The Kiwa playlist is designed to evoke the feeling of being on vacation. Songs are selected based on our favorite destinations – Hawaii, Mexico, and the Caribbean – with occasional layovers in California or other exotic locales. Your vacation between vacations.
While there are many songs we love and they may be perfect for dancing to, they may not be conducive to dance fitness. According to neuroscience, the best dance songs are a blend of predictability and complexity. The best dance fitness songs are heavy on the predictability and lighter on the complexity (i.e. those random rhythm changes that don’t feel like they “fit”). We want songs that make us feel good, and we need songs with the right tempo for the moves we are doing.
Playlists are not just a collection of my favorite songs, each song has a job to do and a time to do it. With each song playing a role in your fitness, when I change a song the new one has to be a similar tempo or rhythm to the one being replaced. If the song doesn’t meet this criteria, I am forced to do a whole playlist shuffle. Full shuffles are good for your brain so I don’t avoid them completely, I just try to keep them to a minimum.
Did you know your brain will try to sync your feet to the beat of the music? Kiwa playlists will have songs that range from 80 beats per minute up to 150 (only one or two songs at this pace) with the average for the whole playlist at around 119 beats per minute. This puts the overall intensity of the class equal to that of a brisk walk.
We start gently, getting our bodies familiar with some basic moves – side travel, arms reaching and crossing the midline – then move into a faster tempo where we limber up all body parts with movement in more directions and larger ranges of motion. So we don’t tire too quickly, we “regroup” with a slower song where we control movement, focusing on toning our large muscle groups. We can’t let our bodies get complacent yet, we now hit our most intense (quickest tempo) song which really gets our hearts pumping.
The next phase of our playlist is an up-and-down of intensities which not only gives the class a dance party feel but allows you to work out longer before feeling tired. In the middle of our class we do our 4-wall (spatial orientation) song. Knowing where the midpoint in the class is can help those pacing themselves while recovering from or working through injuries.
As our time winds down, so does our activity. Before we hit our final stretch which ends the class, we gradually slow the tempo, focus on balance moves, and a step-touch which will bring our heart rates down slowly.
Updated August 2023
KIWA dance fitness 