This beautiful RSCDS card by talented artist Janet McCrorie is called "Roon aboot" and it appears to show two elegant couples dancing left hands across. Dancers are wearing red and green kilts, a red dress and a green dress. You can see the movement, feel the reel and the swirl. You can buy Janet's cards from the RSCDS bookshop: perfect for birthdays, for congratulations or for condolences.

Ramadan Tabrik pour mes amis TO MY FRIENDS

Je vous offre pour ce début du Ramadan un beau coucher de soleil sur le Fleuve Niger à Ségou
For the start of Ramadan, I offer everyone this beautiful sunset over the Niger River at Ségou.

Still dancing .... but now I dance in my head

 Gil, Elisabeth, Don and Bern are all great dance friends - despite his choice of tie, Bern is a good guy and a great dancer and you can see him and me dance The Shepherd's Crook on YouTube :

www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5zYM44uwjM

and this was me last year visiting Coates Crescent in Edinburgh, the HQ of the RSCDS. If coronavirus confinement limits our physical dancing, it does not reduce our passion for dancing, nor our dreams of dancing with beautiful women in a great strathspey set. What is a "beautiful woman"? She is a great dancer. Dancing makes a woman beautiful. And a man?

The kilt makes a man beautiful.

the parents of baby Archie deserve a period of peace

Her Majesty the Queen is having a bad week, mainly because the gutter-loving British tabloid press is filled with such obscene people who write such nasty things. Prince Harry and his young wife deserve to be able to sit at home in peace and enjoy their baby. They are being hounded to Canada (lovely friendly, hospitable Canada). I hope they will enjoy their time in Canada, stop reading newspapers, cancel twitter and facebook, and live the life of young parents for a few months. I am so ashamed of the British press - all of it. Leave young people alone to live their lives!
As I say on my book, everything we do should promote "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" = a piece of Scottish wisdom for everyone to enjoy.

Dance Fit and Healthy?  Just look at these happy and healthy dancers at the Virginian Christmas 2019 Scottish dance - none of them looks over eighty, which proves that dancing is good for you.

THE RESEARCH:

Dr Kathrin Rehfeld of Magdeburg University in Germany has published research results that explain WHY dance is the best activity for keeping us young. Her 18-month study of a cohort of 68-year-olds compared effects of strenuous exercise routines for volunteers with effects of dance routines for others. I tried to find a picture of Kathrin Rehfeld: google turned up pictures of elderly people dancing, and a message: “Teen brains found in elderly dancers” which is not at all my objective. I hated being a teenager!

Both groups of volunteers – runners and dancers - improved their physical endurance and suppleness; and both showed an increase in the hippocamp region of the brain. 

The first research result appears to be: dance improves your balance. Run on roads or run on the treadmill (which was originally invented in 19^th century England as a punishment for convicts and paupers, if I remember correctly) and you will keep fit and reduce your heart-rate ….. but if you dance, you get the same physical benefits PLUS better balance.

Another benefit of the dance routines was mental. Dr Rehfeld observes: “We taught different dance routines every week, in order to keep the volunteers in a state of apprenticeship. The most difficult part for them was to remember the routines, once the instructor stopped calling out instructions.”  Huh!  Scottish dancers remember the formations after a briefing.

The dancers were also kinder and friendlier people, developed stronger toe-nails and their hair started to curl ….  No, here I am joking. But it is apparent that the combination of dance movement and music provides stimulus to the brain and neurosystem, improving “holistic harmony” if that means anything?  Best are Scottish dances, with their familiar formations constantly  repeated in different and challenging combinations. I am also a Bavarian Schuplattl dancer, which requires energy, balance and suppleness (I must tell Kathrin Rehfeld). But Scottish dancing is mentally more stimulating .... and the music is better.

THE CONCLUSION

The Magdeburg research results (which I here summarize in brutally unscientific form) prove what has already been shown in earlier studies, in New Zealand, UK and USA: that dance is beneficial for young and old alike, maintaining physical fitness, improving balance and keeping our brains active. Even if you not want to have the brain of a teenager, dancing will keep your brain spritely and dynamic, with good balance, friendship, music, joy and laughter.

DanceFitandHealthyAt70 is a reality! All my happy dancing friends prove it .... and so do I.

Highland Dance is strong and elegant, and quite different from the country dances I most enjoy. I used to enjoy Highland when I still had a youthful spring in my step. Now that I can only lift myself one inch off the ground, I have established the rule that I will demonstrate Highland only to people sitting in wheelchairs. When we raise our arms in Highland, we are imitating the antlers of a great stag - from which it become obvious that this was a male hunters' style of dancing. In this painting, Janet McCrorie shows very well the youth as well as the strength of the dancers. Who are female. In my book I DANCE THEREFORE I AM, you will meet many great female dancers including some who teach Highland and Ladies' Step Dancing which a related genre. So much fun !

Rumors of War (a non-racist statue in Richmond VA)

This new statue at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, mimics a civil war military statue of JEB Stuart, a friend of Robert E. Lee and leader of the slavers' cavalry during the American civil war. In place of General Stuart, we see a native American riding his prancing horse, his dancing horse: providing a challenge to the narrative of Richmond's white supremacist confederate statues, while honoring Sculpture as an Art, and honoring the original inhabitants of America, those peaceful tribal ecologists who were largely exterminated by the likes of President Andrew Jackson, a hero of the current occupant of the White House. Well done the VMFA.

I danced with Paris RSCDS at their 35th anniversary Ball. I had a good time, with some great dancing to music played by Parisians led by The Black Bear duet from Brisbane. What a great evening! Merci à nos amis de Paris. I met Antoine Rousseau for the first time, and he is a wonderful dancer! Even when I was young, I do not believe I danced as elegantly as Antoine. Antoine dancing the poussette with Emma was a dream come true! I must definitely return to Paris - where I used to dance in the 1970s with the parents of Patrick Chamoin, both of whom were rigorous RSCDS dance teachers..

Glorious Scottish music and dance

 One of Janet McCrorie's wonderful paintings: ROON ABOOT is the title.
Below is the author of this blog, Robin in specs and black tie chatting with musician extraordinaire and source of so many wonderful musical arrangements: cellist Ralph Gordon, in Washington D.C.

BREXIT is a threat to the British economy, and threat to the stability of the United Kingdom, and a threat to Peace in Europe. The final chapter of my book I DANCE THEREFORE I AM discusses peace, peace dancing, Sufi dancing and the poet Rumi, the reasons why BREXIT is a disaster waiting to happen. Let us pray that it does not happen this week. Le us pray that sensible people realise it is undoable, and therefore that we should revoke our application to leave the EU.

If BREXIT happens, the United Kingdom is doomed and I shall apply for a Scottish passport.
Meanwhile the only solution is to keep dancing, keep healthy, and SPINAROOND with the same joy that fills Janet McCrorie's picture.