Adaptive Recreational Professionals
Community
American Style Ballroom and Latin Wheelchair Dancing offers an excellent alternative to sports activities. The use of standing partners helps to bring friends and family together and involve them in activities. It can also bring the local community into the recreation centers.
Social Activity
Wheelchair Dancing is not just a physical activity. Dancing is a mainstream, everyday activity. Participants can take the skills outside of the recreation center and use them in other places such as parties where they can dance. This eliminates some of the isolation that may be otherwise felt. ADF helps to bring the ‘outside’ world inside.
The Magee Rehab Recreation Day at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA was a great example of skillful planning by the organizers resulting in a fabulous interactive experience for all of the participants. People using wheelchairs participated in sports like wheelchair rugby, tennis, and martial arts. They learned how to fly a plane and scuba dive and even dance a rumba with a standing partner. Matthew Clark, a wheelchair athlete, and his partner, Jackie Bokunwicz, a recreation therapy student at Temple University kicked off the dance demonstration with a hustle. American DanceWheels works with recreation departments in rehabilitation hospitals, universities, and in the community, as well as therapists in the field and students who have chosen recreational therapy as their career.
How can we learn?
American DanceWheels' videos can be used as a training device for the participants.
Contact ADF for more details.
