29 Dec

It’s Healthy to Square Dance

Check out this article: It’s healthy to dance square

I’ve posted the text below (in case the article disappears into archive ozone)

Koupit Cialis

, but you should check the original article for pictures and an audio segment featuring the calling of Ed Kremers.

Article published Dec 27, 2005
It’s healthy to dance square
The ‘do-si-do’ can help keep you in shape

STOCKTON — What’s good for the mind, body and soul and takes the edge off aging? If the phrase “do-si-do” means anything, it means better health through square dancing.

When dancers sashay, shoot the star and promenade home, they lower their risk of heart disease, diabetes, certain types of cancer, age-related memory loss, osteoporosis and depression

, health experts say.

So if getting fit in 2006 is one of your goals, take a tip from John Winnie, 63, and grab a partner.

After a heart attack in 1996, followed by several surgical procedures, Winnie ballooned to 333 pounds. In 2003, his doctor told him to get the weight off his 5-foot-9 frame, or he’d be “dead within the year,” Winnie said.
Gym workouts bored him, so he returned to a pastime he took up as a young man — facing off in a square with seven others and wheeling around a hardwood floor.

The President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports recommends 10,000 steps per day to maintain physical fitness. An informal study conducted by the Toe Draggers, a square-dance group in Beaverton, Ore., estimated that a typical dancer could expect to have about 9,000 to 10,000 steps per dance.

At Winnie’s checkup in August, his progress impressed his cardiologist.

“Whatever you are doing, keep doing it, because you are doing it right,” Winnie recalled Dr. Eric Braunstein saying.

Winnie has dropped more than 120 pounds. His blood pressure and cholesterol levels are good. He has no shortness of breath.

“Square dancing is a safe way to maintain cardiovascular fitness,” said Braunstein, of Pacific Heart and Vascular, which has offices in Stockton, Lodi and Valley Springs. “It is patient-controlled, meaning the patient can be aggressive and get his heart rate up, or if he feels winded, he can slow down and catch his breath.”
There are four levels of square dancing: Mainstream, Plus and the more professional exhibition levels, A-1 and A-2. Winnie and his partner, Marcia Schnell, 53, are A-2 level dancers.

Winnie would dance seven days per week if he could. With Schnell, who started when she was 21, he already travels from Dublin to Oakdale to square dance, but he’d like to get a group going in Stockton on Sunday afternoons. He needs 32 people to join him — couples or singles — even if they have never square-danced before.

“I don’t mind helping people learn,” Winnie said. “It’s great fellowship. There’s no alcohol or drugs involved, and you meet people from all walks of life. Everybody’s welcome.”

Square dancing combines all positive aspects of intense physical exercise with none of the negative elements, according to Dr. Arron Blackburn.

“It could add 10 years to your life,” Blackburn said in a 1997 article in the United Square Dancers Association News.

On Dec. 16, the Oakdale Squares celebrated the holidays in full dress at the Grange Hall. Ladies executed the flutterwheel with a whoosh of red and green petticoats, as their gents, sporting Christmas ties, steadied them for a California twirl.
Sonora resident Lilian Graham, 75, and her husband, Jack, 77, have been dancing together for 53 years.

“I have no health problems, just a little bit of arthritis,” Lilian Graham said. “Dancing keeps me going. You hear that music, and all your aches and pains disappear.”

In 2003, researchers from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City found seniors who participated in mind-stimulating leisure activities had a lower risk of developing the brain disease dementia. Square dancing involves executing the dance moves as they are called, so the brain and body have to be tightly coordinated, said Oakdale resident Ed Kremers, who calls for the Squares.

“One of the things people don’t see is the important mental exercise going on, having to listen carefully and react,” said Kremers, 54.

Kremers has been a caller on and off since he was 14, traveling the country and witnessing the benefits of dance.

“People dance well into their 70s and 80s,” Kremers said. “They have to memorize the calls. Besides crossword puzzles, this is another option to keep their minds sharp.”

Modesto resident Isaiah Spears, graying at the temples, declined to give his age but said he’d been dancing for 10 years.

“The more you do it, the easier it becomes,” Spears said. “It should be our national dance.”

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