In today's NYTimes, Roni Caryn Rabin described a recent study that showed:
"Elderly people in a new study cut their risk of falling by more than half after they took classes in eurythmics, an exercise-and-music program designed for young children.
The 12-month trial recruited 134 people, average age 75, who were unsteady on their feet. Half were randomly assigned to weekly, hourlong eurhythmics classes for the full year, and the other half for just the last six months."
The classes, called "Eurhythmics" (insert 80s music reference here) involve movements like walking, turning around, moving in time with changing tempos, shifting weight and balance, handling objects while walking, and making exaggerated upper-body movements while standing and walking.
The creator of these classes was an early-20th-century Swiss composer Emile Jaques-Dalcroze. I first read of Dalcroze in a terrific book "The Perfect Wrong Note" by William Westney; if you have a child you are hoping will develop a love for creating music then read it. The author is the piano teacher you always wished you had had. He proposes that we will all make mistakes, so make juicy ones! He conducts workshops that he calls "The Un-Master Class", which I believe is very similar to the Franklin Method in its playfulness and pedagogical aspects.
What is amusing to me about the study described in the NYTimes is the conclusion. The study's lead author says is is unclear how music had its positive effects on the study particpant's gait and balance. Well, hmmm, moving to music is usually called "dancing" and I believe it's fairly clear how that would improve one's balance and coordination.
When we move without music, we are moving at our innate "default" tempo. For seniors, sometimes that means slowly shuffling along, often it means spending more time on a less-dominant leg in an uneven gait. By deciding to move to music, one is attempting to match an externally generated tempo and color. YOU try to shuffle along slowly and unevenly to Mozart's Rondo alla Turca! You can't do it... the music picks you up and pushes you along at ITS speed and brightness.
In your attempt to match the Rondo's qualities, you are asking your body to organize movement at an unfamiliar speed or rate (unless you always have Mozart playing in your head). If the task is to walk at the Rondo's tempo, your center of gravity must still swing from being over one foot to the other, but now do so at an externally-dictated speed. That is fitness training, really dance training, for seniors who usually shuffle. It seems very clear to me how moving to music would positively influence senior's balance and fall-rate.
