It Started With Movement

LA Style Disc Dance wasn’t created in a laboratory, a university research program, or by sitting down with a textbook and trying to invent a new exercise system.

It started with something much simpler: movement.

At the time, I was still dealing with the aftermath of Lyme disease and working to regain my strength, coordination, energy, and overall sense of well-being. I wasn’t trying to create a fitness program. I wasn’t trying to develop a new approach to cognitive-motor training. I certainly wasn’t thinking about neuroscience.

I was simply moving.

Somewhere along the way, I began casually combining music, rhythm, two paddles, and a Kush Ball. Then I started moving while doing it—walking, dancing, skipping, running, changing directions, and even walking backward.

And something caught my attention.

I Noticed Something Happening

The more I did it, the more I noticed that this wasn’t like ordinary exercise.

I wasn’t just moving my body.

My mind was involved, too.

I had to listen to the music and stay with the beat. I had to coordinate both hands. I had to watch and track the Kush Ball. I had to anticipate where it was going and position the paddles accordingly. At the same time, my feet and body were moving through space.

Sometimes I was walking.

Sometimes dancing.

Sometimes skipping or running.

Sometimes I was moving backward.

All of those things were happening while I was still trying to maintain the rhythm and control the ball.

The activity demanded my attention in a way that I found surprisingly engaging. And as I continued doing it, I began noticing that I felt different—not just physically, but in the way my mind and body seemed to work together.

That observation became the beginning of LA Style Disc Dance.

I Didn’t Set Out to Create a “Brain Workout”

That’s an important part of the story.

The cognitive component wasn’t something I deliberately engineered from the beginning. It emerged naturally from the way the activity developed.

I was following the music.

I was coordinating movement.

I was tracking an object.

I was adjusting my body.

I was anticipating what would happen next.

I was constantly responding to what I was seeing, hearing, and feeling.

Eventually, I became curious about why this felt so different.

That curiosity led me into neuroscience and research on rhythm, attention, motor control, coordination, perception, and cognitive-motor activity.

And that’s when I began discovering that some of the things I was experiencing had interesting parallels in scientific research.

Rhythm May Be More Important Than We Realize

One of the most fascinating areas of research concerns the relationship between rhythm and attention.

Researchers at Princeton University, including neuroscientists Ian Fiebelkorn and Sabine Kastner, developed what they call a Rhythmic Theory of Attention. Their work proposes that attention may not operate as a completely continuous process. Instead, attention can fluctuate rhythmically, creating changing periods of enhanced and reduced sensory processing.

That research doesn’t specifically study LA Style Disc Dance, and it doesn’t prove that Disc Dance produces particular neurological benefits.

But it provides an intriguing framework for thinking about what happens when movement is deliberately organized around rhythm.

In Disc Dance, the beat isn’t simply background music.

The beat becomes part of the activity.

You hear it.

You anticipate it.

You move with it.

You use it to organize your timing.

And then you have to continue doing that while your hands, eyes, feet, and body are all doing other things.

More Than Just Dancing

This is what makes LA Style Disc Dance different from simply turning on music and dancing around the room.

The activity combines multiple forms of movement and coordination.

You are listening.

You are watching.

You are anticipating.

You are moving.

You are coordinating both sides of the body.

You are manipulating objects.

You are navigating space.

You are continuously adjusting.

And you’re doing many of these things at the same time.

That combination creates an experience that is physical while also requiring sustained attention and active participation.

Disc Walking takes this concept in another direction. The participant maintains the rhythmic and coordination elements of the activity while incorporating locomotion. Walking becomes part of a larger sensory-motor experience rather than simply a way of getting from one place to another.

From a Personal Experience to a Movement Method

What began as something I did casually became something I couldn’t ignore.

I realized that I had stumbled onto a type of movement that was challenging in a very different way.

It was physical.

It was rhythmic.

It was playful.

It required concentration.

And perhaps most importantly, it made me want to keep moving.

That matters.

Exercise doesn’t have to feel like a chore to be meaningful. Movement can be engaging, creative, social, challenging, and fun. When the brain has something interesting to do while the body is moving, the experience can become very different from simply counting repetitions or walking a predetermined distance.

That realization became central to the development of LA Style Disc Dance.

The Science Came After the Experience

This is perhaps the most unusual part of the story.

The experience came first. The science came later.

I didn’t invent LA Style Disc Dance because I had read research telling me to combine rhythm, object tracking, bilateral coordination, and locomotion.

I discovered the activity first.

Then I became curious about why it felt so engaging.

The research became a way of understanding the experience—not a justification for making medical claims about it.

That distinction matters.

LA Style Disc Dance is not presented as a treatment for disease or as a replacement for medical care. Instead, it is a movement experience designed to challenge the body and engage the mind through the combination of rhythm, coordination, attention, object tracking, and movement through space.

From Something Personal to Something I Can Share

Today, LA Style Disc Dance represents something much bigger than the activity I casually started doing.

It represents the idea that movement can be multidimensional.

Exercise can challenge your muscles while also asking you to listen.

It can elevate your heart rate while asking you to concentrate.

It can develop coordination while requiring you to track an object.

It can involve walking while simultaneously challenging rhythm and timing.

And it can be structured in a way that makes you want to participate rather than simply complete another workout.

That’s the experience I want to share.

LA Style Disc Dance began as a personal discovery—a simple combination of music, movement, paddles, and a Kush Ball.

But the more I explored it, the more I realized that there was something remarkably interesting happening at the intersection of mind and movement.

And that’s ultimately what LA Style Disc Dance is about:

Move your body. Engage your mind. Find your rhythm.