It Started With Movement

LA Style Disc Dance began naturally—with music, movement, experimentation, and a desire to keep moving.

While I was still dealing with the effects of Lyme disease, I casually began experimenting with movement. I started combining music, rhythm, two paddles, and a Kush Ball. Then I began moving while doing it—dancing, walking, skipping, running, changing direction, and even walking backward.

What started as movement became increasingly engaging because there was always something to respond to. I had to listen to the music, maintain the rhythm, coordinate both hands, track the Kush Ball, and control my body as I moved through space.

Over time, I began noticing something.

My mind and body were working together in a way that felt different.

I Started Noticing a Difference

I wasn't simply exercising.

I was listening.

I was watching.

I was anticipating.

I was coordinating.

I was moving.

And I was constantly adjusting.

The activity required attention on multiple levels at once. The rhythm provided timing. My eyes followed the Kush Ball. My hands controlled the paddles. My feet and body managed movement through space. When the direction or movement changed, I had to respond.

The more I did it, the more I became aware of this relationship between rhythm, movement, attention, and coordination.

That experience became one of the reasons I became so interested in understanding what was happening beneath the surface.

Where Movement and the Brain Came Together

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

One particularly fascinating area of research comes from Princeton University, where researchers Ian Fiebelkorn and Sabine Kastner developed a Rhythmic Theory of Attention. Their work proposes that attention is not simply a continuous mental spotlight. Instead, attention can have rhythmic dynamics, with periods of heightened and reduced sensitivity that help organize how the brain processes information.

That idea immediately made sense in the context of what I had experienced through movement.

In LA Style Disc Dance, rhythm isn't simply something you hear. It becomes part of the structure of the activity.

The beat provides a temporal framework while the participant simultaneously processes visual information, coordinates movement, anticipates what is happening next, and responds to changes in the environment.

Rhythm Is More Than Music

In LA Style Disc Dance, rhythm isn't background music.

Rhythm becomes part of the movement itself.

The participant hears the beat and uses it as a timing reference while performing multiple physical and perceptual tasks.

Listen.

Anticipate.

Move.

Adjust.

Repeat.

Research from Stanford University has further demonstrated the close relationship between musical rhythm and the motor system. Scientists studying music, movement, and the brain have identified extensive connections involving auditory, motor, premotor, parietal, and other brain regions involved in processing rhythm and coordinating movement.

This helps explain why rhythmic movement can feel fundamentally different from simply exercising while music happens to be playing.

The Mind and Body Work Together

One of the defining characteristics of LA Style Disc Dance is that multiple forms of movement and information processing occur together.

Participants may be:

• Maintaining a rhythmic beat

• Coordinating two paddles

• Tracking the Kush Ball

• Adjusting hand position

• Anticipating movement

• Controlling footwork

• Navigating through space

• Changing direction

• Dancing

• Walking

• Skipping

• Running

• Walking backward

The brain is continually receiving information from different sources and coordinating responses.

What you hear. What you see. What you feel. And how you move all become part of the same experience.

That is what makes LA Style Disc Dance more than a conventional repetitive exercise routine.

Disc Walking Extends the Concept

Disc Walking brings these same principles into locomotion.

Walking is combined with rhythm, paddle coordination, Kush Ball tracking, and movement through space. Instead of treating walking, coordination, rhythm, and object manipulation as separate activities, Disc Walking brings them together.

The participant maintains the musical rhythm while walking, coordinates the upper body, tracks the ball, manages foot placement, and remains aware of movement through space.

As the movement changes, the participant has to adapt.

Forward movement can become backward movement. Walking can become skipping or running. Direction can change. The rhythm continues.

The result is a continuously evolving movement experience that engages both physical movement and mental attention.

The Science Came After the Experience

This is an important part of my story.

The experience came first. The science came later.

I discovered the activity through movement. I experienced how engaging it could be. I noticed the relationship between what my mind was doing and what my body was doing.

Then I became curious.

Why did this feel so different?

Why was combining rhythm, object tracking, coordination, and movement through space so engaging?

What was happening when all of these things were occurring simultaneously?

Those questions led me deeper into the science.

Research into rhythm and attention, music and the motor system, dance and cognition, and complex movement began providing a fascinating scientific perspective on something I had already experienced personally:

The brain and body are not separate systems when we move. They are constantly communicating, adapting, and working together.

From a Personal Experience to a Movement Method

What began as something personal gradually developed into LA Style Disc Dance.

The activity evolved through experimentation—adding different movements, changing directions, incorporating locomotion, and discovering new ways to combine rhythm, coordination, object tracking, and movement.

What emerged was a distinctive movement methodology.

It is physical, but it also demands attention.

It is rhythmic, but it also requires anticipation.

It involves coordination, but it also requires continuous adjustment.

And because the activity is constantly changing, participants have to remain engaged with what is happening in the moment.

More Than a Workout

LA Style Disc Dance is ultimately about creating a different kind of movement experience.

It gives the body something to do while giving the mind something to engage with.

You listen.

You watch.

You anticipate.

You coordinate.

You move.

You adapt.

You keep the beat.

And you keep moving.

For me, the journey began simply with movement. I didn't begin with a theory about the brain. I began by doing something that felt engaging and discovering, over time, that there was something much more interesting happening within the experience.

That curiosity led me to explore the science behind rhythm, attention, coordination, perception, and movement.

And that exploration continues to shape how I understand and develop LA Style Disc Dance.

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