dancer did a little head nod with a big body twist and a big head movement from side to side, and then a big nod, a small body twist and a small head movement from side to side. It is thought that such twists and turns of the neck and torso are attractive because they signal a strong, healthy and flexible body. Those flagging on the floor due to lack of fitness find it hard to do such moves for any length of time and so often resort to exaggerated swings and flings of their arms and legs.
These, however, do nothing to attract women — with the exception of the right knee. Flicked in and out and twisted from side to side at speed, a nifty knee apparently catches a woman’s eye.
This is the first study to show objectively what differentiates a good dancer from a bad one. Men all over the world will be interested to know what moves they can throw to attract women. If a man wants to impress, he needs to do some yoga or pilates to improve his core body strength. One of my doctor students, who is a self-confessed “terrible dancer” told me that most people are right footed and so non-professional dancers balance on their left leg and do fancy things with their right.
We all remember John Travolta’s arm in the air in Saturday Night Fever and Mithunda’s hip thrusts in Disco Dancer. If you did that now, you would either be having a laugh or be seen as a complete pillock. But at least they had good variability in their body movements. So if you want to be a good dancer, it is better to make the correct moves; best would be to learn it under a professional teacher and not someone who just happens to be a good dancer.