It’s the end of another IHRSA show, and for those of you who didn’t brave the erratic weather of Las Vegas recently, those of us who went can tell you that we saw a few new things and a lot of the same things. Typically, in the flooring segment you only see slight twists of the same old themes, and that was true this time as well. But, while not exactly a flooring product, we have discovered a new phenomenon for group exercise and kids’ fitness – the dance pad. Now, dance pads are not exactly a new trend. They have been used for years in arcades in Japan and later in North America, and recently, they have emerged as a home fitness product. They’ve been appearing at trade shows for the last couple of years, but this is the first year in which it seemed that there were dozens of them.
Many of you are familiar with the DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) dance pads that hook into video game players. The game consists of a dancer on the screen showing you where to step on the dance pad as you follow along. The sensors in the pad then show whether you’ve hit the quadrant of the dance pad at the right time or not, which becomes increasingly more difficult to do as the moves become more complex and the tempo of the music speeds up. Since the development of the DDR system, a number of different types of games have been adapted with the dance pad technology, including some of our old favorites like Mario Brothers. It would seem that the number and types of games that will be adapted for use with dance pads is only limited to the imagination. The problem has always been how to translate this into a group setting, since the game has always relied on electronic feedback to show whether you’ve hit the mark on time or not. It’s very difficult to have a screen that shows the reactions of say, 20 individuals in a classroom, not to mention the cost of the complex wiring systems involved.
The answer seems to be that maybe it’s not absolutely necessary to have this electronic feedback and that pads without that feature can be used, especially in kids’ classes, to simply follow along without feedback. After all, you can pretty much tell when you have gotten out of step with the dancer on screen without the screen obnoxiously indicating your level of success.
At the show, I must have seen a dozen dance pads vying to take advantage of this new trend. Some are electronically linked to games for individuals or small groups, but most were not, allowing them to be used in large group classes. Some have been manufactured with wood and foam bases and stylized electronic pads attached, and others are as simple as imprinted rubber mats. In all cases, it seems that this new group development has become wildly popular for kids’ fitness. One individual, who had already adopted these mats for his kids’ classes, told me that kids can’t wait to start dancing on the pads and jump on them even before the video routine begins on the screen.
That’s fine for kids, but I’m betting that you’re thinking that these pads won’t translate into adult group exercise. Well, that’s precisely what at least one company is suggesting. They are producing a new mat with numbered squares on it that is designed especially for group-exercise, plyometrics, and yoga. Their system has to do with the instructor dictating a series of numbers and type of step to match where your foot should land on the pad. This is then set to music that has a count that matches the instructor’s cadence, “Tap, one step left, pivot, three steps right…” that kind of thing. I suppose that’s a great system for those whose coordination is “challenged,” but it would appear unlikely to be popular with those people who have participated in aerobics for years. However, perhaps it opens aerobics up to a new population that has not been able to follow an instructor very well in the past, and it’s hard to find fault with that.
Whatever the application of the dance pad concept, it would appear that it is here to stay. Of course, one can imagine that since kids have had their first taste of group exercise using dance pads, they will continue to insist on using them throughout their lives – even when being led by an instructor instead of a video monitor. Certainly it would seem that there are a lot of companies at this last show that believe this trend is going to get even bigger.
Steve Chase in the General Manager of Fitness Flooring. He can be contacted at 866.735.5113, or by email atexerflex@exerflex.com, or visit www.exerflex.com.
