ardor
independent
Why Join Ardor Independent?
Participation Lowers a Student's Chance of Developing Emotional Symptoms Related to Mental Illness
Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illnesses in the US. These affect more than 40 million people or 18% of the population over 18 years of age [1]. Depression is a second common ailment in the US, adding another 4% to the number of suffering [2]. Realistically, in nearly every four people you meet, you could safely bet that one of them is suffering from either depression or anxiety.
While the causes of depression and anxiety vary according to genetics, brain chemistry, personality, and life experiences, research has shown a positive correlation between the development of personal social skills--assertiveness and social participation--and the absense of emotional symptoms that can develop into mental illness. In a safe space under the direction of caring instructors, students can develop leadership skills and confidence through constantly striving toward excellence with peers wishing to do the same.
Participation Facilitates a Great Range of Development
Most students spend a majority of time with students their own age. These students generally have similar developmental capabilities that advance at similar rates. At a young age, mixed age groups have been shown to develop relationships with each other that prove symbiotic in nature. This idea can be applied to older groups when parameters are provided that create a solid structured activity.
Even more than providing mentors and mentees within the same group, younger students looking on to older ones often are able to observe capabilities beyond their current developmental ability and then work to emulate those achievements by building the correct muscles and developing positive "I will, too" attitudes. The interaction fuels leadership in hierarchial manner but also in a more sporadic way. By grouping teens and young adults from differing backgrounds, who have grown up with different experiences, a complex learning space is developed. The ideas, even while sometimes contrasting, offer each student new ways to think about the situations around them and new ways with which they can approach problems.
Participation Helps to Keep Students Active
Obesity is another epidemic currently on the rise in the US and other parts of the world. More than one-third of US adults are obese, the percentage standing at 34.9%, with an additional 17% of youth ages 2-19 also meeting the qualification [5]. Students are becoming less and less active, with a surprising 10% of boys and 4% of girls active in sports by high school [4]. Those who do participate in sports, often stop after high school, citing a combination of the instabilities of life in college or the work force and the uncertainty in joining a team at random.
While the organization may not be a forever solution for students, the organization's ability to take students up to 20 years of age can help ease the transition from high school life to the post high school years. Providing stability and a family-like base, the team sport can help to keep students active physically with more value, since the activity takes place through a constructive social environment. The organization also incorporates yoga, stretching, cardio activities, and other conditioning exercises into the program, leaving students with a rich mental library of physical activities that can be practiced virtually anywhere.
Participation Develops Memorization Methods Helpful in Scholastic Settings
During a show, a performer need remember what s/he should be doing at every single count. This means, at any one point in a show, the student has memorized where s/he should be, which direction her/his body should be facing, whether movement is forward, backward, side-to-side, foot step, arm placement, and equipment work--all under facial and body expressions and the pressure of performing in front of a crowd! The way we teach these complexities are multi-fold, using visual and audio associations, repetition, addition to learned counts--all of these methods enable the brain to store the information and create the pathways necessary to remember each layer of information. Any performer used to dealing with complex works requiring memorization can tell you with certainty that these methods enable them to create other memories easier, using some of the same methods we use on the floor.
Resource List
[1] Anxiety and Depression Association of America
[3] "Emotional Symptoms from Kindergarten to Middle Childhood: Associations with Self- and Other-Oriented Social Skills" co-authored by Maureen
Groeben and Sonja Peren
[4] Infants, Children, and Adolescents by Laura E. Berk
[5] Center for Disease Control
